THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF PHRA AJAAN LEE
                                          
                                          
                                          
                                 PART I
  
  
  
  I  was born at nine in the evening on Thursday, the  31st of January, 
  1907 -- the second day of the waning moon, the second lunar month, the 
  year of the Horse -- in Baan Nawng Sawng Hawng (DoubleMarsh Village), 
  Yaang Yo Phaab township, Muang Saam Sib district, Ubon Ratchathani 
  province.  This was a village of about 80 houses, divided into three 
  clusters: the Little Village, the Inner Village and the Outer Village.  
  In the Outer Village was a temple; that was the village in which I was 
  born. Between the villages were three ponds, and surrounding the 
  villages on all sides were scores of giant rubber trees. To the north 
  were the ruins of an ancient town with two abandoned Buddhist 
  sanctuaries. The spirits there were said to be so fierce that they 
  sometimes possessed people, causing them to go live in the spirit 
  shrines.  From the looks of the ruins, I'd say they were built by the 
  Khmers.
    
    My original name was Chaalee.  My parents were Pao and Phuay 
  Nariwong; my grandparents on my father's side were named Janthaari and 
  Sida; and on my mother's side, Nantasen and Dee.  I had five brothers 
  and four sisters.  About nine days after I was born, I became such a 
  nuisance -- crying all the time -- that my father left home for a good 
  while.  Three days after my mother left the fire [*], I developed a 
  swelling on my head, and couldn't eat or sleep for several days 
  running.  I was an extremely difficult child to raise.  Nothing my 
  mother or father could do ever seemed to satisfy me.
    
      * [A traditional custom in Thailand was for a woman to lie by a 
      fire after giving birth, for any number of days up to a month.  
      In simpler households this meant little more than that:  lying 
      next to a fire that was kept burning day and night.  In more 
      elaborate households, it involved herbal steam baths and 
      massages as a way of restoring the woman to health.]
    
    
    My mother died when I was eleven, leaving my father, myself and a 
  little sister whom I had to care for.  My other brothers and sisters 
  by that time had all grown up and gone off to find work, so there were 
  just the three of us at home.  Both my sister and I had to help my 
  father in the rice fields.
    
    When I was twelve I started school.  I learned enough to read and 
  write, but failed the elementary exams, which didn't bother me in the 
  least, but I kept on studying anyway.  At 17, I left school, my main 
  aim in life being to earn money. 
    
    During this period my father and I seemed always to be at odds with 
  each other.  He wanted me to start trading in things that seemed wrong 
  to me, like pigs and cattle.  Sometimes, when it came time to make 
  merit at the temple, he'd stand in my way and send me out to work in 
  the fields instead.  There were days I'd get so upset that I'd end up 
  sitting out alone in the middle of the fields, crying.  There was one 
  thought in my mind:  I swore to myself that I wasn't going to stay on 
  in this village -- so I would only have to put up with things just a 
  little bit longer.
    
    After a while my father remarried, to a woman named Mae Thip.  Life 
  at home became a little more bearable after that.
    
    When I was 18 I set out to find my elder brother, who had found work 
  in Nong Saeng, Saraburi province.  News had reached home that he had a 
  salaried job with the Irrigation Department, which was in the process 
  of building a watergate.  So in October of that year I moved in with 
  my brother.  Before long, though, we had a falling out, because I 
  happened to mention one day that he ought to make a visit back home.  
  He was dead set against going, so I left on my own, heading south, 
  looking for work.  At the time, I felt that money ranked in importance 
  next to life itself.  Although physically I had now come of age, I 
  still thought of myself as a child.  When friends would ask me to join 
  them in going out to look for women, I wouldn't be the least bit 
  interested, because I felt that marriage was for grownups, not for 
  kids like us. 
    
    From what I had seen of life, I had made two resolutions that I kept 
  to myself:
  
    1) I won't marry until I'm at least 30.
    
    2) I won't marry unless I have at least 500 baht to my name.
  
    I was determined that I'd have both the money and the ability to 
  support at least three other people before I'd be willing to get 
  involved with a woman.
    
