Funeral chants at a wedding

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• The chanting worked too well

  In brief: Invited to chant for a dying Chinese man in Royal Perth Hospital's ICU, Ajahn Brahm chants his strongest — and the man goes into…

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  But this was the story of when I got called to go to Royal Perth Hospital, by a family of this Chinese fellow who was passing away. They said ‘you've got to come quick, he's really really sick, he's in the ICU, maybe only an hour or two to go’. So I rushed into the hospital, got up to the ICU, saw the family, just said ‘hello, I’ve arrived, I’ll see what I can do’. Went into the ICU, stood by the bed of this guy who was totally unconscious, obviously close to death. And I really gave full power chanting. Now this doesn't always work, but that day I was really on song. You know, that’s just like people playing football or tennis, sometimes you just ‘crack!’ - the ball always goes in. And this was one of those days I was just really on my game. And I chanted and chanted and chanted… He came out of coma. It was like a miracle. And it doesn't always happen, very rarely actually, but this time it actually did. He came out of comma, the daughters were amazed, he was gonna survive now. So when I went out, feeling all good about myself, and then went out to see the family, and said ‘oh well, I really did it, he came out of the coma, he's probably gonna live now'. And that's when the S.H.I.T hit the fan. Because these were the family who'd come from Taiwan, Hong Kong, mainland China. They stopped all their work, they got these expensive flights, a moment's notice; they came over to be with their patriarch for the last few hours of his life, they had already arranged the funeral service. [Laughter] Now they're gonna have to stop it and cancel it and they say ‘you have cost us a lot of money, Ajahn Brahm’. He's gonna die again, maybe in another six months, he comes back again and dies properly, but this time - no. [laughter] So they were not happy with me at all. All that way - stopping.. [laughter] I got no donations for the monastery, not even for the cost of the petrol in the car [laughter]. I never heard from them again. [laughter] So that was my mistake. What would you do, when you make mistakes like that, you learn. So now, when I go to the hospital, [laughter] I ask first of all, ‘what type of chanting do you want?' “Get-better” chant, or “die-peacefully

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• The toilet frame with no hole

  In brief: For Western visitors, the monastery made a sitting frame to place over squat toilets. An 18-year-old English visitor sits on a frame…

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  I remember there was this one girl, this one girl came from England. She was like 18 or 19 years of age, came to visit our monastery. And you know the squat toilets we have in Asia where you squat down on them? So some people have a hard time squatting down on the toilets. You know, they fall over and that's not such a good thing when you want to go. So instead of actually down, we built, especially, out of compassion for all these visitors from places like England and Australia, we built like a frame so you can put it over the squat toilet and actually sit on it. You know, because most people use the squat toilet, so we just put this frame just to the side. And that's the toilet which this girl used. It just had no hole in the bottom. No water. It was only a frame. But she sat on it and did her business and it went all on the floor. [laughter]. Exactly! That's what you did. That's what Ajahn Chah did. That's what I did. I thought it was terribly funny. "Oh thank you for doing that. You gave me another story!

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• They lost the plot (Guildford Cemetery)

  In brief: After the joke about funeral directors who 'lost the plot', Ajahn Brahm recalls it really happening at Guildford Cemetery: walking ahead…

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  I know you don't heard the joke about you know the funeral Directors, you know who couldn't find the gravesite They lost the plot For that actually happened to me once I think in Guildford Cemetery and As we're doing the procession from the gates and when they were going and just now we're going in the front end and the hearse was following myself and the funeral director and the northern mourners behind and they Were going and I said, no. This is a long way. He said you know. I don't know where it is And we looked over there maybe about 300 meters away and that people were waving at us there's over here

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• The BBC cricket commentary blooper

  In brief: Ajahn Brahm recalls the famous BBC Test Match Special blooper when, introducing an over with a bowler named Holding and a batsman named…

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  And there was this famous BBC commentator called Johnson. Anyway, he was just the one who was considered to be the best BBC commentator. And it did happen that England were playing the West Indies. And as he was commentating and actually got through the BBC sensors before they realized it had gone to where. Because the Englishman who was actually bowling was I think something, was it Jack Willie? I think his name was. And anyway, the West Indian batsman was William Holding, a very very famous batsman for the West Indies. And so he introduced the start of the over “the batsman's holding the the bowlers willie.” and it went on BBC!

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