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Story · Ajahn Brahm

Fifty strokes of the cat

As told by Ajahn Brahm in The Attitude Of Fearlessness | Ajahn Brahm | 21-11-2008

3 min read

The story — as told by Ajahn Brahm (verbatim captions)

is a story many years ago of one of the anagarikas one of the people in white who's trained to be a monk at Bodhinyana Monastery in Serpentine. When you become a monk you have to train for a minimum of two years beforehand, one year wearing white keeping eight precepts, the next year in brown keeping ten precepts, and afterwards after two years maybe you can ordained as a full monk. There was one young man, an Australian man who was starting his training as an anagarika, eight precepts. One of those precepts is you're not allowed to eat any solid food from noon until the dawn the following day, you can't eat in the afternoon or night time. So I was the abbot, one afternoon this new anagarika, a young man, came up to me and said, "I have something to confess, I've done a terrible crime. I know you're gonna probably throw me out of the monastery and not let me be a monk, because one afternoon I was hungry, I went into the kitchen with no one seeing me and made myself a sandwich." [laughter] And to him it was like some capital offense. And so what did I do? I told him, I said, "It doesn't matter, thank you for letting me know, now maybe eat some more food at lunchtime, you know before lunch when we have our meal, eat some more so you won't be hungry in the afternoon. If you are hungry you can have some cup of tea with some sugar, some fruit juice or some chocolate, so you don't have to eat in the afternoon. So it was a mistake, you admit it, have some strategies in place so it doesn't happen again. Okay, you can go now." This young man looked at me and said, "I'm sorry, that's not good enough." [laughter] He said, "If you don't punish me I will do it again." [laughter] "I need a penance." Because he knew himself, he spent all his life only being trained by punishment. He said, "If you let me go like that I'm sure one day I will do it again." So I had to think very quickly of a solution to that problem. As it was, I'd been reading a book, a very well-known Australian book called "Fatal Shore" by Robert Hughes, which was telling the early history of Australia. I got to that point about the convicts who were here in Australia, and the harsh punishments meted out to them. So I looked at that young man in white clothes with a bald head and I said, "If you want a punishment I will give you a traditional Australian penance... "50 strokes of the cat." This young man, his face went whiter than the clothes he was wearing. 'Cause he didn't know too much about Buddhism and he thought, "Oh, my god, Ajahn Brahm is gonna whip me, he's gonna lash me." [laughs] But then I told him what "50 strokes of the cat" means in a Buddhist monastery. We have three cats in our monastery, choose whichever one you want and stroke it 50 times, "there cat, there pussy ... three, four." Learn some compassion and kindness 'cause that's the only thing which will overcome your need for punishment and pain. It's because you don't know kindness and compassion that you think that fear is the only way to train you. I said, "We don't do fear, we do compassion and kindness."

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 10:20 (to 14:29)

A reflection (in the spirit of Ajahn Brahm's talk)

He demanded a penance for his secret sandwich and got fifty strokes of the cat: pick one of the monastery cats and stroke it fifty times. Punishment teaches fear; kindness teaches far better. When you slip up, be gentle with yourself, make amends, and let the mistake go. You'll likely make fewer of them, and a cat will be happier.

In brief (our summary)

A new postulant confesses to secretly making an afternoon sandwich and, refusing Ajahn Brahm's gentle advice, insists on a penance or he'll do it again. Fresh from reading 'The Fatal Shore', Ajahn Brahm prescribes the traditional Australian convict punishment, “fifty strokes of the cat” — then explains: choose one of the monastery's three cats and stroke it fifty times.

Teaching point

“We don't do fear, we do compassion and kindness.” Punishment doesn't train us; kindness does.

