# Paṭācārā, who lost everything

- Teacher: Ajahn Brahm
- Type: Story
- URL: https://beingmindfulstories.com/stories/brahm-sutta-patacara-lost-everything
- Themes: grief, loss, compassion, acceptance, transformation
- Life situations: bereavement, multiple losses, trauma

## Synopsis (editorial summary)

Paṭācārā, from a good family, runs away with her low-born lover. Pregnant, she tries to return to her parents to give birth but delivers on the way; the second time too. Her husband goes for firewood, grasps a snake and dies of the bite. Crossing a flooded stream with a newborn and a toddler, she leaves the toddler on one bank and carries the baby over; midstream on her way back, an eagle carries off the baby, and the toddler, thinking she is waving him over, wades in and is swept away. Then she hears her parents were killed in a storm the night before. Mad with grief, she wanders naked and screaming into the place where the Buddha is teaching; people try to keep her out as 'badly dressed', but the Buddha says 'Let her in', and a monk wraps her in his robe. She became a nun and one of the most famous teachers of the nuns' community — nuns stuck in their meditation were enlightened within days of her teaching.

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

But I always tell them about one of the greatest nuns that ever was. Her name was Patara. And her story was that she'd run away with her lover. She came from a very good family. Her lover I think was just a lowborn. But they loved each other were both very good. And eventually she had a child and they thought if they go back to their parents' house, you know, when they just let themelves or let them her give birth in her parents' house, that would actually make the parents a bit more amunable to her husband. But they she gave birth on the way. So they went straight back to their village. And so they tried that a second time. And again she gave a like a few days premature birth and I was in the forest and after the new baby was born. Her husband who you know just really looked after her, loved her to bits, went looking for some wood to keep her warm and took a piece of wood but it was a snake and the snake bit him and he died. So, so she'd just given birth to her second child and now she lost her husband, Snakebite. So, she decided she had to go back to see her parents. No husband had died. She had two kids. But then she had to cross a big stream which was in flood and she had like a two or three year old kid and a new baby. What should she do? So she put the baby or she put the the told the new kid no told her two or three year old son you wait on this bank and I'll wade across the stream with the new baby and then I'll put the baby down on the other side and come for you and if I if you see me waving or something then just come straight away. So she got across the stream with her new kid, put the kid down sort of in a safe place on the dry bank, and then waited back again to get her elder son. But as she was midstream, she saw a big eagle come and swoop on her little baby. And of course, she was frantic. She waved her hands around trying to scare the bird away. But instead, the bird wasn't scared. She was in the middle of the stream. So, the bird took away her baby. And her 2-year-old kid thought mommy was calling him and weded into the river and got swept away. So, now she lost two kids. And if that wasn't bad enough, when she was trying to make her way back to her village that she heard from somebody there had been a big storm in that village the night before and her two parents had been killed in the storm. She'd lost her two children, parents and her husband on the same day. Now you can imagine what grief does to you. She went mad, crazy. She didn't know what to do, where to go. But eventually, she wandered into the temple totally naked and screaming her head off. And she when she walked into the temple, the Buddha was giving a sermon. And so people there at the edge of the the crowd, the congregation, the audience said, "You can't come in here. You're badly dressed. you're crazy. But the Buddha said, "No, let her in." You know, she was a young woman, you know, just given birth to a couple of children, maybe in her 20ies, and the Buddha out of kindness said, "Let her in." And one of the monks got his robe and put it around her so she was a little bit more uh decent. And that was the start of Patara's um entry into being a a nun. And one of the reasons I tell that story as a great tragedy, great grief. But then that nun became one of the most famous teachers in the whole of the nuns community. cuz this is just not what other people tell me cuz I remember just reading all these stories of great nuns in the time of the Buddha. And I think many of you may be able to relate to this. Sometimes you've been meditating and meditating and meditating and practicing going on retreats but sometimes you're getting nowhere. You feel my meditation a brah talks about these nimitas and janna and stuff like that. I've got nowhere near that. Why not? And this was some of the nuns were like that. And then they said, you know, in their little record of their enlightenment that this great nun came and taught them how to meditate. And they were just enlightened within a few days. And that nun's name was Patara. That was her amazing teacher.

## Teaching point

Great suffering, met with kindness, can become great wisdom and compassion; welcome everyone, however they come.

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

Paṭācārā lost her husband, children and parents in a few terrible days and wandered mad with grief until the Buddha said: let her in. She became one of the great teachers of nuns. Unbearable loss, met with kindness, can grow into deep wisdom. Always make room for people who arrive broken.

## Source

- [Growing from Difficult Times | Ajahn Brahm | 21 April 2023](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXZHG7El0lU) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 26:17 to 32:09: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXZHG7El0lU&t=1577s

Other tellings of this story:

- [Turning Suffering into Wisdom | Ajahn Brahm | 23 January 2026](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADB9WrlJSgY) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 8:17 to 9:25: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADB9WrlJSgY&t=497s
- [Kindness is Important in Buddhist Communities | Ajahn Brahm | 11 February 2022](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-4nWSXSgVk) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 50:30 to 52:06: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-4nWSXSgVk&t=3030s