Stories about humour

Looking for a Buddhist story about humour? Here are 552 complete stories from talks by Ajahn Brahm. Each page has his own telling, a short reflection, and a link to the original talk.

• Sixty pilgrims' photographs and a near-missed flight — Changing flights at Singapore airport, Ajahn Brahm is recognised by 60 or 70 Indonesians returning…
• Sleeping on a door with a hole in it — In the first days of Bodhinyana Monastery the two monks sleep on doors propped on bricks; the…
• Snoopy: “Most days we won't” — Charlie Brown and Snoopy sit on a pier enjoying a beautiful view of mountains and lakes. Charlie…
• Something with diamonds in it — Asked what she wants for Valentine's Day, a wife says, “I need nothing, I've got you.” “Yes, but…
• Strawberry ice cream on spaghetti bolognese — Monks eat everything from one bowl. Once, the person serving Ajahn Brahm tipped strawberry ice…
• Stream-entry certificates on the wall — Analogy: a Burma monastery giving stream-winner certificates to hang next to degrees and swimming…
• Streets paved with gold — A refugee waiting for resettlement hears that Perth's streets are paved with gold. Walking out of…
• Stroked the boom gate — it opened — Parking boom gate stuck; Brahm gets out, strokes the boom kindly — 'nice boom gate… can you please…
• Stupid feet — In Ajahn Chah's monastery the monks went barefoot through the jungle, and the Western monks were…
• Suicide note to test reincarnation — Asked for evidence of reincarnation beyond meditation, Ajahn Brahm jokes that the best evidence is…
• Super Monk and the death ray — An art student who watches his videos (from Czechoslovakia, he thinks) makes a cartoon of 'Super…
• Super Monk and the DreamWorks email — As a new monk in Thailand Ajahn Brahm reads a comic of 'Super Monk' who flies and saves people —…
• Swings at the bus stop — Someone sent him a photo of Montreal bus stops fitted with playground swings. Waiting commuters…
• “Take them out one by one” — Asked by Fr Frank Brennan how to deal with troublesome fundamentalists, Abbot Placid of New Norcia…
• Tarantula tickly feet — spider monk — Forest hut: looks forward to tarantulas falling on him; tickly feet running over him for a month…
• Teach year threes and fours Buddhism — At the old North Perth temple a teacher dumps year-three/four kids on him: please teach Buddhism —…
• Teased on the Charles Street bus — In the early Perth days people mock his robes: 'women's clothes', 'Hare Krishna', 'get a proper…
• Tell his girlfriend he might marry a dummy — A Perth father whose university son was clubbing and failing waited up until 1 a.m., invited son…
• Telling the kids what their dad got up to — Visiting his brother, Ajahn Brahm tells his young nephew and niece about all the naughty things…
• Thai lady grabbed the tea towel — After lunch at Bodhinyana Brahm goes into the kitchen to help wipe dishes; a Thai lady gives him a…
• Thank the burglar for the whiskey — Someone's house is burgled of expensive whiskey; Brahm says thank the burglar — he stopped you…
• “That monk, he's on the gear” — At a Buddha-statue installation in an English open prison, Ajahn Brahm is beaming as he circles…
• “That was the worst tape I've ever heard” — Angie, later president of the Buddhist Fellowship in Singapore, finds a 23-year-old cassette of…
• “That's a beautiful baby” on the Tube — On a depressing London Underground ride where nobody looks at anyone, Ajahn Brahm tells a young…
• The 'fearless' monk on the burning bus — During a spate of deadly bus fires in north-east Thailand, someone on Ajahn Brahm's bus shouts…
• The 2012 doomsday bet — When people in Indonesia worry about the world ending in 2012, Ajahn Brahm offers to bet his…
• The 86-year-old who pleaded guilty — Two old men meet in the park for lunch every day. The 86-year-old disappears for a month; when he…
• The abbot who forecast the winter — In a mountain monastery in Ladakh, a newly elected abbot, a poor meditator, is asked whether the…
• The actuary they called “Flash” — Visiting England, Ajahn Brahm meets a Cambridge friend he hasn't seen for 40 years — now a highly…
• The ATM that gave twenty euros — A former monastery postulant studying in Germany adopts a campus ATM that 'gurgled' at him, sends…
• The Australian anjali — At an international bhikkhuni conference, fed up with endless photos with palms joined, Ajahn…
• The baby washed in wall acid — Building Bodhinyana's kitchen, Ajahn Brahm spends a morning acid-washing the brickwork. At lunch…
