Being Mindful Stories

Story · Ajahn Brahm

Walking up the hill instead of driving

As told by Ajahn Brahm in How To Be Positive | by Ajahn Brahm | 17 Oct 2008

4 min read

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

I noticed the experience of walking up the hill to Bodhinyana Monastery in Serpentine. Now, many of you have been down there, hopefully some of you will come down on Sunday for our Katina Ceremony. We bought that 25 years ago, 26, I think now, and for about nine years, I'd gone up, and down, the road to the monastery, always in a car, in some sort of vehicle. It was like one of those days we had a couple of days ago, just warm spring morning. I remember just coming back from some sort of appointment, and feeling just so positive, so energized, and having plenty of time, I told the driver, "Drop me off at the foot of the hill, I'm going to walk up today." Not for exercise so much, just for enjoying the morning, I had plenty of time. So, I started walking from the southwest highway, up Kingsbury Drive, to the gate of Bodhinyana Monastery. As I started walking I got very surprised. Actually, it was a shock. As I looked around me, I could not recognize where I was. That hillside looked totally different from what I remembered seeing looking through the window of a car. It was totally different. I was seeing things which I never knew were there. What I saw had more detail, had more depth of colour. It was just basically more beautiful. Of course that surprised me, and not being in any rush, not being in a hurry, I just stood still. And as I stood still, the whole hillside changed again. It was like evolving. As a monk you're not on any sort of psychotropic substances, you don't take alcohol, although, during our rains retreat, somebody offered the monks some chocolate cake, and, fortunately, before we ate it, one of the monks looked at the little writing on the cover, saying it had alcohol in it! Fortunately, we stopped in time, because sometimes you're not sure when you get some chocolate cake sometimes they put the alcohol in there just for the taste and then they cook it and all the alcohol goes, it doesn't matter. But we didn't know whether it was put in before or afterwards, and so we decided not to take it. We gave it to one of our visitors who was very happy to be a guinea pig [laughter], Like a food taster. And when he came back the next week he said "That was a lot of alcohol." [laughter] It hadn't evaporated, it was a very good job we were very careful. Otherwise, we may have gone to our monastery just after lunch in a rains retreat and seeing all the monks singing and dancing and goodness knows what else. [laughter] Which would not have done very much for our reputation, so you've got to be very careful. So we don't take such things. We are sort of sober, mindful, alert. So here I was having an experience, like sometimes you have in life, when things become really weird and they start changing in front of your eyes. But what had happened was, what I was seeing, it had more detail, more information. That hillside, you started to see little flowers, started to see rocks, and just the shape of the rocks and the lichen on the rocks. And, just look at the tree barks, and the whole tree bark was just amazing, beautiful. What was also strange was that the colours, the colours of everything you saw, started to grow more intense, more rich, more deep and more beautiful. The whole thing was exquisite. Of course, when a monk has experiences like that, we don't just enjoy, we sort-of contemplate afterwards what the heck was going on. And I decided to analyze it through science, and it became quite clear to me that, when you see things, sight is a chemical reaction on the back of your eye, on the retina. What happens with most people is that when they see something, they move on to another image almost immediately. So, the image on the back of your eye doesn't have time to properly form, and the colors don't come out. They're just maybe 10 percent of what's there, and the detail is all smeared, because the image does not have time. When I walked, I was going slower. The images on the back of my eye, the light had more time, so you could see a much more full picture with more detail, and the colours were deeper because they had more time to manifest. It was just a simple physiology of sight which was occurring. And, of course, when I stood absolutely still, only then did my eyes have all the time they needed to form a full picture. And for the colours, which were out there all the time, to be fully represented in the image on the back of my eye. And for my mind to have time to explore it fully, to appreciate it, and to taste it 100 percent.

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 2:55 (to 8:50)

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

For nine years Ajahn Brahm drove up the same hill; the day he walked it, the slope filled with colour and detail he had never seen. Much of what feels dull in life is simply passing too fast. Slow down, and now and then stand completely still. The beauty was there all along, waiting for you to have time.

In brief (our summary)

After nine years of only driving up to Bodhinyana, Ajahn Brahm gets out at the foot of the hill and walks; the familiar hillside becomes unrecognisably detailed and colourful, and when he stands still it deepens further.

Teaching point

“too many people live life as if they're in a fast car, looking through the window … when we do go slower … your senses, at last, have time.”

When this story may help

  • busy and rushed life
  • unable to enjoy life
  • depression

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in How To Be Positive | by Ajahn Brahm | 17 Oct 2008 · 2008-11-15 · ▶ watch from 2:55 to 8:50 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

11 other tellings of this story

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

  • “They're all Buddhists” — the expensive clinic

    In brief: A very wealthy Kuala Lumpur businessman tells Ajahn Brahm he paid a fortune for therapy at a famous US clinic, even meeting the founder of…

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    This incredibly wealthy businessman, you know, he came up to me and he said he'd just been to the Mayo Clinic in Cleveland where all the film stars and pop stars, you know, go. It cost fortune to go to that clinic for therapy. Had depression, anxiety, I forget what it was, some addiction. And he went to this place cost him an absolute fortune. He had actually because he had money he had a personal in interview with John Kabbertson the guy who founded the mindfulness movement. And when he came back he said ajan bra all these guys here they're all Buddhists every one of them. And he said they teach the same thing as you do only not as clear. And he said I'm crazy. I spent all this money going to United States and I can hear better from you. He said, "Yeah, I teach these guys. You go to the source and it's really cheap when you come here.

