# The meteor's last blaze

- Teacher: Ajahn Brahm
- Type: Analogy
- URL: https://beingmindfulstories.com/stories/brahm-meteor-blaze-of-happiness
- Themes: enlightenment, happiness, rebirth, nibbana
- Life situations: fear that Buddhism is sad, questions about enlightenment

## Synopsis (editorial summary)

Simile for enlightenment: you're a meteor circling the solar system round and round, millions of times — samsara, many births. Then you hit the earth's atmosphere, grow hotter and hotter and explode in a beautiful blaze that can light up whole cities, and disappear forever: going out in a blaze of happiness.

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

It's like you are one of these uh meteors around the solar system going round and round and round. Not just three times but hundreds of thousands of times millions of times going round and round the solar system round and round and round and round. That's like sabsar and the many births. But then once you manage to hit the atmosphere of the earth and as you this meteor as it goes through the atmosphere of the earth it gets hotter and hotter and explodes in this beautiful uh meteor this like star in the sky. It can light up whole cities and then it just disappears forever. You go out in a blaze of happiness.

## Teaching point

The path is getting happier and happier until the happiness explodes and you're gone.

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

For countless rounds a meteor circles the sun; then it meets the atmosphere, burns brighter and brighter, lights up whole cities, and is gone. That, Ajahn Brahm says, is the end of the path: not grim effort but growing happiness. If your practice is making you miserable, it's heading the wrong way.

## Source

- [Our Mind and Our Health | Ajahn Brahm | 7 July 2023](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irCk-DJXisM) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 57:34 to 58:29: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irCk-DJXisM&t=3454s