Being Mindful Stories

Story · Ajahn Brahm

The monastery monkey reborn as a boy

As told by Ajahn Brahm in Reincarnation | Ajahn Brahm | 9 Jan 2009

4 min read

Content note: paranormal claim (a meditator seeing rebirth), second-hand and unverifiable; animal death

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

If you want a nice story about that, this is one of the little anecdotes you pick up in your life as a monk. In one of our monasteries in Thailand many years ago, a uh Thai Buddhist went to the market and saw there was a monkey up for sale. And this poor monkey was in a small cage, had been abused. And this man took pity and compassion on this monkey and bought it and wanted to release it in a place where it would be well looked after to give this monkey some freedom. So instead of actually taking it to a nature reserve where it wouldn't be able to look after itself, it took it to one of the monasteries. You know, the monks are nice and kind. So gave it to the head monk, let it out of the cage. And the head monk, you know, fed it, looked after it. And it had a bit more freedom, it could run around in the the forest monastery and swing through the trees. But because it was so associated with human beings, it was like half monkey, half human. Now whenever the monks would have their tea time in the afternoon, the monkey would also always also come and look very cute. It would also hold a cup of tea just like all the other monks and sit there while all the other monks were drinking their tea. It was actually basically one of the monks. And after all, there's only a couple of letters uh difference between a monk and a monkey. So there it was enjoying life in the monastery. But you know, it was very protective and you know, the sometimes the monks loved that little monkey and you know, it would just feed it and had good fun with it. But the monkey was very protective and one of the things it would do would be to chase any cars which came outside if they were making too much noise cuz it it liked being in a peaceful place. It realized this was a forest monastery and the monks wanted to be quiet. So unfortunately, one day it chased the a truck and fell under the wheels and got killed. And that was the end of that monkey in that life. But the head monk, who's I won't say who it is, but he's actually been here, he sat in this seat here and given talks some years ago. He had a very good meditator and he told everybody what happened. Cuz he had been meditating, he could see what happened, you know, in his meditation. Soon as that monkey died, the stream of consciousness, what some people call the soul, but in Buddhism we call it a stream of consciousness. There is a slight difference. So you don't need to worry too much about that as far as this explanation is concerned. This uh stream of consciousness of the monkey went out of the monkey's body, went into the village where one of the ladies was pregnant. And he saw it actually entering this woman's womb. And he told the monks what had happened, which is how I can tell you. And so because he told the monks that this woman who was pregnant, they saw this this monkey as he entered the womb was going to take rebirth as a human being. Why that would happen is because that monkey was associating so much with human beings. Basically, it thought it was a human being. It thought that's where it belonged. That's why it's attracted into a human life. Many times, if you have animals, pets, dogs, cats, kittens, whatever, because, you know, you're with them all the time. How many of you have got cats and dogs which actually eat human food? They would refuse to eat Whiskas. They want sort of chicken or whatever you eat. And you give it to them, don't you? And they're so associated with you that they very often they get reborn as a human being. That's what they really think they are. So, he got reborn as a as a human being, a little boy. And when I first heard of that, the baby hadn't been born yet. And all the monks were waiting to see cuz this was a local village. So, you know, you go and ask around over there. These were your local people. So, they would actually they knew exactly what was happening and they would actually see this woman. And they told me that as soon as that baby was born, they noticed an interesting thing. That baby was exceptionally hairy for a baby boy. It was a monkey before and it still had a tiny bit of that monkey character. And of course, you know, probably was a little monkey when it grew up. And it was actually true cuz I knew that came from a monkey before.

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 16:57 (to 21:32)

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

A rescued monkey became almost one of the monks, sipping afternoon tea and chasing noisy cars away, until a truck killed it. The abbot said he saw it reborn in the village as an unusually hairy baby boy. Take the story as you will. Ajahn Brahm's point is that the line between animals and us is thinner than we think. Treat them kindly.

In brief (our summary)

A Thai Buddhist buys an abused monkey at a market and gives it to a forest monastery in Thailand. It becomes almost one of the monks — it even sits holding a cup of tea at the afternoon tea time — and it chases noisy cars away to keep the monastery quiet. One day it chases a truck and is killed. The abbot, a strong meditator, says he saw its stream of consciousness enter the womb of a pregnant woman in the village. When the baby boy is born, the villagers notice he is exceptionally hairy.

Teaching point

Beings can pass between animal and human births; what we associate with and identify with draws our next life.

When this story may help

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in Reincarnation | Ajahn Brahm | 9 Jan 2009 · 2009-01-25 · ▶ watch from 16:57 to 21:32 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

2 other tellings of this story

Caption notes: YouTube auto-captions with machine-added punctuation; 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

  • The blind cats of the closed coal mine

    In brief: Ajahn Brahm recalls a journal article from decades earlier. After Thatcher's government closed a coal mine in South Wales (near Cardiff or…

