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Story · Ajahn Brahm

The sludge that started to taste nice

As told by Ajahn Brahm in The Buddhist Attitude to Sensuality | Ajahn Brahm | 19-01-2007

1 min read

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

My first year as a monk, for a practice, I put all the food together which was disgusting anyway, and I got the spoon and mixed it all up. I only had one meal a day. It was a sludge, it was a slop and if you saw it, you'd actually pour it out straight away. It wasn't even fit for pigs, let alone for monks. But the trouble was it was an interesting experiment which I did. Every food no matter what it was, the sweets, everything in one bowl and stirred it up so it was absolutely consistent. After a while, it actually started to taste nice.

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 8:38 (to 9:19)

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

In his first year as a monk he stirred his whole meal, sweets and all, into one grey sludge, and after a while it began to taste nice. Craving doesn't live in the food. We can come to want almost anything. Instead of blaming the triggers around you, watch the wanting itself.

In brief (our summary)

Told that monks should eat plain food, he recalls that in his first year as a monk, as a practice, he stirred everything in his one daily meal — sweets and all — into a single consistent sludge, not fit for pigs. The interesting result: after a while it started to taste nice.

Teaching point

The problem isn't the object — after a while you can crave anything; work on your response, not the trigger.

When this story may help

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in The Buddhist Attitude to Sensuality | Ajahn Brahm | 19-01-2007 · 2007-01-22 · ▶ watch from 8:38 to 9:19 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

Caption notes: Manual (volunteer) captions; occasional misspellings kept as is.

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

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