# Ajahn Jagaro keeps eating

- Teacher: Ajahn Brahm
- Type: Story
- URL: https://beingmindfulstories.com/stories/brahm-jagaro-calm-suicide-news
- Themes: calm, compassion, counselling, suicide
- Life situations: supporting someone in crisis, suicide of a friend, sudden bad news

## Synopsis (editorial summary)

A distraught Thai woman bursts into the monks' meal crying that her friend has shot herself; Ajahn Jagaro calmly keeps eating for a minute or two until she quietens, then puts down his spoon and asks what happened.

## The story, as told by Ajahn Brahm (verbatim captions)

One of the first times I saw this and it was very impressive was the former abbot and Spiritual Director of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia Ajahn Jagaro. I was with him when he was a monk just learning his trade in Thailand. Because we do learn a trade - this is a training which we go through. And we were having our morning meal when a Thai lady ran into our dining hall. She ran in, and she's obviously very upset, because they don't usually do this - interfering in a monk's meal. And she was saying something in Thai, and I actually caught it after a while, she said "Suchin is dead! Suchin is dead! She shot herself! She's committed suicide!". And I got really quite excited too because I knew that lady, she had cancer, we've been going to see her, talking to her, counselling her. She was a close disciple of the monastery. And that morning she had shot herself, and this was her best friend who found her body. She came in to the monastery just straight away, completely distraught having found her best friend committed suicide. You can understand what she felt like. And I understood that, and I looked to Ajahn Jagaro who was the head monk at that time to see what he would do. He understood what she'd said and he put his head down and carried on eating. And this lady - "She shot herself! She killed herself!" - and the monk just carried on eating as if nothing had happened. And after about one or two minutes she stopped moving her arms up and down, she stopped shouting, and at that point Ajahn Jagaro put down his spoon, put aside his bowl, and said "what happened?" I thought it was a beautiful piece of psychological calming a person's emotions down. Because he was not responding with anxiety to her great distress, he was just calming her down just by his actions and by his softness, she too calmed down in the space of one or two minutes. It was the most brilliant counselling I'd seen for years.

## Teaching point

Calm is contagious: by not mirroring someone's panic, you help them find perspective without denying their feelings.

## Reflection (in the spirit of Ajahn Brahm's talk)

A woman burst in with terrible news, and Ajahn Jagaro quietly kept eating until her shouting eased, then set down his spoon and asked what happened. He didn't dismiss her pain; his calm simply gave her somewhere to land. When someone brings you a crisis, your steadiness can help far more than your alarm.

## Source

- [Dealing with Emotions | Ajahn Brahm | 15-06-2007](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17_TtOysQOA) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 9:40 to 12:19: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17_TtOysQOA&t=580s

Other tellings of this story:

- [The Power of Silence | Ajahn Brahm | 12-12-2008](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtLQ_ho63M) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 35:06 to 37:59: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWtLQ_ho63M&t=2106s
- [Talk Your Way To Happiness | Ajahn Brahm | 09-02-2007](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7d-KozmokQ) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 43:53 to 45:27: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7d-KozmokQ&t=2633s
- [Meditation Kamma | Ajahn Brahm | 06-06-2008](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M5Fxmq5c9s) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 45:09 to 46:57: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M5Fxmq5c9s&t=2709s
- [Spirituality and Worldly Problems | Ajahn Brahm | 5 March 2021](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o-E2VJLQ-o) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 27:29 to 27:56: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o-E2VJLQ-o&t=1649s
- [Sức mạnh của sự im lặng | Ajahn Brahm | 12-12-2008](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TExC5PlltSk) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 35:17 to 37:35: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TExC5PlltSk&t=2117s