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Story · Ajahn Brahm

The heart that remembered the murder

As told by Ajahn Brahm in The Ten Ox-Herder's Pictures | Ajahn Brahm | 06-02-2009

2 min read

Content note: death; violence; murder

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

there was a few stories of people who had heart transplants and They Carried some sort of memories of the previous owner of the heart there's one amazing story is a young girl had a heart transplant he must be only about 10 or 11 years of old and after the operation very good success when she was sent home afterwards so she started having nightmares recovered nightmares the same scene in The Nightmare all the time so she told her mommy her dream was that she was attacked in a dark Street and killed and murdered and it was so recurrent that her mother sort of went to the doctor and said there's something weird going on here my child has got the same dream night after night and she wakes up screaming and of course the doctor said oh it's just the trauma of the operation you know it's a very heavy operation it might have done something to the play but she'll get over it just forget about it take another Panadol or something I shouldn't say things like that I get trouble with the doctors in this audience but usually say if it doesn't go away within two weeks come back again we do some more tests but I'll being cheeky but I get away with that but anyway it didn't go away so she took it further so it kept on recurring again so that she she had some contacts in the hospital so she did a little bit of U uh suppose it's illegal improper searching to find out where this heart came from and she found out that the heart had actually come from a prostitute who had been killed and murdered and when she heard that she went to the police station and told all the whole story this is a dream of my daughter I just found out the heart came from a murdered person does her memory in dream match any of the situation only the circumstances of the murder and the police people they investigated the situation where the original owner of the heart was killed it matched and the information they got from this girl after you know she had a heart transplant the information she got from her dreams was enough for the police to identify a suspect question him and he confessed they caught him very weird and strange thing there was enough memories left in that heart to actually to find the killer of the old heart

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 13:28 (to 16:12)

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

A young girl, the story goes, had recurring nightmares of a murder after her heart transplant. Her mother traced the donor, a murdered woman, and the details helped police identify a suspect, who confessed. Ajahn Brahm finds it weird and wonderful. Whatever you make of it, mind and body may be more entwined than we think.

In brief (our summary)

Girl ~10–11 gets heart transplant; recurrent nightmare of being attacked and killed. Mother traces donor — murdered prostitute. Dream details match; police question suspect; he confesses.

Teaching point

Mind and body intertwine in ways materialism can't tidy away.

When this story may help

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in The Ten Ox-Herder's Pictures | Ajahn Brahm | 06-02-2009 · 2009-02-25 · ▶ watch from 13:28 to 16:12 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

1 other telling of this story

Caption notes: YouTube auto-captions: unpunctuated, 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

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