Wholehearted Training

The Dhamma caused such feelings to fill my heart. I didn't know who to talk to about it. I was awake and whatever situations I met, I was awake and alert. It means I had some knowledge of Dhamma. My mind was illumined and I realized many things. I experienced bliss, a real satisfaction and delight in my way of life.

To put it simply, I felt I was different from others. I was a fully grown, normal man, but I could live in the forest like this. I didn't have any regrets or see any loss in it. When I saw others having families, I thought that was truly regrettable. I looked around and thought, how many people can live like this? I came to have real faith and trust in the path of practice I had chosen and this faith has supported me right up to the present.

In the early days of Wat Pah Pong, I had four or five monks living here with me. We experienced a lot of difficulties. From what I can see now, most of us Buddhists are pretty deficient in our practice. These days, when you walk into a monastery you only see the kutis (monks' dwellings), the temple hall, the monastery grounds and the monks. But as to what is really the heart of the Buddha's way (Buddhasāsanā), you won't find that. I've spoken about this often; it's a cause for sadness.

In the past I had one Dhamma companion who became more interested in study than in practice. He pursued the Pali and abhidhamma studies, going to live in Bangkok after a while, and last year he finally completed his studies and received a certificate and titles commensurate with his learning. So now he has a brand name. Here, I don't have any brand name. I studied outside the models, contemplating things and practicing, thinking and practicing. So I didn't get the brand label like the others. In this monastery we had ordinary monks, people who didn't have a lot of learning but who were determined to practice.

I originally came to this place at the invitation of my mother. She was the one who had cared for me and supported me since my birth, but I hadn't yet gotten an opportunity to repay her kindness, so I thought this would be the way to do that, coming here to Wat Pah Pong. I had some connection with this place. When I was a child, I remember hearing my father say that Ajahn Sao¹ came to stay here. My father went to hear the Dhamma from him. I was a child, but the memory stayed with me; it stuck in my mind always.

My father was never ordained, but he told me how he went to pay respects to this meditation monk. It was the first time he saw a monk eating out of his bowl, putting everything together in the one almsbowl - rice, curry, sweet, fish, everything. He'd never seen such a thing, and it made him wonder what kind of monk this might be. He told me about this when I was a little child; that was a meditation monk.

Then he told me about getting Dhamma teachings from Ajahn Sao. It wasn't the ordinary way of teaching; he just spoke what was on his mind. That was the practice monk who came to stay here once. So when I went off to practice myself, I always retained some special feeling about this. When I would think back to my home village, I always thought about this forest. Then, when the time came to return to this area, I came to stay here.

I invited one high-ranking monk from Piboon district to come stay here too. But he said he couldn't. He came for a while and said, ''This is not my place.'' He told this to the local people. Another Ajahn came to stay here for a while and left. But I remained.

In those days this forest was really remote. It was far from everything and living here was very hard. There were mango trees the villagers had planted here and the fruit often ripened and went bad. Yams were growing here too and they would just rot on the ground. But I wouldn't dare to take any of it. The forest was really dense. When you arrived here with your bowl, there wouldn't be any place to put it down. I had to ask the villagers to clear some spaces in the forest. It was a forest that people didn't dare enter - they were very afraid of this place.

Nobody really knew what I was doing here. People didn't understand the life of a meditation monk. I stayed here like this for a couple of years and then the first few monk disciples followed me here.

We lived very simply and quietly in those days. We got sick with malaria, all of us nearly dying. But we never went to a hospital. We already had our safe refuge, relying on the spiritual power of the Lord Buddha and his teachings. At night it would be completely silent. Nobody ever came in here. The only sound you heard was the sound of the insects. The kutis were far apart in the forest.

One night, about nine o'clock, I heard someone walking out of the forest. One monk was extremely ill with fever and was afraid he would die. He didn't want to die alone in the forest. I said, ''That's good. Let's try to find someone who isn't ill to watch the one who is; how can one sick person take care of another?'' That was about it. We didn't have medicine.

We had borapet (an extremely bitter medicinal vine). We boiled it to drink. When we talked about ''preparing a hot drink'' in the afternoon, we didn't have to think much about it; it only meant borapet. Everyone had fever and everyone drank borapet. We didn't have anything else and we didn't request anything of anyone. If any monks got really sick, I told them, ''Don't be afraid. Don't worry. If you die, I'll cremate you myself. I'll cremate you right here in the monastery. You won't need to go anywhere else.'' This is how I dealt with it. Speaking like this gave them strength of mind. There was a lot of fear to deal with.

Footnotes

... Sao¹

A highly respected monk of the forest tradition, considered to be an arahant and a teacher of Ajahn Mun.