Story · Ajahn Brahm

The foster-care leader who had been a foster child

As told by Ajahn Brahm in Energy in our Body and Mind from Inspiration | Ajahn Brahm | 2 November 2018

1 min read

Content note: named-role private person; childhood hardship in care

And this year, one of the recipients was, uh, a woman that if I remember correctly, she, you know, was put into, uh, an orphanage, foster care when she was very young. And she had a terrible time, as many people do. And so, she survived. And then when she survived, uh, she had a family. And when her children grew up, she thought, "What can I do, you know, to actually to to help?" So, she started with fostering other kids. And then from there, she was so good at it, so energized, she gave all of her time, her life to making sure that the foster care system in Western Australia was not going to follow the mistakes which she had endured as a foster kid when she was young. And so, I think she's now head of foster care WA. The person's running the organization. The person who's spending so much of her life making sure that kids who don't have a home, kids who don't have a family, have one. Now, she had been there, she had suffered, she knows what it's like. But she also knew what the solutions were. And when I sort of heard that, I thought, "Wow, these are great people. People who actually doing something, but you don't know about it.

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 14:22 (to 16:00)

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

At a medal ceremony, Ajahn Brahm met a woman who'd suffered in foster care as a child and later spent her life fixing that system so other children wouldn't. Such people rarely make the news. Seek out their stories rather than the cynical ones. Inspiration makes you want to do more, not rest on your laurels.

In brief (our summary)

At a Curtin medal ceremony, one recipient had been put into foster care as a child and suffered. After raising her own family she fostered others, then devoted her life to fixing WA's foster-care system so children would not endure what she had — becoming, he thinks, head of Foster Care WA.

Teaching point

People who have suffered and then serve quietly are among the greatest inspirations; their work rarely makes the news.

When this story may help

looking for inspiration
community service
childhood hardship

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in Energy in our Body and Mind from Inspiration | Ajahn Brahm | 2 November 2018 · 2018-11-02 · ▶ watch from 14:22 to 16:00 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

Caption notes: YouTube auto-captions with machine-added punctuation; words left exactly as captioned.