    But there was yet another reason for my aversion to the idea of 
  marriage:  During my childhood, at the age when I was just beginning 
  to know what was what, if I saw a woman pregnant to the point where 
  she was close to giving birth, it would fill me with feelings of fear 
  and disgust.  This was because the custom in those parts when a woman 
  was going to give birth was to take a rope and tie one end to a 
  rafter.  The woman, kneeling down, would hang on to the other end of 
  the rope and give birth.  Some women would scream and moan, their 
  faces and bodies all twisted in pain.  Whenever I happened to see 
  this, I'd have to run away with my hands over my ears and eyes, and I 
  wouldn't be able to sleep, out of both fear and disgust.  This made a 
  deep impression on me that lasted for a long time.
    
    When I was around 19 or 20, I began to have some notion of good and 
  evil, but it wasn't in me to do evil.  Up to that point I had never 
  killed a large animal, except one -- a dog.  And I can remember how it 
  happened.  One day when I was eating, I took an egg and put it in the 
  ashes of the fire.  The dog came along, found the egg and ate it -- so 
  I jumped up, grabbed a club and beat it to death on the spot.  
  Immediately, I was sorry for what I had done.  "How on earth can I 
  make up for this sin?" I thought.  So I found an old book with a chant 
  for sharing merit that I memorized.  I then went and worshipped the 
  Buddha, dedicating the merit to the dead dog.  This made me feel 
  better, but my whole train of thought at that time was that I wanted 
  to be ordained.
    
    In 1925, when I was 20, my stepmother died.  At the time, I was 
  living with relatives in Bang Len district, Nakhorn Pathom province, 
  so towards the end of February I returned home to my father and asked 
  him to sponsor my ordination.  I arrived with about 160 baht in my 
  pockets.  Soon after my arrival my elder brothers, sisters, 
  brothers-in-law, etc., flocked around to see me -- and to borrow 
  money:  to buy water buffaloes, to buy land, to use in trading.  I 
  gave them all they asked for, since I was planning to be ordained.  So 
  in the end, out of my original 160 baht, I was left with 40.
    
    When ordination season arrived, my father made all the necessary 
  arrangements.  I was ordained on the full moon day of the sixth lunar 
  month -- Visakha Puja.  Altogether, there were nine of us ordained 
  that day.  Of this number, some have since died, some have disrobed, 
  leaving only two of us still in the monkhood -- myself and a friend.
    
    After my ordination I memorized chants and studied the Dhamma and 
  monastic discipline.  Comparing what I was studying with the life I 
  and the monks around me were leading made me feel ill at ease, because 
  instead of observing the duties of the contemplative life, we were out 
  to have a good time: playing chess, wrestling, playing match games 
  with girls whenever there was a wake, raising birds, holding cock 
  fights, sometimes even eating food in the evenings. [*]  Speaking of 
  food in the evenings, even I, living in this sort of society, joined 
  in -- as far as I can remember -- three times:
  
      * [Monks are not allowed to eat food during the period from noon 
      until dawn of the following day.  There are several reasons for 
      this rule, one of them being that it helps keep the monks from 
      being burdensome to their supporters.]
      
  
    1) One day I felt hungry, so in the middle of the night I got hold 
  of the rice placed as an offering on the altar and ate it.
    
    2) Another time I was invited to help deliver the Mahachaad sermon 
  [*] at Wat Noan Daeng in Phai Yai (BigBamboo) township.  It so 
  happened that my turn to read the sermon came at 11 a.m.  By the time 
  I had finished, it was after noon, so it was too late to eat.  On the 
  way home I was accompanied by a temple boy carrying some rice and 
  grilled fish in his shoulder bag.  A little after 1 p.m., feeling 
  really tired and hungry, I told the boy to show me what was in his 
  bag.  Seeing the food, I couldn't resist sitting right down and 
  finishing it off under the shade of a tree.  I then returned home to 
  the temple.
      
      * [A major event in rural Thai villages at the end of the rains 
      was to have monks deliver the Mahachaad, or "Great Birth" 
      sermon, a narration of the Buddha's next-to-last life as Prince 
      Vessantara, telling of the hardships he endured in living by the 
      principle of generosity and of the rewards he ultimately won by 
      being true to this principle.  The recitation of this sermon 
      lasted an entire day, and was given in thirteen installments.  
      There are a few places where this tradition is still observed, 
      but it is fast dying out.]
    
    
    3) One day I went into the forest to help drag wood back to the 
  temple for building a meeting hall.  That night I felt hungry, so I 
  had a meal.
  
    I wasn't the only person doing this sort of thing.  My friends were 
  doing it all the time, but were always careful to cover it up.
    
