Mum's blessing at seventeen

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• “Steve, you can die”

  In brief: Visiting a dying man, Steve, Ajahn Brahm senses something is holding him back and asks his partner Jenny (present in the audience) whether…

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  This lady sitting in front of me who taught me something once when her husband died. I remember to this moment Jenny and I always will with Steve. When I came to see you Steve was dying but there was something stopping him and I told you 'have you given Steve permission to die?' Remember that time? And you did and it's one of those memorable experiences, she jumped up on the bed, hugged her partner whom she loved dearly and said 'Steve you can die, I give you permission to go'

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• “Is this heavy?” — Ajahn Chah and the stick

  In brief: Walking back from alms round, Ajahn Chah picks up a stick and asks the young Ajahn Brahm whether it is heavy, then throws it away: it is…

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  The first way of letting go, it was starting off with an old experience with my teacher Ajahn Chah, a long time ago, we were walking back from alms round and a great teacher, they always find an opportunity to, sort of you know, give you some teaching, but not these teachings with so many words and big concepts just simple down-to-earth teachings which once you hear, you think "Crikey, that's really good," and you remember it, and it changes much of your life. What he did on this occasion walking back, he picked up this stick, there's forest all over the place, picked up a stick, turned around and says "Brahmavamso, is this heavy?" Is this heavy? [throws stick away] Not now. I was very careful, I didn't throw that too far, wonder what it's gonna bust. It's only heavy when you hold it. But if you let it go it's got no weight at all. Profound, simple, and unforgettable.

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• Married 25 years and strangers on holiday

  In brief: After about 25 years of marriage, when the last child leaves home, a couple take their first holiday alone together. One says afterwards…

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  somebody, actually it's a person who is a old fellow member here, they told me that I think they had been married for about 25 years and the last of their children got married, so left home And there they were together, so went on a holiday together. First time they could go just the two of them and they came back afterwards and one of the partners said it was such a shock such a shock, I didn't realize whom I was married to all these years. Because for all those years they have been relating to each other as father and mother of their kids. Now their kids were out of the equation, the whole relationship, the whole identity changed. They had to rediscover each other again. It is amazing they had been married for so many years and they said they didn't know each other.

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• 'He's not going' — then 'You go'

  In brief: At a parents' evening when Ajahn Brahm was about 14, his maths teacher told his father the boy was doing so well he might go to Cambridge.…

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  I must have been about 14 and that we had you know the parents uh teachers meeting and I remember my math teacher he told my father that I was doing really well at school too well as far as my father was concerned there was a good chance said my math teacher that your son would go to Cambridge university and my father apparently said no he's not going and they had a standoff. I heard this, you know, because all the other uh parents saw this and they told their children, their children told me the following day. They almost had a fight. All it and apparently there was a movie about a young boy in Newcastle who wanted to be a ballet, a ballet star, Billy something or other. But anyway, and apparently there the person who was teaching him saw his talent argu with the father because in that part of I think it was a mining of of a minor and boys don't do ballet in Newcastle and where I came from boys don't go to Cambridge they I don't know what I'm supposed to do but anyway that a but it was wonderful to actually to see that sort of the tension that expecting your son to, you know, be close to you forever in the same social orbit. Being able to go to the pub with him, talk about football and whatever else, you know, people would talk about, but not sort of go too far away from your father. He loved me. He didn't want to lose me. But nevertheless, just after one day, no, you go.

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