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Story · Ajahn Brahm

The Singaporean monk, the snake book, and the witch doctor

As told by Ajahn Brahm in Turning Suffering into Wisdom | Ajahn Brahm | 23 January 2026

2 min read

Content note: injury

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

Singaporean monk who came to stay in Northeast Thailand. And one day apparently he came into our library in what? banana chart and just said, "Oh, can I please have a look at the snake book? It has all the different species of snake in that part of Thailand and also describes how venomous they are." And as he was given a snake book, the librarian was just not really paying too much attention. And a Singaporean monk was looking through the books and then oh my goodness. That's the one which just bit me. That's what a single point was looking at the book of snakes to try and identify the one which had just bitten him to see whether it's dangerous or not. And it was really dangerous. So the other monk looked to the poor uh Singaporean monk's leg, saw the bite marks, the two fang marks and so already starting to swell. And that's one time if you're a monk, you're allowed to run. You're supposed to run. You know, if any one of you got bitten by a snake and I was me, I would have to run. Even though that might kill me, nevertheless, you know, just to save another person's life. That's so important. So, this monk just ran into the village to get a doctor. Now, these snakes exist in Thailand, so you have to keep some antivenenom. But this village had no antivenenom. They thrown it away years ago. Cuz when this monk came back with one of the villagers on a little motorbike, he didn't come back with a doctor. Well, it was a kind of a doctor. What you usually call like a witch doctor. a poor villager who didn't have any injections. He had this special medicine, a herbal medicine which was supposed to be really really powerful. And the herbal med herbal medicine man started doing some chanting. And he put this medicine in his mouth, started chewing it, mixing it with saliva, and then spitting it on this poor Singaporean man's wound, which was getting really big by now. And this Singaporean, imagine that was you. How would you feel? This Singaporean who was highly educated looked to the other monks and said, "Can I please have a proper doctor?" But then looking at this Singaporean, now this Singaporean and this witch doctor doing chanting and spitting over the wound, you could see apparently what the other monks told me. the the two fang marks started to get smaller and smaller and smaller and the inflammation got less and less and less until the inflammation totally vanished. The two fang marks disappeared and that Singaporean mark was totally healed

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 22:32 (to 26:32)

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

A Singaporean monk in Thailand was bitten by a snake. The village had no antivenom, so a herbal healer chanted and spat medicine on the wound, and the swelling, Ajahn Brahm was told, disappeared. He didn't see it himself. If you're bitten, get to hospital. But stay open to wonder; life holds more than we expect.

In brief (our summary)

Singaporean monk in NE Thailand asks for the snake book — to identify the snake that just bit him. Fang marks swell; village has thrown away antivenom. A herbal 'witch doctor' chants and spits medicine on the wound; marks shrink until healed — villagers prefer him to antivenom.

Teaching point

Sometimes the help that arrives is not the doctor you asked for.

When this story may help

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in Turning Suffering into Wisdom | Ajahn Brahm | 23 January 2026 · 2026-01-24 · ▶ watch from 22:32 to 26:32 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

1 other telling of this story

Caption notes: YouTube auto-captions with machine-added punctuation; words left exactly as captioned. 'what? banana chart' = Wat Pah Nanachat?; 'antivenenom' = antivenom; 'mark' = monk.

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

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