    During this period the thing I hated most was to be invited to chant 
  at a funeral.  When I was younger I would never eat in a house where a 
  person had just died.  Even if someone living in the same house with 
  me went to help with a funeral, I'd keep an eye out, after he 
  returned, to see from which basket he'd eat rice and from which dipper 
  he'd drink water.  I wouldn't say anything, but I'd be careful not to 
  eat from that basket or drink from that dipper.  Even after I was 
  ordained, this habit stayed with me.  I was 19 before I ever set foot 
  in a cemetery.  Even when relatives died -- even when my own mother 
  died -- I'd refuse to go to the cremation.
    
    One day, after having been ordained a fair while, I heard people 
  crying and moaning in the village:  Someone had died.  Before long I 
  caught sight of a man carrying a bowl of flowers, incense and candles, 
  coming to the temple to invite monks to chant at the dead person's 
  place.  As soon as he entered the abbot's quarters, I ran off in the 
  opposite direction, followed by some of the newly ordained monks.  
  When we reached the mango grove, we split up and climbed the trees -- 
  and there we sat, perched one to a tree, absolutely still.  It wasn't 
  long before the abbot went looking for us, but he couldn't find us.  I 
  could hear him losing his temper in his quarters.  There was one thing 
  I was afraid of, though:  the slingshot he kept to chase bats from the 
  trees.  In the end, he had a novice come look for us, and when the 
  novice found us, we all had to come down.
    
    This is the way things went for two years.  Whenever I looked into 
  the books on monastic discipline, I'd start feeling really uneasy.  I 
  told myself, "If you don't want to leave the monkhood, you're going to 
  have to leave this temple."  At the beginning of my second rains 
  retreat, I made a vow:  "At present I still sincerely want to practice 
  the Buddha's teachings.  Within the next three months, may I meet a 
  teacher who practices them truly and rightly."
    
    In the beginning of November I went to help preach the Mahachaad 
  sermon at Wat Baan Noan Rang Yai in Yaang Yo Phaab township.  When I 
  arrived, a meditation monk happened to be on the sermon seat.  I was 
  really taken by the way he spoke, so I asked some laypeople who he was 
  and where he came from.  They told me, "That's Ajaan Bot, a student of 
  Ajaan Mun."  He was staying about a kilometer from the village, in a 
  forest of giant rubber trees, so at the end of the Mahachaad fair I 
  went to see him.  What I saw -- his way of life, the manner in which 
  he conducted himself -- really pleased me.  I asked him who his 
  teachers were, and he answered, "Phra Ajaan Mun and Phra Ajaan Sao.  
  At the moment, Ajaan Mun has come down from Sakon Nakhorn and is 
  staying at Wat Burapha in the city of Ubon."
    
    Learning this, I hurried home to my temple, thinking all the way, 
  "This must be what I've been waiting for."  A few days later I went to 
  take leave of my father and preceptor.  At first they did all they 
  could to dissuade me from going, but as I told my father, I had 
  already made up my mind.  "I have to leave this village," I told him.  
  "Whether I leave as a monk or a layman, I've still got to leave.  My 
  father and preceptor have no rights over me.  The minute they start 
  infringing on my rights is the minute I get up and go."
    
    And in the end they let me go.
    
    So at one in the afternoon, on a day in early December, I set out, 
  carrying my necessary belongings, alone.  My father accompanied me as 
  far as the middle of a field.  There, when we had said our goodbyes, 
  we parted ways. 
    
    That day I walked, passing the town of Muang Saam Sib, all the way 
  to Ubon.  On my arrival, I was told that Ajaan Mun was staying at the 
  village of Kut Laad, a little over ten kilometers outside the city.  
  Again, I set out on foot to find him.  It so happened that Phra 
  Barikhut, a former District Official in Muang Saam Sib who had been 
  dismissed from government service and was moving his family, drove 
  past me in his truck.  Seeing me walking alone on the side of the 
  road, he stopped and offered me a ride all the way to the Ubon 
  airport, the turnoff to Kut Laad.  Even today I think of how kind he 
  was to me, a total stranger.
    
