Oh Pooh!

During a teaching trip to North America, Ajahn Brahm taught the following inspiration metaphor;

“When you step in some dog pooh, don’t get annoyed and wipe it off your shoes.  Smile instead and take it back home.  There you can scrape off the dog pooh under the apple tree in your garden.  Next year, those apples will be more plentiful, juicy and sweet, than ever before.  But you must remember that when you bite into that succulent apple, what you are really eating is that dog pooh!  Only now it has been transformed into juicy, sweet apple.

Similarly, when you experience any of the crises of life, it is like stepping in to the dog pooh.  But instead of getting angry, bitter or depressed, take it home with you and dig it into your heart.  Soon you will be wiser and more compassionate.  But remember, what is all that juicy wisdom and sweet love?  It is just the dog pooh of life transformed.”

A couple of hours after delivering that awesome piece of advice, at the rest stop during a car journey, I happened to step in to some real dog pooh.  My driver who had just heard the brilliant metaphor refused to let me back in to his vehicle until I had scraped every bit of the dog pooh off both of my sandals.  He literally pooh – poohed my dog pooh simile.  That’ s the problem with many people these days.  They live in apartments separated from nature with no garden to transform the pooh in to fruits.

By Most Ven. Ajahn Brahm!

The apartment you already created is the knowledge of Dhamma based on data. And you refuse to absorb the meaning which you never knew through purest Dhamma.  Most of the people fails most of the time to capture the pooh transformation which is out of the apartment… which is nature… This wonderful story is delivering a powerful wisdom message which is bit difficult to explain and understand for people who are not ready to see the hidden eternal truth of pooh transformation.  Hope YOU are not among them!  Have a blessed time and let’s talk about another pooh story in another time!