• The bank robber who sat down to wait — True-story newspaper item: after robbing a bank the man sits in the foyer and waits to be arrested…
• The bat-cave papaya — As a young monk Ajahn Brahm spent about six months meditating in a cave full of bats; to this day…
• The BBC cricket commentary blooper — Ajahn Brahm recalls the famous BBC Test Match Special blooper when, introducing an over with a…
• The bear attack and the sapling in her head — A nun, before ordaining, is meditating outside a Himalayan cave when a bear clamps its jaws on her…
• The benefits of dying at 30,000 feet — Ajahn Brahm lists the 'benefits' of dying in an aircraft explosion: instant painless death,…
• The Biggest Loser — Challenging the slur 'loser', Ajahn Brahm lists what he lost becoming a monk — money, girlfriends,…
• The bikie and the girl on the bridge — A bikie gang, wanting good publicity, sees a crowd: a girl is about to jump off a bridge. One…
• The blind elephants who felt a man — At a leadership conference on Hayman Island with Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and others, Ajahn Brahm…
• The bodhisattva at the bottom of the class — As a schoolteacher, Ajahn Brahm hands out report cards; a 12- or 13-year-old reads “30th of 30”…
• The bomb threat that saved the interfaith service — For years Ajahn Brahm chants at the rather dull Commonwealth Day interfaith service in St George's…
• The bottle ghost — Told in Asia, where people fear ghosts: the most dangerous ghost in the world, one he has seen…
• The brochure that opened the till — Old-fashioned hardware counter; given a laminex brochure to choose colours; sets it on the…
• The Buddhist fly went round three times — Teaching on camera about leaving blowflies alone, one lands on his nose and circles the mouth…
• The carrot who'll be a vegetable — Two carrots walk down St George's Terrace when a drunk driver mounts the pavement and hits one.…
• The cats and the building sand — Bodhinyana is covered in gravel, so the monastery's cats treat any pile of sand as a luxury loo,…
• The celibate monk at the Gay Pride breakfast — When the Sunday Telegraph quotes the Dalai Lama as saying you can't be both Buddhist and gay,…
• The channelled spirit at the roulette table — A man channels a powerful being who gives him lots of advice; what he really wants is cash. “Go to…
• The chanting worked too well — Invited to chant for a dying Chinese man in Royal Perth Hospital's ICU, Ajahn Brahm chants his…
• The cheap haunted London townhouse — Friend buys a London townhouse cheap because the agent admits it is haunted; first night midnight…
• The CIA, the FBI, the LAPD and the rabbit — Testing his agencies, the President releases a rabbit in a forest: the CIA reports there is no…
• The cockroach insurance claim — At the Serpentine retreat centre the air conditioning fails: a cockroach has crawled into the…
• The coffin stuck halfway down — At a Chinese disciple's burial the ornate knobs on the coffin catch on the way down the grave; it…
• The coffin that chased him home — Man flees a cemetery thinking he is safe; the coffin bumps after him; he jumps his front gate —…
• The cold that vanished mid-talk — On his first visit to Canberra, his hosts take Ajahn Brahm everywhere all day in the cold, getting…
• The Colombia coach brought her World Cup team — The head coach of Colombia's women's soccer team, in Perth for the Women's World Cup, came to a…
• The corpse in the elevator — Funeral directors collecting a body from a top-floor old apartment find the gurney will not fit…
• The cult-buster who ran from the Buddha statue — In the early North Perth centre, Western Australia's chief 'cult buster' comes to check the…
• The day I peed on a snake — After meditating all night in a Thai forest monastery, the tired young monk goes into the bush at…
• The dead dog and the cat scan — Owner brings a dog to the vet insisting it is alive; the vet uses a live cat as a diagnostic…
• The deathbed confession — A dying husband confesses to his devoted wife that he hasn't always been a good husband — there…
• The deliberate mistake on the blackboard — School maths teacher, caught in an error on the blackboard, claims he put it there on purpose to…
• The dentist lost the tooth relic — His dentist Jake kept an extracted cracked tooth as a possible relic to auction for the nuns'…
• The diamond necklace deal — A man buys his wife a very expensive diamond necklace; she never talks to him for six months.…
• The dog, the lion and the monkey — A dog wanders too far into an African forest and a lion decides to eat him. The dog finds some…