    At about five in the evening I reached the forest monastery at Kut 
  Laad, where I learned that Ajaan Mun had just returned to Wat Burapha.  
  So the next morning, after breakfast, I walked back to Ubon.  There I 
  paid my respects to Ajaan Mun and told him my purpose in seeking him 
  out.  The advice and assistance he gave me were just what I was 
  looking for.  He taught me a single word -- //buddho// -- to meditate 
  on.  It so happened that he was ill at the time, so he sent me to Baan 
  Thaa Wang Hin (StonePalace Landing), a very quiet and secluded area 
  where Phra Ajaan Singh and Phra MahaPin were staying along with about 
  40 other monks and novices.  While there, I went to listen to their 
  sermons every night, which gave rise to two feelings within me:  When 
  I thought of my past, I'd feel ill at ease; when I thought of the new 
  things I was learning and experiencing, I'd feel at peace.  These two 
  feelings were always with me.
    
    I became friends with two other monks with whom I stayed, ate, 
  meditated and discussed my experiences:  Ajaan Kongma and Ajaan Saam.  
  I kept at my meditation all hours of the day and night.  After a while 
  I talked Ajaan Kongma into going off and wandering together.  We went 
  from village to village, staying in the ancestral shrines, until we 
  reached my home village.  I wanted to let my father know the good 
  news:  that I had met Ajaan Mun, that this was the life I was looking 
  for, and that I had no intention of ever returning to live out my life 
  there at home.  I had once told myself, "You've been born a person:  
  You'll have to work your way up to be better than other people.  
  You've been ordained a monk:  You'll have to try to be better than the 
  monks you've known."  Now it seemed that my hopes were being 
  fulfilled.  This is why I went home to tell my father:  "I've come to 
  say goodbye.  I'm going for good.  All my belongings I'm handing over 
  to you.  And I'm never going to lay claims on anything of yours."  
  Although I hadn't made a firm decision never to disrobe, I //had// 
  decided never to let myself be poor.
    
    As soon as my aunt heard the news, she came to argue with me:  
  "Don't you think you're going a little too far?"  So I answered her, 
  "Look, if I ever disrobe and come back to beg food from you, you have 
  my permission to call me a dog."
    
    Now that I had made a firm decision, I told my father, "Don't worry 
  about me. Whether I stay a monk or disrobe, I'll always be satisfied 
  with the treasures you've already given me:  two eyes, two ears, a 
  nose, a mouth, all the 32 parts of the body.  It's an important 
  inheritance.  Nothing else you could give me could ever leave me 
  satisfied."
    
    After that, I said goodbye and set out for the city of Ubon.  
  Reaching Wang Tham (CavePalace) Village, though, I found Ajaan Mun 
  staying in the forest there, so I joined him, staying under his 
  guidance for quite a few days.
    
    This was when I decided to re-ordain, this time in the Dhammayutika 
  sect (the sect to which Ajaan Mun belonged),  in order to make a clean 
  break with my past wrongdoings.  When I consulted Ajaan Mun, he agreed 
  to the idea, and so had me practice my part in the ordination 
  ceremony.  When I had it down pat, he set out -- with me following -- 
  wandering from district to district.
    
    I became extremely devoted to Ajaan Mun, because there were many 
  things about him that had me amazed.  For instance, there were times 
  when I would have been thinking about something, without ever 
  mentioning it to him, and yet he'd bring up the topic and seem to know 
  exactly what my thoughts had been.  Each time this happened, my 
  respect and devotion towards him deepened.  I practiced meditation 
  constantly, free from many of the worries that had plagued me in the 
  past.
    
    After I had stayed under Ajaan Mun's guidance for four months, he 
  set the date for my reordination at Wat Burapha in the city of Ubon, 
  with Phra Pannabhisara Thera (Nuu) of Wat Sra Pathum (LotusPond 
  Temple), Bangkok, as my preceptor; Phra Ajaan Pheng of Wat Tai, Ubon, 
  as the Announcing Teacher; and Ajaan Mun himself as the Instructing 
  Teacher, who gave me the preliminary ordination as a novice.  I was 
  reordained on May 27, 1927, and the following day began to observe 
  strictly the ascetic practice of eating only one meal a day.  After 
  spending one night at Wat Burapha, I returned to the forest at 
  StonePalace Landing.
    