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  • Lao Tzu and the beautiful sunset

    In brief: A disciple walking with Lao Tzu breaks the rule of silence to exclaim at a sunset and is never taken walking again; the master explains…

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    That's why there's this old simile, it's an old meditation story of Lao Tzu. Every evening he would go on a walk and he'd choose one of his disciples, only one could go on a walk with the great master. There was a golden rule, if you went on a walk with the great Taoist master you have to be quiet, you weren't allowed to speak, not even one word. One day this young man was going on a walk with the master and they got to a ridge in mountains at sunset and it was one of these amazing gorgeous sunsets and the young man couldn't help himself but say, "Wow, what a beautiful sunset." He broke the rule. Lao Tzu turned around, went back to the monastery, would never allow that young man to go on a walk ever again. The young man's friend pleaded for him, said "Look, it was only one sentence, give him a break, cut him some slack what's the big deal anyway, of keeping silent?" And that's when the master said this very profound explanation. He said, "When that young man said 'what a beautiful sunset,' he wasn't watching the sunset anymore, he was only watching the words, he wasn't watching the sunset, he was only watching the words."

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  • The emperor's ring: “This too will pass”

    In brief: A young emperor feasts in good times and sulks in bad, so neither works; his ministers give him a ring engraved “this too will pass.”…

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    it's a powerful story, about an emperor, a young man who took over the kingdom when he wasn't really mature enough to know how to lead. And so whenever things were going well in his kingdom he'd always have celebrations and parties. And because he was spending too much resources and too much time celebrating, and not actually doing the running of the kingdom, the good times never lasted all that long. And when the terrible times, the bad times, bad economy, unrest, social disorder, whenever there was trouble in his kingdom he'd get so upset and depressed he'd stay in his room and sulk and cry, which meant he wasn't working during the difficult times. And the ministers they realised that their leader, their king, their emperor, wasn't really working properly, and that's the reason why there were too many bad times and not enough prosperous times. You can't just tell these people what to do. Even these ministers in the Howard Government, they can't tell John Howard what to do. They've got to be sneaky, they've got to be wise, and so what these ministers did, instead of telling their emperor what to do, they just went to a goldsmith, asked for him to make a ring, the only difference between that ring and ordinary rings was what was engraved on the outside, which was the words "this too will pass". And they gave that ring with the engraved words "this too will pass" to the emperor, told him to wear it on all occasions, that's all, and the emperor did. Whenever there were bad times he would look upon the ring, "this too will pass", he knew by nature he didn't have to force those negative emotions and those bad times out of his kingdom, he knew they would pass naturally. And because he knew the bad times would pass, it gave him what's called hope, and when there's hope we can work, where it's hopeless we think the grief is going to last forever, the broken heart was always going to be there, you'll never find another partner ever in life. Or you'll never find that money again on the stock market, or whatever it is your chance to win the cup is gone forever. When you think it's forever that just makes life hopeless and you don't work. You don't make kamma anymore. But when actually you have hope, there's always something you can do. It gives you that motivation to work even in difficult times of your life. And actually the reason I'm saying this was because the photograph someone sent me was actually from the graduation ceremony of Virginia Tech university, recently, and I think you all know what happened at Virginia Tech in April, I was in London at that time. I think it was 39 young men and women were shot down by that murderer? You know, while they were on campus. And at the graduation ceremony one of the graduates, you know the funny hats they wear, they're called mortarboards, with the flat top, on the top of his mortarboard he'd actually painted the words "this too will pass", in memoriam of the pain that had happened in that university in the biggest serial killer murder in United States history. That's why he said "I don't know whether this guy's read your book or what", by he's obviously got the message. And it is a powerful message because it gives you hope, it allows you to let these things pass away. So "this too will pass". The other part of that story, which is very valuable to consider, is that that emperor wore that ring not just in difficult times but also in the happy times as well. Because it's in the prosperous, happy, good times that we should always remember, "this too will pass". Because he knew that the happy prosperous times were also fragile, he had a few celebrations but not many, because he knew he had to work hard to make sure those prosperous happy good times lasted as long as they possibly can. And they did. He became a very successful and well-loved emperor because the bad times were very short and the happy long times were longer than anybody could ever remember.

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  • “My nose is too big”

    In brief: In his first year in Perth a 13-year-old girl, brought by her father after every other psychologist and psychiatrist had failed, finally…

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    I still remember this when I first came to Perth the very first year this thirteen year old girl came to see me. Her father organised a meeting, she wanted counselling, she'd been to all the other psychologists, psychiatrists or whatever in Perth and this was the last resort to go and see a Buddhist monk. They must have been desperate in those days to come see a Buddhist monk. Because we didn't have much of a reputation and I asked her what's your problem and she took a long time to get it out of her cause you know when people really feel they have a big problem and they just don't want to share it with you especially a thirteen or fourteen year old young girl. And eventually I got it out of her. She said, looking down at the floor feeling so embarrassed, she said 'my nose is too big'. Now you know, you girls you know that, you know where she's coming from, that to her every time she looked in the mirror she saw her nose and it was too big. I tried to use like a scientific approach to her problem, you know I mentally I measured her nose and I've seen many noses in my life and I measured it in my mind and I told her, lady that your nose is pretty average. It's not the most beautiful nose, it's certainly not the most ugly nose, its just a nose, it's average ok. But she wouldn't accept that for her it was the biggest problem because it was right in front of her face. I didn't, I didn't actually help her, but she helped me to understand the negativity of fault finding.

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