# The tennis shoe on the window ledge

- Teacher: Ajahn Brahm
- Type: Story
- URL: https://beingmindfulstories.com/stories/brahm-nde-tennis-shoe-windowsill
- Themes: near-death experience, evidence, open-mindedness
- Life situations: curiosity about consciousness, scepticism

## Synopsis (editorial summary)

A patient who floated out of her body during an operation later reports a tennis shoe on a high windowsill of the operating theatre. Staff say that's impossible — it's cleaned daily and sterile — and it can't be seen from the floor. Someone fetches a ladder: the tennis shoe is there.

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

now one of the interesting cases was of this uh person having an operation in a theater operating theater in london in uk somewhere i think it was in bristol i could be wrong there but anyway they floated up above their body and afterwards they said that when they came back and they recovered they said that in the operating theaters an old operating theater there was a tennis shoe on the windowsill there's a weird thing to say and i said of course there's no ted issue on the windowsill you know on the inside you know this place is cleaned every day it's an operating theater has to be sterile what's a tennis shoe doing up there but she said it was certainly up there they couldn't see it from the floor so someone actually got a ladder and when they actually went up on the windowsill what do you think they found the tennis shoe is a famous example of someone seeing something which should not have been seen

## Teaching point

When the evidence is there, have the courage to accept it rather than let your beliefs stand in the way of truth.

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

A patient described a tennis shoe on a ledge no one could see from the floor, and someone fetched a ladder and found it there. Ajahn Brahm, though unsure of the details, uses it to talk about courage, not certainty. When the evidence is in front of you, don't let fear or stubbornness argue it away.

## Source

- [Out of Body Experiences | Ajahn Brahm | 1 July 2022](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsyT2OaS2Tw) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 21:19 to 22:33: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsyT2OaS2Tw&t=1279s

Other tellings of this story:

- [Reincarnation | Ajahn Brahm | 9 Jan 2009](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htQ12Z2MV0Q) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 12:20 to 12:44: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htQ12Z2MV0Q&t=740s
- [Dreams And Other Things | Ajahn Brahm | 13 Mar 2009](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSePDgBXCq4) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 59:26 to 59:57: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSePDgBXCq4&t=3566s
- [DN9 Potthapada Sutta - States of Consciousness (part 2 of 2) | Ajahn Brahm | 24 June 2018](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcQ0IBin9Ik) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 1:20:04 to 1:21:18: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcQ0IBin9Ik&t=4804s