    When Ajaan Mun and Phra Pannabhisara Thera returned to Bangkok to 
  spend the Rains Retreat at Wat Sra Pathum, they left me under the 
  guidance of Ajaan Singh and Ajaan MahaPin.  During this period I 
  followed Ajaan Singh and Ajaan MahaPin on their wanderings through the 
  countryside.  They had been asked by Phraya Trang, the Prince of Ubon, 
  to teach morality and meditation to the people of the rural areas.  
  When the time came to enter the Rains Retreat, we stopped at OxHead 
  Village Monastery in Yasothon district.  It so happened that Somdet 
  Phra Mahawirawong, the ecclesiastical head of the Northeast, called 
  Ajaan MahaPin back to the city of Ubon, so in the end only six of us 
  spent the rainy season together in that township.
    
    I was very ardent in my efforts to practice meditation that rainy 
  season, but there were times I couldn't help feeling a little 
  discouraged because all my teachers had left me.  Occasionally I'd 
  think of disrobing, but whenever I felt this way there'd always be 
  something to bring me back to my senses. 
    
    One day, for instance, at about five in the evening, I was doing 
  walking meditation, but my thoughts had strayed towards worldly 
  matters.  A woman happened to walk past the monastery, improvising a 
  song -- "I've seen the heart of the tyd tyy bird:  It's mouth is 
  singing, //tyd tyy, tyd tyy//, but its heart is out looking for crabs" 
  -- so I memorized her song and repeated it over and over, telling 
  myself, "It's //you// she's singing about.  Here you are, a monk, 
  trying to develop some virtue inside yourself, and yet you let your 
  heart go looking for worldly matters."  I felt ashamed of myself.  I 
  decided that I'd have to bring my heart in line with the fact that I 
  was a monk if I didn't want the woman's song to apply to me.  The 
  whole incident thus turned into Dhamma.
    
    A number of other events also helped to keep me alert.  One night 
  when the moon was bright, I made an agreement with one of the other 
  monks that we'd go without sleep and do sitting and walking 
  meditation.  (That rainy season there were six of us altogether, five 
  monks and one novice.  I had made a resolution that I'd have to do 
  better than all the rest of them.  For instance, if any of them were 
  able to get by on only ten mouthfuls of food a day, I'd have to get by 
  on eight.  If any of them could sit in meditation for three hours 
  straight, I'd have to sit for five.  If any of them could do walking 
  meditation for an hour, I'd have to walk for two.  I felt this way 
  about everything we did, and yet it seemed that I was able to live up 
  to my resolution.  This was a secret I kept to myself.)
    
    At any rate, that night I told my friend, "Let's see who's better at 
  doing sitting and walking meditation."  So we agreed, "When I do 
  walking meditation, you do sitting meditation; and when I do sitting 
  meditation, you do walking meditation.  Let's see who can last 
  longer."  When it came my turn to do walking meditation, my friend 
  went to sit in a hut next to the path where I was walking.  Not too 
  long afterwards, I heard a loud thud coming from inside the hut, so I 
  stopped to open the window and peek in.  Sure enough, there he was, 
  lying on his back with his folded legs sticking up in the air.  He had 
  been sitting in full lotus position, gotten sleepy, and had simply 
  fallen backwards and gone to sleep.  I was practically dropping off to 
  sleep myself, but had kept going out of the simple desire to win.  I 
  felt embarrassed for my friend's sake -- "I'd hate to be in his 
  place," I thought -- but at the same time was pleased I had won.
    
    All of these things served to teach me a lesson:  "This is what 
  happens to people who aren't true in what they do."
    
    At the end of the rains, the group split up, each of us going off to 
  wander alone, staying in cemeteries.  During this period it seemed 
  that my meditation was going very well.  My mind could settle down to 
  a very refined level, and one very strange thing that had never 
  happened before was beginning to happen:  When my mind was really good 
  and quiet, knowledge would suddenly come to me.  For example, even 
  though I had never studied Pali, I could now translate most of the 
  chants I had memorized:  most of the //Buddhaguna//, for instance, the 
  //Cula Paritta// and the //Abhidhamma Sankhepa//.  It seemed that I 
  was becoming fairly expert in the Dhamma.  If there was anything I 
  wanted to know, all I had to do was make my mind very still, and the 
  knowledge would come to me without my having to think over the matter.  
  When this happened, I went to consult Ajaan Kongma.  He explained to 
  me, "The Buddha never studied how to write books or give sermons from 
  anyone else.  He first practiced meditation and the knowledge arose 
  within his heart.  Only then did he teach the Dhamma that has been 
  copied down in the scriptures. So the way you've come to know within 
  yourself like this isn't wrong."  Hearing this, I felt extremely 
  pleased.
    
