In the Dead of Night...¹

That I had endured such suffering and sat through the rain like this... who was there to experience it with me? Only I could know what it was like. There was so much fear and yet the fear disappeared. Who else could witness this? The people in their homes in the town couldn't know what it was like, only I could see it. It was a personal experience. Even if I were to tell others they wouldn't really know, it was something for each individual to experience for himself. The more I contemplated this the clearer it became. I became stronger and stronger, my conviction become firmer and firmer, until daybreak.

When I opened my eyes at dawn, everything was yellow. I had been wanting to urinate during the night but the feeling had eventually stopped. When I got up from my sitting in the morning everywhere I looked was yellow, just like the early morning sunlight on some days. When I went to urinate there was blood in the urine!

''Eh? Is my gut torn or something?'' I got a bit of fright... ''Maybe it's really torn inside there.''

''Well, so what? If it's torn it's torn, who is there to blame?'' a voice told me straight away. ''If it's torn it's torn, if I die I die. I was only sitting here, I wasn't doing any harm. If it's going to burst, let it burst,'' the voice said.

My mind was as if arguing or fighting with itself. One voice would come from one side, saying, ''Hey, this is dangerous!'' Another voice would counter it, challenge it and over-rule it.

My urine was stained with blood.

''Hmm. Where am I going to find medicine?''

''I'm not going to bother with that stuff. A monk can't cut plants for medicine anyway. If I die, I die, so what? What else is there to do? If I die while practicing like this then I'm ready. If I were to die doing something bad that's no good, but to die practicing like this I'm prepared.''

Don't follow your moods. Train yourself. The practice involves putting your very life at stake. You must have cried at least two or three times. That's right, that's the practice. If you're sleepy and want to lie down then don't let it sleep. Make the sleepiness go away before you lie down. But look at you all, you don't know how to practice.

Sometimes, when you come back from almsround and you're contemplating the food before eating, you can't settle down, your mind is like a mad dog. The saliva flows, you're so hungry. Sometimes you may not even bother to contemplate, you just dig in. That's a disaster. If the mind won't calm down and be patient then just push your bowl away and don't eat. Train yourself, drill yourself, that's practice. Don't just keep on following your mind. Push your bowl away, get up and leave, don't allow yourself to eat. If it really wants to eat so much and acts so stubborn then don't let it eat. The saliva will stop flowing. If the defilements know that they won't get anything to eat they'll get scared. They won't dare bother you next day, they'll be afraid they won't get anything to eat. Try it out if you don't believe me.

People don't trust the practice, they don't dare to really do it. They're afraid they'll go hungry, afraid they'll die. If you don't try it out you won't know what it's about. Most of us don't dare to do it, don't dare to try it out, we're afraid.

When it comes to eating and the like I've suffered over them for a long time now so I know what they're about. And that's only a minor thing as well. So this practice is not something one can study easily.

Consider: What is the most important thing of all? There's nothing else, just death. Death is the most important thing in the world. Consider, practice, inquire.... If you don't have clothing you won't die. If you don't have betel nut to chew or cigarettes to smoke you still won't die. But if you don't have rice or water, then you will die. I see only these two things as being essential in this world. You need rice and water to nourish the body. So I wasn't interested in anything else, I just contented myself with whatever was offered. As long as I had rice and water it was enough to practice with, I was content.

Is that enough for you? All those other things are extras, whether you get them or not doesn't matter, the only really important things are rice and water.

''If I live like this can I survive?'' I asked myself. ''There's enough to get by on all right. I can probably get at least rice on almsround in just about any village, a mouthful from each house. Water is usually available. Just these two are enough....'' I didn't aim to be particularly rich.

Footnotes

...¹

Given on a lunar observance night (uposatha), at Wat Pah Pong, in the late 1960s

...glot²

Glot - the Thai forest-dwelling monks' large umbrella from which, suspended from a tree, they hang a mosquito net in which to stay while in the forest.

... time³

The body on the first night had been that of a child.

...viūhi⁴

The last line of the traditional Pāli lines listing the qualities of the Dhamma.

... ordination⁵

Mahānikai and Dhammayuttika are the two sects of the Theravāda Sangha in Thailand.

... handle⁶

A Thai expression meaning, ''Don't overdo it.''

...dhutanga⁷

Thirteen practices allowed by the Buddha over and above the general disciplinary code, for those who wish to practice more ascetically.

... sankhārā....''⁸

Part of a Pāli verse, traditionally recited at funeral ceremonies. The meaning of the full verse if, ''Alas, transient are all compounded things / Having arisen, they cease / Being born, they die / The cessation of all compounding is true happiness.''