When this story may help

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in The Attitude Of Fearlessness | Ajahn Brahm | 21-11-2008 · 2008-11-30 · ▶ watch from 10:20 to 14:29 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

7 other tellings of this story

The narrative is Ajahn Brahm's own telling, quoted from the talk captions. The summary and reflection are Being Mindful Stories's editorial notes. Please credit the teacher and link the original talk. Markdown version

  • Penance: a carrot for the rabbit

    In brief: A postulant who broke a minor precept is very upset with himself and asks for a penance. Ajahn Brahm tells him to take a carrot from the…

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    a beautiful little wild rabbit at our Jhana Grove retreat centre turned up a few days ago. And one of the Anagarika's broken a little precept. And he's really upset about himself. And so I said, I'll give you a penance. So what's the penance? What do I have to do? There's a, there's a hungry rabbit over in Jhana Grove, go and take a carrot from the kitchen and go and give it to the rabbit. It's a wonderful little thing, a little wild rabbit is just hiding there. Because it's really hot in the forest. Next to the wall by the Japanese garden, those of you who know Jhana Grove, he's just been hanging out there to get away from the heat of the forest. And so just go out to him and just give him a carrot. And it's just so cute. And you know, even if you're a multiple murderer, it will soften you just seeing a little rabbit, just twitching its little face, and smelling the rabbit and then really getting into it. And apparently, he eats it really fast. It's a very guzzly rabbit.

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  • The Rottweilers weren't chained

    In brief: Visiting a house, he's told not to worry about the two Rottweilers — they're chained up — so he walks right past them. Only afterwards…

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    I just remember just going to one person's house and she had these two Rottweilers chained up and so he said, "No, it's okay. You don't need to be afraid of the Rottweilers. They're all chained up." So they walk right past them and only afterwards. No, she will. Almost had a heart attack. Oh my goodness, I forgot to put the chains on.

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  • The encyclopedia he felt guilty for selling

    In brief: As a poor student he sold children's encyclopedias door to door, trained to make parents feel guilty. He sold one — to a struggling young…

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    as a poor student I got a job setting encyclopedias door-to-door that's how desperate I was the worst thing was I actually sold one because actually a children's encyclopedia and after selling one I felt so guilty afterwards because selling the stupid worthless encyclopedia to this young family who just had a kid and they would feel guilty because you actually trained how to make parents feel so guilty but they would just know once that would ask them pedophiles or child abusers if they didn't buy this stupid book for their kid so they bought this bucket of a thing they waited bunny on this stupid book and they're struggling to survive and I felt terrible for years on that until one day is actually I told her story here and somebody came up to me and they said this is weird they said it's just too much of a coincidence but some of these coincidence because of the law of karma that's how this coincidence happens they said when I was very small this some woman said she lived in England she said this young student came to my door and sold my parents this children's encyclopedia and she said I love those books they meant so much to me and I had so much happiness reading those encyclopedias so I don't know if it was you but he could have been as soon as I heard that I thought wow actually something good

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  • The runaway car at Byford

    In brief: Years ago, while Ajahn Brahm and a driver queue in the Byford post office, someone asks whose car is rolling down the South Western…

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    that some years ago just uh the local post office was over in Byford. And you know, it wasn't so busy in those days, that road, the Southwest Highway. So, I remember we had to go to the post office. And so I went in there with the driver, different driver, but just the same same stupidity. I don't know why I was picked. Oh, the driver took me this morning is sitting over there, so I better not say this. But we went into the post office, and then trying to get in the queue, waiting for to do the um the business. And then they somebody came and said, "Oh, who's that Who's the owner of that car outside which is rolling down the Southwest Highway?" The driver forgot to put the brake on. And you wouldn't believe there was a gradient there. I know today it is a totally You know, you wouldn't believe it was going down a hill, but it certainly was because the car was going down the hill. And so in those days I was much fitter than these days. I was running after it. The Venerable Garrick, he was just way behind me. I had to run behind it and jump in and put the brake on. It was halfway down, and maybe went a hundred to two two hundred meters. And I wasn't the abbot then. In those days I was Ajahn Jagaro was the boss. So we never told him about that.

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