Joke · Ajahn Brahm

How many seconds in a year?

1 min read

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

How many seconds are there in one year? Oh, come on. It's easy. You know the answer, Bill? No. No, the answer is 12. January the 2nd

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 1:06:02 (to 1:06:28)

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

Sixty seconds a minute, sixty minutes an hour, twenty-four hours, 365 days: so how many seconds in a year? Twelve: the second of January, the second of February, and so on. Ajahn Brahm loves riddles because they jolt the mind out of its ruts. Assumptions trip us up. Look again with fresh eyes.

In brief (our summary)

After walking through 60/60/24/365, the answer is 12: the 2nd of January, February, March…

Teaching point

(Riddle.)

When this story may help

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in Relax the Mind | Ajahn Brahm | 13 June 2025 · 2025-06-13 · ▶ watch from 1:06:02 to 1:06:28 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

Caption notes: YouTube auto-captions: unpunctuated, words left exactly as captioned.

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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