Being Mindful Stories

Story · Ajahn Brahm

The Spitfire engine in the old bomb

As told by Ajahn Brahm in Energy in our Body and Mind from Inspiration | Ajahn Brahm | 2 November 2018

1 min read

Content note: illegal driving / evading police (humour)

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

One of our monks once he told me his mate, he was in England, and he managed to buy a a Spitfire engine, you know, from a scrapyard. You know, a Spitfire, you know, these these big powerful for aircraft engines. And he was a bit of a sort of uh petrol head, sort of a So, he actually got an old car, and he put the Ferrari engine in the back. It took, you know, half the car. Put it in there. And it was drive And it was like an old bomb of a car. But, he said what he would do, he'd be driving down the motorway in England, just in this old car. He'd see like either a police car or some fancy sports car. And he would overtake him. And, you know, sometimes, people in like sports car being overtaken by an old bomb of a car, and think, "I'm not allowing that." They want to sort of overtake him. And so, a lot of couple times I shouldn't say this, but anyway, the police car would overtake him and try and pull him over. And then, he put his foot down with a Spitfire engine. And the police car wouldn't see him again.

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 1:00:33 (to 1:01:40)

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

An English friend fitted a Spitfire engine into an old car and could outrun even the police; a stupid story, Ajahn Brahm admits, but cool. Deep meditation can feel like suddenly having that much power. Learn to handle it. Focus your energy and inspiration on what matters, and tasks flow easily.

In brief (our summary)

A monk's mate in England fits a Spitfire aircraft engine into an old car. On the motorway he overtakes sports cars and even police; when they try to pull him over he puts his foot down and vanishes.

Teaching point

Deep meditation can feel like suddenly having a Ferrari's power in an ordinary chassis — you have to learn how to use it.

When this story may help

  • sudden energy after practice
  • learning to handle power

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in Energy in our Body and Mind from Inspiration | Ajahn Brahm | 2 November 2018 · 2018-11-02 · ▶ watch from 1:00:33 to 1:01:40 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

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

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