# The meditator twisted into a knot

- Teacher: Ajahn Brahm
- Type: Story
- URL: https://beingmindfulstories.com/stories/brahm-twisted-meditator-car-accident
- Themes: healing, meditation, letting go, body
- Life situations: back injury, chronic pain, car accident recovery

## Synopsis (editorial summary)

On a retreat someone interrupts his meditation: a woman is twisted into an extreme, contorted posture. Afterwards he asks if she's all right; she had no idea and felt great. Then he asks, 'Where did you have your car accident?' — 'At last, proof you have psychic powers!' No: it's the commonest cause of such back injuries. Her body, relaxed, twisted by itself to let energy reach places doctors couldn't.

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

There was this one lady once on a meditation retreat and uh she was twisted around into such a contorted posture that I can't show you what it looked like. If I did, you'll have to take me to hospital too. And somebody actually interrupted my meditation. Ajam brah look at that lady and she was really really heavily twisted and I was concerned for her too. I thought you know if you do that to a person with against their will that would just really torture them. So I waited for her to come out of a meditation. And when she did, I took her aside and said, "Excuse me, but when you were meditating, you were really twisted around in such an extreme position. I feel okay." She said, "Yeah, I didn't know I was twisted around so much. I felt great." And then I felt stupid. Ajan Brahmy should have known better. So the next question I asked was, "Where did you have your uh car accident?" I remember her response there was a bra at last I've got proof you have got psychic powers. I never told anything about that. And of course they didn't have psychic powers. All it really was is just you knew that that was the most common injury to your back. And somehow or other she had a very bad she told me about it very bad car accident. She was happy to get out alive and she obviously went to hospital many times and then she started twisting around against it. Didn't know what she was doing. She was in a meditation. She didn't understand that she was twisting around. Her body did it all by itself. When it twisted around that allowed the energies to flow to actually to heal some of those places in her body which the doctors couldn't get to. That's why she said she felt tremendous afterwards.

## Teaching point

If your body takes a strange posture in meditation, let it be; it may be healing itself.

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

A retreatant's body twisted into a knot while she meditated, and she came out feeling wonderful. Ajahn Brahm guessed an old car accident and was right. He sees it as the body releasing what it needed; that's his view, not medical advice. When you meditate, relax and let the body find its own way.

## Source

- [Our Mind and Our Health | Ajahn Brahm | 7 July 2023](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irCk-DJXisM) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 5:55 to 7:54: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irCk-DJXisM&t=355s

Other tellings of this story:

- [A Talk About Nothing | Ajahn Brahm | 16 July 2021](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u40j_OlBL2U) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 12:13 to 14:55: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u40j_OlBL2U&t=733s
- [Ownership and Anger| Ajahn Brahm | 14 February 2020](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adpMTYPFELs) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 19:34 to 21:10: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adpMTYPFELs&t=1174s
- [The Cat Talk | Ajahn Brahm | 29 December 2023](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3yka2I8g5I) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 43:00 to 43:45: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3yka2I8g5I&t=2580s