    Read full story

    Now, the evidence which uh got me interested in this. Many, many years ago, I saw this article sort of in a journal. And this was the evidence of the the mutant cats. This is a timely one here because we've got a little kitten in the back there. But some years ago, it must have been about um 24, 5 years. No, it must be about 30 years ago. Uh when uh Margaret Thatcher, she was the Prime Minister of England. One of the first thing she did when she came into power was to fight the unions in that country. And one of the things was to close the coal mines because they were uneconomical, so she thought. So, they closed many coal mines and many of those coal mines were in South Wales. Some were up in the north, but this particular one which was closed was I think next to Cardiff or Swansea, I can't remember which. And once it was closed and a fence was put around it, the people in the local area, if they had extra kittens, instead of actually dropping it at a Buddhist monastery and getting the monk to bring it and see if he can find a nice home here, they were far more cruel. They would go under the fence in this coal mine. They'd go to the edge of the pit which went hundreds of meters down and they'd throw these unwanted kittens down the shaft. Just throw them down. They were so cruel. But the only reason I found out this was happening was about I don't know, it was maybe 10 years later. They sent engineers down into that mine to check on its stability to make sure that it wasn't going to collapse. So, they had to do an inspection. And when they went down the bottom of the shaft, that's when they found this whole mound of like, you know, dead cat flesh and fur of all the cats who'd been actually thrown down there. But you also know that cats, especially kittens, that sometimes they do fall, they land on their feet. They're incredibly agile, almost supernaturally agile. Because many of the cats survived. They survived the fall. They knew that because there was a heap of cats underground. But in those 10 or 15 years, I forget how long, but it wasn't that long. They knew when the coal mine was closed down and they knew when they actually like this happened, they found a whole new species of cat underground. Cats with huge ears that they came from rats who were blind, born blind, but huge ears. There was a new species of cat had evolved in the space of 10 or 15 years. How did that happen? It's obvious. Those cats living down hundreds of meters underground where no light came, they didn't need eyes. So, basically, the eyes weren't developed. They needed ears because it was sound which would lead them to their their dinner, sound which would protect them from their enemies, sound which would lead them to their mate so they could reproduce. So, the ears, because the ears were really necessary, they grew grew grew grew grew. The huge ears. Eyes not necessary. They were just blind. And a whole new species. I remember seeing a photograph of them. I'd never seen a cat like that. It had evolved.

    Open story page·Watch this telling

  • The two mangoes

    In brief: Simile for rebirth: you eat a mango, plant its seed, tend the sapling, and years later the tree gives a new mango. The two are connected…

    Read full story

    the best simile which I have manag to concoct is the SYM of the the two mangoes so imagine a mango when you eat it today don't about you but I like mangoes we use many mangoes in simes in Buddhism I don't know why maybe it says something about my cravings and desires but nevertheless imagine a mango and you eat it and enjoy it and you take the seed and you put it in your garden and you water that mango and after a while the mango germinates and a sh comes out and you look after that little sapling and it grow go into a nice tree and eventually the tree flowers and you have another mango now we know that those two mangoes the one you ate years ago and its descendant on the tree from which it grew they are connected there they're connected but it's also totally different from the first mango to the second mango if you compare those two mangoes the one you ate and the the new one from the seed there's probably not even the the same DNA in there there's always mutations you know from from time to time certainly there's no of even molecules which are in the new mango that were there in the old mango so it's a totally different mango but nevertheless you can see a connection a cause and effect process so in other words at any moment in time you can find the link between where say that sapling came from and you know where that sapling is going to and you have this whole chain this connected chain of links from the first mango and the seed inside of it to the new mango and the new tree and this actually this chain of events this cause and effect process is how even the Buddha described this life and also that that incredible time where we go over the horizon from this life into what's beyond into a new life but first of all just working on that simile of the mango you can see if the mango which you ate before was very sweet and juicy it's very likely the new mango will be juicy if the mango you ate was Sour it's very likely the new mango will be sour there has been some tender Tendencies which have gone across from one manga to its descendants and it's that tendency what we call the inclinations this is actually what we always say goes across from life to life the thing in itself there's no connection there's no there's no sameness there but there is this connection this cause and effect process which carries with it the Tendencies the character traits our inclinations which we bu up in this life

    Open story page·Watch this telling

  • The river and its banks

    In brief: Q&A simile for what carries karma between lives: crossing the Swan River each Friday it looks the same, but it's always different water;…

    Read full story

    It's like a river. You look at the river Swan, you know, just going over that bridge today again. Coming here from Serpentine. As you go over that bridge, it always looks the same. every week, every Friday. But of course, it's always different water flowing in that river. But the banks are always pretty much the same. It's like the banks what guides that flow of water. That's almost like a karma. It channels it can go this way, not another way. But the water is, you know, your five aggregates and you know what you take as your body and mind that is always flowing, never the same today as it was last week. probably hardly even a molecule of water in there today which was there last week when I came over it last time but nevertheless it looks the same because it's channeled in that direction but of every now and again there's a flood or a drought or the government decides to make another channel somewhere with big bulldozers so that karma is not permanent also sometimes that is also changed adjusted

    Open story page·Watch this telling

  • The girl who had been a python

    In brief: A photo given to him (he thinks) by a Burmese monk, with the story written on the back: a young girl in Yangon claimed she had been a…

    Read full story

    It was a snake photo, because the story was, it was given me, I think, by a Burmese monk, and it was an amazing story, that it was written in Burmese on the back but there was a girl in Yangon. When she was young, she claimed in a previous life to have been a python, a snake, in a previous life, which is a weird thing to start with, but then she also said that she was obviously a very special python, because she lived on the shoulder of an old Buddha statue in a cave in upcountry Burma, and with two other pythons, and they were treated with great dignity by the villagers because, you know, they lived actually on a Buddha statue, and in Burma you may know it's a very strong Buddhist country and sometimes people say that's just myth, but their parents were intrigued enough to ask, you know, where that village was, really up country, and to make a visit there, a long trek for several days, and when actually got to this village, it matched. There were still two pythons left, and every moon day, they were taken ceremoniously, handled by the village elders, and taken out to be bathed, and then afterwards brought back to the statue where they lived, and someone had a photo of the three when they were still alive, now there was only two.

    Open story page·Watch this telling

All stories·Find a story for your situation