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

One phone call to the vice-chancellor
In brief: Many years ago a Sri Lankan nursing student at Curtin University lost her husband: working two jobs to pay the bills, he fell asleep…
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that was when there was one Sri Lankan woman many years ago that she was uh studying nursing at Curtain University. And then she told me that the tragedy to pay the bills. She had two kids, I think, at the time, but her husband was working two jobs. This is many years ago. And because he was working two jobs, he was driving home early in the morning and he basically fell asleep and he killed himself. And so it was a great tragedy. This woman had lost her husband and is the main financial supporter and she was still at university um doing her a nursing degree and she had a couple of did she have a couple of kids at that time? I think she did. But anyway, Sri Lanka community collected some money to look after her but that was only for her um basically temporary needs. What should she do next? because it was curtain university because I was you know go there to give talks and look after them they given me this John Curtain medal for community service many years ago and that's where I got to know the then um vice chancellor at curtain uh what was her name again Hackit I think was it Theresa Hackit but anyway she was the vice chancellor and she was very very friendly. So much so that you know I had her phone number and so I called her up and to her office in curtain and got straight through. Ajam brah is calling you and so she answered the phone. It's very rare to be able to get straight through to a vice chancellor and anyway so what's the problem? I said this Sri Lankan lady she's one of your students know at Kern University. She's lost her husband, died in a car crash, you know. Can you help her? He said, "Ajent Brah, thank you for letting me know. A lot of people ask and this for wrong reasons, but you know, I trust you." So, the vice chancellor made sure in a very short time she was awarded a full scholarship for her studies. Didn't have to pay anything. And eventually that lady she graduated and she became I forget the position in nursing but she's one of the top nurses uh here. So basically just what you know who you know sometimes and we share all this good karma. They look after you and they care for you. I think it's a wonderful way of living. So that means she keeps coming here every now and again and but you know but this was 20 30 years ago. So you know she's a uh not middle age. She's getting getting on a bit now being honest. But she's a wonderful woman and paid back the debts you know she had to society not with money but by caring for everybody and really working hard as a as a doctor as a a nurse. Sorry. That's what I like in this world. You don't pay people back uh for their kindness just with money, but through helping even more and being just a wonderful person.
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The zookeeper who freed the orangutans
In brief: At the annual John Curtin Medal presentation, Ajahn Brahm (a past recipient) hears about that year's winner: a man with learning…
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And I don't mind sharing this about this gentleman uh who won the award this year and he was a person with yeah if I remember it correctly please excuse me if I get some details wrong. Uh he had learning difficulties at school but he pushed through. Now with help with encouragement he got to university to curtain university where he was studied I think animal sciences or whatever applied science and eventually he managed to with a lot of extra work tuition and help eventually to get his degree number one it says that this is agrees with my experience when I was a school teacher there's no one who can't do things. Now, if you want to get your degree in this or get an a a um qualification in something else, if you keep on going, you don't give up, there's many people out there will help you and look after you and care for you and just encourage you. The human capacity in my experience is huge. Basically anyone can do almost anything within reason just as they believe in themselves or sometimes that belief is given by other people. People inspire you. Your mentors if you get a really good mentor an inspirational teacher they take you so far in life. But anyway, eventually he got the job over in uh in Perth Zoo and he was apparently he looks he looked after the the the primates and the orangutan enclosure. And this gentleman, the first name was Leaf something. But anyway, just a person with intellect with learning difficulties looking after orangutans and then seeing what the problem really was. That apparently many of these small baby orangutans were taken to shopping centers cuz they were so cute and cuddly for promotions to sell products or something. And this is what human beings do. But apparently he knew he'd been looking after the orangutans for a long time that that really hurt the mother child bond. And he just know he just used everything he got to to stop that exploitation of baby orangutans. Next, to make sure the cages or the compounds were a little bit less like prisons and more like places where they could relax and enjoy and have some uh similarities to the wild jungles where they came from. But even that wasn't enough. So then he started to return them to the jungles of Bornea and to start a big fund of oh no what was it called something orangutan fund just now worldwide and just millions of dollars in the fund because he was he was producing providing he was actually doing something for some animals who are just really close to homo sapiens, the people sitting right in front of me now. He connected with them and basically freed thousands of them throughout the whole world.
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The worm in the pile of dung
In brief: A good monk reborn in heaven searches every realm for his misbehaving friend and finds him reborn as a worm in dung; he offers to take him…