• The donkey in the well — A farmer tries to bury a donkey that fell into a dry well; with every shovelful of dirt, the…
• The door prize — Imagine tonight's door prize is a first-class trip to Dharamsala for a private lunch with the…
• The drunk driver who drove home the police car — After the office Christmas party a Sydney man, well over the limit, risks driving home and is…
• The duck that tried to nest in his afro — Young Brahm with a big curly Hendrix-style afro lies down in a London park; something tugs his…
• The Eskimo in the desert — A man dying of thirst in the desert meets a real Eskimo with sled and huskies, and gasps with…
• The fan at the restaurant window — Having a quiet sponsored lunch in a little restaurant in Kennedy Town, Hong Kong, Ajahn Brahm sees…
• The fifth child wished to need no more wishes — Five children play the wishing game. First wants a Big Mac; second a McDonald's restaurant; third…
• The forest monk chased by the tiger — Ajahn Dhammindu (caption: Mark Edge and Drew) tells of a wandering Thai forest monk who insists on…
• The fortune tellers looked so poor — In Hong Kong Ajahn Brahm was taken to a street of fortune tellers who looked ill-dressed and out…
• The fourth priest's confession — Four religious leaders, old friends, sit on a bench after a conference and confess their secret…
• The general's holy water — At a time when generals were the power behind the Thai government, a major general comes to Ajahn…
• The ghost at the end of the cave — On Vesak day at a cave monastery in the north of Thailand, Ajahn Brahm slips away from the abbot's…
• The ghost that moved next door — Near Dr K. Sri Dhammananda's temple in Kuala Lumpur a haunted house is cleared by his chanting —…
• The ghost who kept playing practical jokes — A Scottish man's mate promises that after death he will still play practical jokes; in the English…
• The ghost who wanted the remote — A Perth family told Ajahn Brahm that while they watched TV the channel kept changing by itself;…
• The glasses on top of his nose — Halfway down Kingsbury Drive on the way to a Friday talk, Ajahn Brahm tells his driver to turn…
• The Grax gravy monk who levitated — Old Aussie TV gravy ad: line of Theravāda-looking monks; abbot (dead ringer for Ajahn Jagaro)…
• The grumpy licence — On a meditation retreat a woman complains that everyone else is happy and she feels pressured to…
• The guard who fell asleep — Teaching meditation in a high-security prison at Canning Vale, Ajahn Brahm must have a prison…
• The gypsy's curse — Visiting his mother in London, Ajahn Brahm answers the door at mealtime to a woman selling 'lucky'…
• The half-million-dollar bulletproof amulet — From a Thai newspaper: an army general in Bangkok paid half a million US dollars for an amulet…
• The Happiness Certificate — For people who feel they don't deserve happiness he makes a certificate on monastery letterhead:…
• The happiness licence — Some years ago a person whose life was going well came to Ajahn Brahm feeling guilty about being…
• The head on the morgue windowsill — Because a Buddhist monk is not stopped in Thailand, Ajahn Brahm was able to walk into the autopsy…
• The hearse in the carpool lane — Stopped by police for driving a hearse alone in a two-or-more lane in New York or San Francisco, a…
• The heretics' pew — Ajahn Brahm, Abbot Placid of New Norcia, and a Uniting Church moderator sit together at St…
• The hermit of the Nullarbor — Ajahn Brahm's monk's fantasy: living as a hermit in a deep Nullarbor cave with water beneath. Then…
• The hole is too deep — or your arms too short? — Man can't reach forest-hole treasure; complains the hole is too deep. Second man uses a stick:…
• The husband's photo in her handbag — Married 30 or 40 years, a woman always carries her husband's photo in her handbag. Whenever life…
• The hypnotist monk's donation box — A new monk can't pay his temple's bills. A senior monk advises: close the doors, turn up the heat,…
• The irresistible tobacco — At Cambridge, a TV advert claims the aroma of St Bruno pipe tobacco is irresistible to women: an…
• The jarrah boat coffin that stuck halfway — A white-water rafter's family make his coffin as a boat with paddles — out of jarrah, so heavy ten…
• The jealous husband's astral visits — A Burmese man working on air-conditioning contracts in Darwin, deeply in love with — and very…
• The Jimi Hendrix museum was shut — Jimi Hendrix was Ajahn Brahm's teenage idol; he even had the haircut. Giving talks in Seattle with…