# The bikie and the girl on the bridge

- Teacher: Ajahn Brahm
- Type: Joke
- URL: https://beingmindfulstories.com/stories/brahm-joke-bikie-kiss-on-the-bridge
- Themes: humour, offence, perception
- Life situations: being offended, misunderstanding

## Synopsis (editorial summary)

A bikie gang, wanting good publicity, sees a crowd: a girl is about to jump off a bridge. One bikie goes up and kisses her, and everyone thinks it's a great way to stop her. Afterwards he asks why she wanted to jump. 'Because my parents don't like me dressing up in girls' clothes.' The bikie had misperceived.

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

the bikey gang going down the highway. They saw a big crowd. The bike wanted to sort of know be a hero. Tried to sort of get some good publicity for bikes. They're not all bad. And actually, just on a side there that you know, once once there was a mother of a bikey, the poor young man, you know, he u drove a bit too fast and he slammed into a a a um electricity pole and killed himself. And he was very very young. And I knew the mother, she would come to our monastery. And so she wanted my support at the funeral for her son. and she was a a very spiritual person and she thought that she could handle doing the funeral service for for her own son and it was in Fremantle many years ago at the old little funeral um chapel now they built new chapels since that time it was small and because this was a bikey who had died they had all these bikes crammed into this little hall and I don't know why this is but you They were all in their leathers, their tats, everything, their patches, and they had their girlfriends. And their girlfriends, this was a funeral, but they were quite frankly dressed like they were going to go out to a nightclub, you know, young, you know, really well-dressed and stuff like that because this is just biky culture. They was their way of paying respect to one of their own. And the mother went up there to try and um conduct a funeral ceremony for her son. But you know it became impossible for her. She started losing it and I remember her sort of calling out there's a professional in here somewhere. Brah help. So I came and just impromptu did the funeral service for her son who I also you know met a couple of times and I remember just after the funeral service all these bikes these tough guys you know really big incredibly big arms and tough they all came up to me said thank you sir very nice funeral great service sir thank you so much they're so nice and so kind and you can see they really felt something for their you know their brother you know their friend who had passed away. And I was, you know, when you actually get to know people, they have all this bad reputation. Sometimes we judge them far too too rationally. And some of them can be really really kind. So anyway, despite what sort of people say about them, obviously there are some bad ones, but there's also some good ones. You can't judge is what I'm trying to say. But anyway, in this story, you know, the bikey tried to do something good and then this girl trying to jump off the bridge and the bikey sort of came up to the girl, kissed her and it's very quickly and everyone thought, "Great, great idea to stop her from jumping off." And then afterwards he asked why why were you wanting to jump off? And uh she or you might say he said because my parents don't like me dressing up in girls clothes and you know it was the bike was was tricked. You know he got it wrong. He mispersceived and that was a joke.

## Teaching point

Recalled to ask why some listeners choose to take offence at a joke.

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

Ajahn Brahm told a joke about a misunderstanding on a bridge, then heard it had upset people, and reflected on offence. Jokes touching suicide or identity can hurt people who are already struggling, and that's worth hearing. When we feel offended ourselves, it's worth asking whether hurt was really meant.

## Source

- [Living Without Blame | Ajahn Brahm | 05-12-2014](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR5c4h7Tmo0) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 4:08 to 7:27: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR5c4h7Tmo0&t=248s

Other tellings of this story:

- [Seeing the goodness in the world | Ajahn Brahm | 28-11-2014](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPJ6aCrkgXY) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 9:48 to 11:30: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPJ6aCrkgXY&t=588s