Story · Ajahn Chah
The lay sage and Ajahn Tongrat's stump
Content note: animal death
The story — retold in our own words from Ajahn Chah's talk
Ajahn Chah once taught a lay patron who kept precepts on observance days but still went fishing, saying he did not kill the fish — they simply came and swallowed his hook. Teaching brought some contrition, but the man kept fishing, then changed his excuse: he would tell the fish to take the hook only if their kamma to live had ended. He began to pity the hooked fish and finally stopped. He could not, however, stop catching frogs to eat. Ajahn Chah told him at least to look at a frog first; the man saw its face, eyes and legs, thought of a child, and still killed them, pressed by his wife for food. He stopped breaking their legs, then told himself he was only keeping them while others killed them — 'fifty percent' of the bad kamma cut — until the conflict drove him nearly to distraction and he gave it up. His wife complained about what they would eat; both finally stopped killing frogs. Later he began releasing fish and frogs, once freeing frogs from a pot at a friend's house. The friend's wife made chili paste from the one frog she could still catch, and when he went to dip his rice she warned him it was frog chili paste. Finding no way out, and already old, he decided to ordain. He shaved his head; his wife cried; he promised to disrobe and return, and she relented. After the ceremony the preceptor told him to go to a meditation master rather than stay near the houses. He left the next morning to find Ajahn Tongrat, offered him his body and life, and asked what to do now that he was ordained. They were sitting by an old tree stump. Ajahn Tongrat told him to make himself like that stump and do nothing else. The new monk contemplated the stump — seed, tree, age, cutting, a stump that would grow and bloom no more — until he applied it to himself and, realizing he too would become like that stump, gained the determination not to disrobe.
A reflection (in the spirit of Ajahn Chah's talk)
Change often arrives in small, untidy steps: a softer excuse, a pause before harm, a look into a frog's face. Ajahn Chah tells this man's story with patience, not scorn. All of us are in the same boat. Keep taking the next honest step, and one day the mind may simply be made up.
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 precept-keeping patron makes one excuse after another for fishing and killing frogs, slowly softens, ordains late in life, and finally finds the resolve to stay through a strange instruction from Ajahn Tongrat.
Teaching point
Excuses for harm wear thin when we really look; once the mind is made up, nothing can stop it.
When this story may help
Themes
Source & credit
Told by Ajahn Chah in the talk “Wholehearted Training”, in The Teachings of Ajahn Chah (2007 web edition), pp. 625–628
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