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Story · Ajahn Brahm

The woman who wasn't her mother

As told by Ajahn Brahm in Out of Body Experiences | Ajahn Brahm | 1 July 2022

1 min read

Content note: unverified claim (recovered memory)

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

that i was on some of these retreats some of the meditation they do is really deep so she had some deep meditation so i asked her afterwards why didn't you try and find out your earliest memory and she came to me afterwards and said yeah it worked she had a very deep meditation as she was coming out what's my earliest memory and she saw herself being suckled breastfed you know by her mum but then she looked up at her mum and it wasn't her mother it was somebody else she could recognize that even though it was many years afterwards i remember her coming up to me in the retreat really concerned is there something my mother hasn't told me was i adopted what's going on because i'm certain that person i saw is not my mother and so i said well it's a couple of days left of the retreat just calm down and when the retreat's over go and see your mum and just have like nice calm conversation and then ask her are you really my mum was i adopted and that's what she did she asked the mother was i adopted what are you talking about i'm your mother why are you asking that and so she told her mother what had happened her mother said can you describe that lady to me he was breastfeeding you and of course in meditation i have a very clear memory of what happened and she gave the description of that person who was breastfeeding her when she was a little baby and the mother was quite stunned that was your wetness you came from expensive family and not expensive a very rich family so we decided to get you in a wet nurse to feed you rather than me and you described her perfectly

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 54:53 (to 56:53)

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

After a deep retreat, a woman remembered being breastfed by someone who wasn't her mother and panicked that she'd been adopted. Ajahn Brahm told her to calm down and ask gently at home: it had been a wet nurse, described perfectly. Whatever surfaces from the past, meet it calmly and ask kindly before jumping to conclusions.

In brief (our summary)

After deep meditation on retreat, a woman tries recalling her earliest memory and sees herself being breastfed — by someone who isn't her mother. Alarmed, she asks Ajahn Brahm whether she was adopted. He tells her to calm down and ask her mother gently after the retreat. Her mother, stunned, asks her to describe the woman — then explains that, being a very wealthy family, they had hired a wet nurse: “You described her perfectly.”

Teaching point

Memories recalled from a clear, hindrance-free mind can be startlingly accurate.

When this story may help

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in Out of Body Experiences | Ajahn Brahm | 1 July 2022 · 2022-07-01 · ▶ watch from 54:53 to 56:53 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

2 other tellings of this story

Caption notes: YouTube auto-captions: unpunctuated, words left exactly as captioned. 'wetness' = wet nurse; 'expensive family' = wealthy family (not changed).

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 preceptor's snake in the lap

    In brief: Ajahn Brahm's preceptor, later acting Sangharaja of Thailand, came out of deep meditation in a Koh Samui coconut grove to find a snake…

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    he would meditate in a coconut grove. And he said once he had a nice deep meditation in the coconut grove and that when he came out of the meditation he saw a snake coiled up in his lap. Now, what would you feel if you came out of meditation at 8:00 and you find a big snake had been caught up in your lap? How would you react? And this monk, he was was my preceptor and he became the acting sangaraju of Thailand with lots of responsibility. And this coconut grove was in in the island of Got Samoy when that was not a famous place where tourists went to. That was his his hometown in there. But he said the amazing thing was he was so peaceful when he came out and opened his eyes. He saw the the snake in his lap called up very happy and he had no fear at all. And that was really surprising to him. He thought how can this happen? No fear. And of course he just watched the snake for about 10 or 15 minutes and then the snake just uncoiled and just slithered away with you can imagine gratitude simply because he had no fear.

