Story · Ajahn Brahm
The bucket with so many holes
The story — as told by Ajahn Brahm (verbatim captions)
And I remember seeing an example of that living in this poor part of Thailand, you know, which had no roads, no electricity. But you know, there's this great sense of happiness in those villages. That's one of the great shocks to me coming from a rich country and having spent 3 years in this elite university where people would actually call you young gentleman. And if you looked at me at the time, that would be a stretch of everybody's imagination to call me a young gentleman the way I behaved in those days. But that we had to be called that. And it is awkward in Cambridge. It's really a weird place. But you come from that place where you could have dinner, you know, with a Nobel laureate or just to play soccer with an earl and all that sort of stuff. And they were actually hopeless at soccer, by the way. But and you went from there to the villages of northeast Thailand of subsistence farming, you know, as I had mentioned before, eating frogs and snails and all this other stuff. Whatever crawled on the floor went into your curry. And seeing that people were so happy. That was one of the weirdest surprises to see that people in these villages had far more happiness than anyone I'd ever seen in those great colleges or this, you know, developed society like UK. It made me challenge, I mean, why are all these aid organizations pouring millions into northeast Thailand making them suffer just like us? And actually that is actually what happened. And I saw it in my own eyes. They saw that I remember cuz I cuz fluent in sort of Thai and now and you would speak to people and I remember this one guy I saw after maybe 20 years I'd been there. And he said, "You know, when we you first came here, yeah, we didn't have very much, but you know, we had enough to get by. We had enough food. No, not the best food, but enough." He said, "Now it's just like having a bucket with so many holes. You know, I get money for all these things. But the more water I put in my bucket, the more holes there are. They just keeps on dripping out and I can never fill my bucket anymore." He said, "That's just all these things I now have to pay for electricity, for television, for medical insurance and blah blah blah." And he says, "In the old days, life was so simple and so happy." And I remember this other guy. He was one of Ajahn Chah's chief disciples.
▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 11:37 (to 14:24)
A reflection (in the spirit of Ajahn Brahm's talk)
Years after Ajahn Brahm arrived, a Thai villager told him life used to be simple and happy. Now money flowed in for electricity, TV and insurance, yet it was like a bucket full of holes; the more you poured, the more leaked out. More things can mean more worries. Notice which needs you've added, and which you could drop.
In brief (our summary)
Coming from Cambridge to subsistence villages in northeast Thailand, Ajahn Brahm is shocked at how happy people are eating frogs and snails. Years later a villager tells him that when Brahm first came they had little but enough; now money pours in for electricity, TV and insurance, yet life feels like a bucket with so many holes — the more water you pour, the more drips out. In the old days life was simple and happy.
Teaching point
Development that multiplies wants can make people poorer in happiness than subsistence ever did.
When this story may help
- feeling poor despite having more
- questioning progress
Themes
Source & credit
Told by Ajahn Brahm in Oh What A Relief! | by Ajahn Brahm | 16-05-2013 · 2013-05-19 · ▶ watch from 11:37 to 14:24 · 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