Being Mindful Stories

Story · Ajahn Chah

The disciple who would not mend his roof

From a talk by Ajahn Chah, “Sense Contact – the Fount of Wisdom”

1 min read

The story — retold in our own words from Ajahn Chah's talk

Retold in our own words from Ajahn Chah's talk “Sense Contact – the Fount of Wisdom”, in The Teachings of Ajahn Chah (2007 web edition), pp. 358–359. Read the original talk

Ajahn Chah tells of a disciple who was eager to 'let go' and find peace, and from the day he arrived did not want to do any work. When the wind blew half the roof off his hut, he left it unrepaired, calling it an external matter. When rain or sun came in on one side, he simply moved to the other. One day Ajahn Chah walked past, saw the collapsed roof, asked whose hut it was, and spoke to the monk about the duty of looking after a dwelling: letting go does not mean shirking responsibilities. When the talk ended, the disciple protested that sometimes he was taught to cling and sometimes to let go, and that even after letting the roof collapse he was still told it was not right — he did not know what more was expected of him.

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

Letting go can be misheard as not caring. Ajahn Chah smiles at a monk who sat dry on one side of his broken roof and called it peace. True letting go still mends the roof, does the dishes and looks after others; it simply stops carrying the worry and resentment.

Reflection written by Being Mindful Stories with AI help, in the spirit of the talk. These are not Ajahn Chah's own words.

In brief (our summary)

A monk eager to 'let go' refuses to repair his half-collapsed hut, then protests when Ajahn Chah reminds him of his duties.

Teaching point

Letting go does not mean neglecting your responsibilities; letting go without wisdom is just indifference.

When this story may help

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Chah in the talk “Sense Contact – the Fount of Wisdom”, in The Teachings of Ajahn Chah (2007 web edition), pp. 358–359

2 other tellings of this story

  • the talk “Questions and Answers”, in The Teachings of Ajahn Chah (2007 web edition), p. 90
    Shorter telling in a different talk: grass-roofed hut, rain, wind blows off half the roof; he claims to be practicing not-clinging. Ending in this telling is Ajahn Chah's assessment rather than the later dialogue.
  • the talk “Sense Contact – the Fount of Wisdom”, in Food for the Heart (2007 edition), p. 108
    The same talk, reprinted in this book (not a separate telling).

The book is © The Sangha, Wat Nong Pah Pong, offered for free distribution. Read the talk free at ajahnchah.org.

The story text is Being Mindful Stories's retelling in our own words of how Ajahn Chah tells it in this talk, not his own words and not a quotation. Read the talk in the book for his exact words. The title, summary and reflection are Being Mindful Stories's editorial notes. Please credit the teacher and link the original talk in the book. Markdown version

  • The ghost at the end of the cave

    In brief: On Vesak day at a cave monastery in the north of Thailand, Ajahn Brahm slips away from the abbot's dull talk and is asked by villager…

    Read full story

    I was in this monastery in the north of Thailand. And it's a beautiful place in north of Thailand. It's peaceful. It had caves. Good food. Not like the northeast. They don't have really edible food in the north. Nice climate. If you got too hot, you can go up in the mountains. Beautiful place. And so I was in this monastery in Umphang in the north. And when I Phang Phang province. Just north of Chiang Mai. Between Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai. Around that area. Beautiful lovely mountains. And it was Wesak day. A big ceremony day.

    And lots and lots of people came. And lots and lots of people they came and we did the food offering and the chanting. And then the abbot gave a talk. And it's a nice abbot. He's very kind but his talk was terrible. So, I decided just to slip off. And when I slipped off, a lot of the people followed me. And they started ask me the questions. They said, "Can we talk to you?" And I was surprised I could talk, you know, reasonably good Thai at the time. And so they asked started ask me.

    They said, "Can we ask you some things?" I said, "Yeah, okay. You know, please come and ask me." And I thought noble truths or dependent origination or the how to meditate. And I was I was really interested in teaching them. But you know, all they wanted to ask is "Why did you become a monk?" And "How many brothers and sisters do you have?" And "What does your father do?" And "Where do you come from?" You don't mind answering questions like that but then you expected to get some deeper questions afterwards.

    But no, once they got that information and they left. And some more people came. And it was a big day and you know, so many people came and asked the same questions. "How many brothers and sisters have you got?" "What does your father do?" "Where did you come from?" And I got sort of bored with that after about 30 or 40 times being asked the same question.

    So, I had my strategies how to escape. My strategy was I needed to go to toilet. Well, I didn't need to go to toilet, but it wasn't that desperate. It was enough to get away. So, I went to the toilet and very quickly when I came out after us, I opened the door, made sure they weren't looking. I just snuck into my hut. I knew they'd find me in my hut, so I took a what did I take? My flashlight, a cushion, and a bottle of water. Cuz it was one of the cave monasteries, and I had explored those caves, so I knew the deepest cave.