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  • The smell of his baby pram

    In brief: Asking in deep meditation 'what's my earliest memory?', Ajahn Brahm (soon after leaving Thailand for Perth, he thinks) suddenly smells —…

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    the only thing one which I can tell you because I'm not allowed to S say too much about psychic powers and stuff the only ones which I can tell you is when I first did this and got the smell in my nose and this is not imagination anymore you're smelling it as if it's right here in front of you it's a real real smell my eyes closed and I recognized it straight away it was the smell of my baby's PR and immediately I was back in my pram a re experience even though I was sitting meditation I think this first happened over in when I left highand coming to Perth you're back in your baby's pram and with that experience you could no your eyes were closed you could see everything clearly as if you were had your eyes open and there I could see my baby's PR and all the old toys which I used to have in it and I could play around in there was a vision from the past as I say in the book when you have this experiences one of their Hallmarks is this absolute certainty that was you in the same way this absolute certainty it's you right here looking at me or hearing this talk the same degree of certainty weird but true

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  • Porky the Pig in the pram

    In brief: After deep meditation he asks for his earliest memory and gets the smell of his baby pram at about three or four weeks old, then…

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    i've told this before i don't mind saying this it's not quite psychic powers but it's pushing the envelope a little bit i'm not allowed to say about my experiences my own previous lives but what i do do to give you the the idea i was doing this once years ago and what came into my my consciousness was a smell and you know i asked what's my earliest memory and i got this smell in my nose it wasn't in the hall where i was sitting and i recognized it immediately it was the smell of my baby's pram when i was maybe three or four weeks old and with that smell just came all the memory you could actually eyes were closed i was back in my baby's plan with all my little toys and the one i liked the best was porky the pig that's what my mother used to call it you know even though i'm not supposed to have a brain to remember that i remember that and it was a little pig it had some like beans inside plastic and she used to walk it you know and make it rattle and i love that little pig porky the pig my favorite toy is a little and he could you can actually look around you know feel just the um uh the blankets or the sheets and the black and whites of the the pram you could see everything and you could actually like you can move just no will what's over there what's over here and this is all just in a re-imagination not really re-experiencing of an old memory you're back in your when you're three or four weeks old i know exactly how long but maybe around that time and that was how it works and no doubt at all that that's you very clear being able to move around if you want to ask a question know what was my name who was that you can get the answer straight away just think and the answer comes and that's what it's like re-experiencing and of course you know i told that story to a few people just to check it out and one interesting thing which i got from that because i was never you know did any medicine i was physics and maths and i was told afterwards that in the first weeks of life the dominant sense in a baby is smell now their hearing is not developed even side is not developed at all and you recognize your surroundings and you recognize your mother in particular by her smell not by her sight so just because i'm a cheeky monk i tell young mothers when you've got a young kid please do not change your perfume you'll confuse the hell out of your kid

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  • She never went to lectures and scored near-perfect

    In brief: A Sri Lankan woman in Melbourne did a medical degree without tutorials or lectures — reading with a quiet meditative mind she remembered…

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    she went to university to do a medical degree and she never went to any tutorials. She never went to any lectures. She read the books and she could read them so so well that she had so much free time. She never went to university lectures or tutorials supervisions and she always got like almost perfect scores in every exam. She had the great ability to be able to read something and remember it perfectly. All of you kids who have to go to school and you have to have all this homework, you have to read this and read that and remember so much. Isn't that a bit of a pain? Do you enjoy doing that studying and homework? How many kids here enjoy doing homework? There's a few kids here. But this lady, she would just read with a quiet mind. She was a great meditator because she read with a quiet great mindfulness, great peace. Whatever she read, it went straight in. She didn't try to remember it. It was recorded. It's just like people who have memories of traumas in life. When you remember the things which you can't forget, why is it that they are almost indelibly ingrained into your mind? The reason is because at that time often it's because of danger or fear but other times it's other things which are happening. You're perfectly still. There's no static coming in. There's no noise and you can remember so easily. And there's a few times in my life you can remember so easily what was said, when it was said, how it was said. And I remember just how you could use uh experiences like that to do well at school without any effort. You didn't have to try to remember things. You just sat and read. You can remember the whole lot easily

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