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Story · Ajahn Brahm

The monk who built a women's prison

As told by Ajahn Brahm in Oh What A Relief! | by Ajahn Brahm | 16-05-2013

1 min read

Content note: prisons; second-hand

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

There's only one person I know who was actually a monk, a very famous monk in Thailand. He got lots of donations. Instead of losing them to build his monastery, yeah, he had a monastery, had enough rooms there. So any extra donations, he used to build schools or hospitals in Thailand. One amazing thing I was told he did, that with the donations he received, you know, he wanted to help society, so he built a women's prison in Bangkok. Now that is aid. And I thought, "What are you doing?" I can understand collecting money to build a hospital or a school or an orphanage, but a prison? And when actually I investigated it, what happened, he'd visited someone in a women's prison in Bangkok. Saw how inhumane it was. Just how harsh conditions there were for women who'd broken some law and been sentenced to jail. He thought, "There's no way I'm going to convince the government to increase or improve the facilities. So, I'm going to improve the facilities myself." Collecting some money to design and build a humane hospital a humane prison for women in Thailand. Knowing that they will get sentenced. If they're going to get sentenced, I need to give them a good jail, a humane jail. Where they can have decent facilities. And maybe a little bit of compassion to the prisoners will mean that they realize they are cared for somewhere along the line. There is some monk somewhere in Thailand who's responsible to have had them having a clean toilet and a bed to sleep on. And I thought, "What innovative aid that was?" Someone thinking outside the box. When I heard that, I thought, "Wow, what a great way." So, maybe we can have a little fundraiser to raise funds for a women's prison here in Perth. Maybe later later on we can do things like that.

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 58:28 (to 1:00:41)

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

A Thai monk with surplus donations visited a grim women's prison and then built a humane one, since the government wouldn't. Ajahn Brahm calls it thinking outside the box. People will go to jail regardless; why not let it be less cruel? Look for the places no one else wants to help. That's where kindness counts.

In brief (our summary)

A famous Thai monk, already housed, spent surplus donations on schools and hospitals — and, after visiting Bangkok's inhumane women's prison, on designing and building a humane women's prison the government would not improve. Ajahn Brahm told Master Cheng Yen of Tzu Chi; he calls it aid that thinks outside the box.

Teaching point

Real aid sometimes builds what nobody else will fund — even a kinder prison.

When this story may help

  • charity choices
  • thinking about justice

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in Oh What A Relief! | by Ajahn Brahm | 16-05-2013 · 2013-05-19 · ▶ watch from 58:28 to 1:00:41 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

Caption notes: YouTube auto-captions: unpunctuated, words left exactly as captioned. 'losing them to build' as captioned (likely 'using').

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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