    And I went no, I had to actually go up a bit of a ladder, around the corner this way. It was a long, deep cave. Around this bend, around that bend. Once I got to the end of this cave, I thought, "Great. Now I'm safe." Now I can just meditate and have some peace and quiet. You've heard the story before. So, I got there and sat there. Ah, peace at last. And it's only literally only about 5 to 10 minutes. And I heard a sound. The sound was something else was coming along that cave corridor.

    And as I could hear the sound heard the sound first of all, then at the bend of the corridor, you could see a light getting light brighter and brighter and brighter. Cuz I realized that whoever was coming into this cave had a light, like a one of the old hurricane lanterns. So, they could see their way. I thought, "Oh, no. This is the villagers." And at the end of the cave, there was no place to hide.

    And then I had just one moment of maybe I can get away with this when one of the villagers with the hurricane lantern turned the corner. And their face I could see their face. Their face just went so fearful. And they went back again. And they started saying, "Phi phi." That means ghost. They said, "There's a ghost at the end of the tunnel." Cuz they expected strange things to live at the end of the tunnel, like ghosts of what is it? Serpents or something. They said, "There's a ghost at the end of the tunnel."

    Said, "No, there can't be." Said the other guys with them. "No, there's a ghost at the end of the tunnel." "No, it can't be." And so, my mistake was I should have gone I could pretend I was a ghost, but I can't feel a bit of an eye like that, so then two men's heads came around the end of the tunnel to check. And two men's heads went back quickly. "No, it's not a ghost. It's a Western monk." "No, it's a ghost." "No, it's a Western monk."

    So, they're having a debate who it was at the end of the tunnel. Then three heads came out. Said, "Oh, it's a Western monk." And then about a dozen men cuz they also were bored with the head monk's talk, and they decided to go and explore the caves and the tunnels in this old limestone monastery. So, they all came there, and they saw me. They weren't afraid at all. It was just a Western monk. And the first one opened their mouth. "How many brothers or sisters have you got?" "What does your father do? Where are you all?"

    Open story page·Watch this telling

  • Worried he'd have to be abbot

    In brief: When the 2004 tsunami hits, Ajahn Brahm is in Penang. His number-two monk back home hears that people have died in Penang and tries…

    Read full story

    I was in Penang when the tsunami hit. I remember this story, it was really interesting because I was, you know, the head mark. The number two monk at the time was trying to contact me, heard that tsunami had hit Penang and a few people had died. That was really concerned. How are you, how are you? And eventually got through to me, found out there's no problem at all. And he was so relieved and I said, were you really worried about me? He said, well, actually, not really worried about you, but worried that if you died, I'd have to be the abbot.

    Open story page·Watch this telling

  • The novice who stopped

    In brief: A novice of 12 or 13 at Ajahn Chah's monastery, tired during a very long sermon, kept thinking: 'When is Ajahn Chah going to stop?' Then…

    Read full story

    It reminds me of that novice in Ajahn Chah's monastery, just a novice, who was listening to one of Ajahn Chah's sermons, which was going on and on and on and on. And he said, "I'm just a little novice. You know, I didn't sort of elect to come and stay here. Just I had no place else to go, so this is what but this senior monks, they could listen, but I need to go to bed. I'm tired." He's only like 12 or 13 or something. And so this little novice started thinking, "When is Ajahn Chah going to stop?

    When is he going to stop? When is he going to stop?" And that became repeated in his brain again and again and again until then the novice thought had an insight, changed things around. Instead of when is Ajahn Chah going to stop, he thought, "When am I going to stop?" That's when this little novice stopped. He got into one of the really deep meditations, one of the jhanas. Just that simply, but just saying, "I will stop." Not doing anything. And went so deep that when he came out of meditation, Ajahn Chah had finished the talk a long time earlier.

    All the monks had done the chanting to end the meditate to end the talk. And they all packed up their things and went back to their cottages or their huts to rest. He'd been sitting really still all that time. Couldn't hear a thing. It was the morning time. He'd missed the morning alms round. He didn't mind. He wasn't hungry. He just got into the most beautiful meditation for the first time in his life by stopping.

    Open story page·Watch this telling

  • The bird, the fish and the wise crab

    In brief: A bird lures the fish of a shrinking pond away one by one with tales of a wonderful lake, until a careful crab rides on his back with its…

    Read full story

    Retold in our own words from Ajahn Chah's talk “Monastery of Confusion (Q&A)”, in The Teachings of Ajahn Chah (2007 web edition), pp. 592–593.

    A large pond full of fish grew shallow as the rains decreased. A bird arrived and told the fish he pitied them, since nearby there was a deep lake where fish swam happily, and offered to carry them there one at a time in his bill. The fish lined up eagerly. Each time, once out of sight, the bird landed and ate the fish, then returned saying their friend was swimming happily and asking when they would join him, so the fish pushed to the front of the line. When all the fish were gone, only a crab remained. The skeptical crab agreed to go only by riding on the bird's back with his claws around its neck, warning he would choke the bird if it tried tricks. Whenever the bird tried to descend, the crab squeezed its throat until it could only croak, so in the end the bird had to return the crab to the pond.

    Open story page

All stories·Find a story for your situation