Being Mindful Stories

Joke · Ajahn Brahm

Three smiling bodies in the morgue

As told by Ajahn Brahm in Why are we here? Why are we born? | Ajahn Brahm | 09-01-2015

1 min read

Content note: sexual reference (mild)

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

In the autopsy room of the hospital, the coroner has three bodies and all three bodies are smiling. And the police have to be there and he said to the coroner, (is it coroner or pathologist, whatever it is) the coroner said, “What happened to this guy? Why is he smiling?” And he said, “This guy you can see he’s about 70 years of age, he was having sex with his mistress and that’s when he had a heart attack. That explains his smile.” “Fair enough. What about this guy?” “This guy won a thousand dollars in the lottery, went to the pub and drunk so much whiskey, he died of liver failure. That’s why he is got the big smile on his face.” “Fair enough”, said the policeman. “How about this guy?” Said, “This guy was struck by lightning.” “But how come he got a big smile on the face?” “Because he thought he was having his photograph taken.

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 27:40 (to 28:41)

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

A coroner explains three smiling corpses, the last struck by lightning and convinced he was being photographed. Ajahn Brahm calls it his bad joke for the day and says there's no curing him. Then he turns it: some things aren't for fixing, only for caring. Accept the incurable quirks of the people you love, and keep smiling with them.

In brief (our summary)

A coroner explains three smiling corpses to a policeman: one died of a heart attack with his mistress, one drank himself to death after a lottery win — and the third was struck by lightning: “he thought he was having his photograph taken.”

Teaching point

('Today's bad joke' — “it's a waste of time trying to cure me.”)

When this story may help

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in Why are we here? Why are we born? | Ajahn Brahm | 09-01-2015 · 2015-01-11 · ▶ watch from 27:40 to 28:41 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

2 other tellings of this story

Caption notes: Manual (volunteer) captions; occasional misspellings kept as is.

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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