# Joke: round the meditation menu

- Teacher: Ajahn Brahm
- Type: Joke
- URL: https://beingmindfulstories.com/stories/brahm-joke-meditation-names-full-circle
- Themes: meditation, humour, letting go
- Life situations: learning to meditate, comparing methods

## Synopsis (editorial summary)

A beginner on retreat can't do breath meditation, so he teaches them anapanasati; that's too hard, so metta; then loving kindness; then insight; then vipassana; then letting go; then present-moment awareness; then the emperor's-three-questions meditation; then breath meditation — by which time they've forgotten that's where they started.

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

Sometimes when they come on a retreat, they haven't done meditation before, I teach them say say breath meditation. Then after a day they say, "Oh, I can't do breath meditation." So I teach them Anapanasati. And after Anapanasati they know that's too difficult, I teach them metta meditation. They can't do metta, I teach them loving kindness. They can't do loving kindness, I teach them insight meditation. They can't do insight meditation, I teach them vipassana. They can't do vipassana meditation, I teach them letting go. They can't do letting go meditation, I teach them present moment awareness. They can't do present moment awareness, I teach them like the empty three questions meditation. They can't do the empty three questions meditation, I teach them breath meditation. By that time they forgot that's where they started.

## Teaching point

All meditations are different names for the same process: stopping controlling and letting go of wanting. Arguing which is best is 'gomaya' (bull dung).

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

For a struggling beginner, Ajahn Brahm runs through meditation after meditation until he's back at the breath, and they've forgotten where they started. Every method is a different name for the same thing: stop controlling, let go of wanting, learn to just be. Arguing which is best, he says, is bull dung.

## Source

- [How Do We Deal with Deeper Suffering | Ajahn Brahm | 5 June 2020](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFqMQgo36tw) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 1:05:04 to 1:05:49: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFqMQgo36tw&t=3904s