The container and the content

I've been digging through my old books to search for a particular story from Ajahn Brahmavamso, the Abbot of the Bodhinyana Monastery in Western Australia. He has a big following worldwide due to his wisdom. He's also a regular visitor to our shores and at the end of the year, he is likely to be in Kuala Lumpur and Penang for short visits. Ajahn Brahm is also a prolific author of books in which he give insights into Buddhism in his own humorous way. The book I was trying to locate was this one titled Good? Bad? Who Knows? which was a sequel to his earlier book, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung? 

In the past, I had reproduced a few interesting stories from Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung? in several of my earlier blog posts here but never from Good? Bad? Who Knows? However with this socks incident still impacting the minds of small people everywhere, I shall now reproduce the very first of Ajahn Brahm's stories from this book. Here it is:

The Container And The Content 

A local journalist called and asked me, "What would you do, Ajahn Brahm, if someone took a Buddhist Holy book and flushed it down your toilet?"

Without hesitation I answered, "Sir, if someone took a Buddhist Holy book and flushed it down my toilet, the first thing I would do is to cal1 a plumber!"

When the journalist finished laughing, he confided in me that that was the first sensible answer that he had received.

Then I went further. I explained that someone may blow up many statues of the Buddha, burn down Buddhist temples or kill Buddhist monks and nuns; they may destroy all this but I witl never allow them to destroy Buddhism. You may flush a Holy Book down a toilet, but I will never let you flush forgiveness, peace and compassion down the toilet.

The Book is not the religion, nor is the statue, the building or the priest. These are only the 'containers'.

What does the book teach us? What does the statue represent? What qualities are the priests supposed to embody? This is the 'content'.

When we recognise the difference between the container and the contents, then we will preserve the contents even when the container is being destroyed.

We can print more books, build more temples and statues, and even train more monks and nuns, but when we lose our love and respect for others and ourselves and replace it with violence, then the whole religion has gone down the toilet.

Note: Good? Bad? Who Knows? was published in 2013. A year later, the contents were expanded to include several other new short stories and the revised book was published as Don't Worry, Be Grumpy. This same story, The Container and the Content, was given an expanded introduction:

There were riots in the streets some years ago after a guard at Guantanamo Bay was accused of taking a holy book and flushing it down the toilet. The next day, I took a call from a local journalist who told me he was writing an article about the outrage by asking leaders of all the major religions in Australia the same question he was about to ask me. “What would you do, Ajahn Brahm, if someone took a Buddhist holy book and flushed it down your toilet?”