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Once there were two monks, two Buddhist monks. And I say this because I'm a monk myself, not all monks behave well. There are many scallywag monks. Unfortunately, those are the ones people like to read about in the newspapers. The good monks very rarely get in the newspapers. It's not newsworthy to say "Ajahn Brahm meditated for the last three months." But if Ajahn Brahm did something stupid like went to the casino or whatever, then of course -- or got drunk because somebody gave us a cake steeped in alcohol -- then you might sort of put it in the newspaper. But... one of the monks, of these two monks misbehaved. The other one was a good monk. So when they died one of the monks got reborn in a beautiful heaven realm, while the other naughty monk got reborn as a worm in a pile of shit. And as monks, we have a lot of friendship and community and fellowship. Like even here we try and look after each other. And so after a few, who knows, days up in heaven this ex-monk who was born as a heavenly being started to think "Where is my friend? My old mate? I haven't seen him for a couple of days." So when you get reborn in a heaven realm, according to Buddhism, you have all these powers and so he used some of his powers to search his heaven realm for his friend. He couldn't find him anywhere there. So he went up a couple levels of heaven trying to find him there. He wasn't there either. Lower heavenly realms, couldn't find him there. He said, ah -- according to Buddhism the rebirth as a human being is one of the best rebirths because it's not too much happiness, not too much suffering, a great place to become enlightened -- he said "Ah, my friend, he's been reborn as a human being again. I bet that's what's happened, why I can't find him in heaven." So he searched around the human realm. No trace there either. "My goodness," he thought, "he didn't do some really bad karma and got reborn as a dog or a cat...?" So he looked in the realm of the dogs and the cats. I know some people here think being reborn as a dog is a wonderful rebirth because you don't have to go to work on a Monday morning, but that's not the case. If you think that being reborn as a dog is a good idea, please remember what they do to a dog after one or two weeks when it's born. They take it to the vet and you know what they do to it there. So if you want that... [laughs] Anyway, he couldn't find his friend as a dog or a cat, so he looked at all the other animals. Still couldn't find his friend. He wouldn't give up. He started looking in the lower realms of the creepy crawlies, and there, to his shock and surprise, he saw his best friend was born as a worm in a pile of shit. Now, what would you do if that was your friend? You go and help them out. So he went up to that pile of stinky poo and actually called out and said "Hey worm, worm! Do you remember me? We were monks in a past life. We were the best of friends. Now, you've made some bad karma, but don't worry I can get you out of this. Come with me up to heaven." And the worm in the pile of dung said "First of all I'd like to ask some questions. Number one, is there any shit up in heaven? Of course there's no shit in heaven! It's pure and fragrant and lovely stuff there. He said "If there's no shit I'm not going." "Why not?" He said, "Well look, it's fragrant. It smells so beautiful. It's so warm and cozy inside and it's also my food." Imagine -- there's lots of sort of Asian people here -- imagine you got reborn sort of in a big pile of noodles. [laughter] Or if there's any westerners here like reborn in a big hamburger so you can eat it all your day. I don't know what else you like. But he said "No I'm not going to go." Because this was his home, this was his food, this is where he belonged; he liked it. And so that heavenly being tried to pull the worm out. And remember worms which live in piles of dung are smeared with slimy shit and so it's very hard to take them out, especially when they don't want to go. So the worm would wriggle and writhe, and every time this heavenly being took it out a little bit, it would escape and go right in the middle of the dung again. Now this heavenly being, imagine like you were sort-of a high being, you had to put your hand in this most stinky, smelliest stuff. His friendship was so strong he would not give up. Because he thought "If I could just take my friend the worm up to heaven so he could just see for himself, of course he would give up his shit and come up to heavens, it's so much nicer." But of course because the worm never wanted to go, it wriggled and writhed, and escaped every time and eventually the heavenly being had to give up and leave the worm to his pile of shit.
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The trail of blood into Mum's council flat
In brief: Staying at his mother's London council tower block (a supposed 'hotbed of crime'), Ajahn Brahm is about to walk to a talk when the lift…
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I remember when I went to visit her and stayed in that tower block for a short while I was going to give a talk in the Sri Lankan Vihara is Chiswick one day and it was not that far from where my mother lived so I wanted to walk. I enjoyed those walks in the streets of London especially in my robes. Because I was always a radical I wanted to surprise and stagger and confront people with my sartorial elegance of brown robes. But I also enjoyed having fun because people would look at me and sometimes not knowing exactly what you were dressed in these robes, these are like what people used to called bed blankets sometimes they are cross the other side of the road but I'll always take pleasure in wishing them Good Morning with a smile to an Englishman when someone actually wishes you 'Good Morning' you have to say Good Morning back. It is psychological torture for them. Being a sadist I enjoyed that. But anyhow on this particular occasion when I in the elevator when I got to the bottom as the door was open I was the only one in the elevator and as the door was opened I was confronted by an old lady who was covered with blood. It was like scene out of a movie I didn't know what had happened to her whether she has been attacked, mugged or whatever but she actually told me that she had fallen down by the flight of steps. She must have been about sixty five or seventy because she could still stand so immediately I forgot about giving a talk at any sort of Vihara it's more important I am kind and compassion; I like to practice Buddhism rather than teach it. So I forgot about the talk and I took this old lady upstairs to my mother's apartment where we bathed her wounds called the ambulance, she did have a broken leg but because of the shock she couldn't feel the pain at the time, so we bathed her, comforted her, called the ambulance but the wonderful thing which happened was that because it was an accident and because I took her into my mother's apartment very quickly, my mother left the door opened and there was a trail of blood which was leading into my mother's apartment and I was so pleased in a matter of five minutes I don't know how many people had come into my mother's apartment to find out what was going on and whether she was alright. And when they found out the reason why one of the tenants in these apartment blocks had an accident, fallen over and was wounded, it was wonderful to see the community coming together and helping one and another I was bathing the wounds because my mother doesn't like blood someone else was going to her house to actually to turn her oven off because she had something in the oven cooking and somebody was going to ring her daughter somewhere else and everybody was working together so well I thought, this is not a hot bed of crime this is a community where people cared about each other.
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The story — as told by Ajahn Brahm (verbatim captions)