    At the end of the rains, I thought of going to see my father again, 
  because I felt that there was still a lot of unfinished business at 
  home.  Setting out on foot, I reached Baan Noan Daeng (RedHill 
  Village), where I stayed at the ancestral spirit shrine.  When the 
  village people found me alone in the forest there, they sent word to 
  my father.  Early the next morning he came to see me, having set out 
  from home in the middle of the night.  He had prepared food for me, as 
  best he knew how, but I couldn't eat it, not even to please him.  I 
  was sorry I couldn't, but I was now following the monastic discipline 
  strictly -- and it's a matter that should be followed strictly:  the 
  rule against eating flesh from an animal killed specifically for the 
  sake of feeding a monk.  Afterwards, whenever I thought about it, I'd 
  start feeling so sorry for my father that tears would come to my eyes. 
  When he saw that his son the monk wouldn't eat the food he had 
  prepared, he took it off and ate it himself.
    
    When he had finished, I followed him back to my home village, where 
  this time I stayed first in the cemetery, and then later in another 
  spot in the forest where the spirits were said to be very fierce.  I 
  stayed there for weeks, delivering sermons to people who came from 
  many of the surrounding villages, and I did away with a lot of their 
  mistaken beliefs and practices:  belief in sorcery, the worship of 
  demons and spirits, and the use of various spells that Buddhism calls 
  "bestial knowledge."  I helped wipe out a good number of the fears my 
  friends and relatives in the village had concerning the spirits in the 
  ruins near the village and the spirits in the spot where I was 
  staying.  We exorcised them by reciting Buddhist chants and spreading 
  thoughts of good will and loving kindness throughout the area. During 
  the day, we'd burn the ritual objects used for worshipping spirits.  
  Some days there'd be nothing but smoke the whole day long.  I taught 
  the people in the village to take refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma and 
  Sangha, to recite Buddhist chants and to meditate, instead of getting 
  involved with spirits and demons.
    
    There was another practice I had seen a lot of in the past that 
  struck me as pointless, and so we figured out a way to wipe it out:  
  the belief that the ancestral spirits in the village had to eat animal 
  flesh every year.  Once a year, when the season came around, each 
  household would have to sacrifice a chicken, a duck or a pig.  
  Altogether this meant that in one year hundreds of living creatures 
  had to die for the sake of the spirits, because there would also be 
  times when people would make sacrifices to cure an illness in the 
  family.  All of this struck me as a senseless waste.  If the spirits 
  really did exist, that's not the sort of food they would eat.  It 
  would be far better to make merit and dedicate it to the spirits.  If 
  they didn't accept that, then drive them away with the authority of 
  the Dhamma.
    
    So I ordered the people to burn all the ancestral shrines.  When 
  some of the villagers began to lose nerve for fear that there would be 
  nothing to protect them in the future,  I wrote down the chant for 
  spreading good will, and gave a copy to everyone in the village, 
  guaranteeing that nothing would happen.  I've since learned that all 
  of the area around the ancestral shrines is now planted with crops, 
  and that the spot in the forest where the spirits were said to be 
  fierce is now a new village.
    
    As I stayed there for quite a while, teaching the people in the 
  village, word began to spread.  Some people became jealous and tried 
  in various ways to drive me away.  One day three of the leading monks 
  in the area were invited to give a sermon debate.  I was invited as 
  the fourth.  The three monks were:  Phra Khru Vacisunthorn, the 
  ecclesiastical head of Muang Saam Sib district; Preceptor Lui, the 
  ecclesiastical head of Amnaad Jaroen district; Ajaan Waw, who had 
  knowledge of Pali.  And then there was me.  The night before the 
  debate, I told myself, "It's going to be a knock-down, drag-out battle 
  tomorrow.  Whoever takes you on, and however they do it, don't let 
  yourself be fazed in the least."  A lot of people went to hear the 
  debate, but in the end it all passed peacefully without any incident.
    
    Still, there were a number of monks and laypeople in the area who, 
  thinking I was nothing but a braggart, kept trying to create trouble 
  and misunderstandings between other monks and me.  One day Nai Chai, 
  claiming to represent the householders in Yaang Yo Phaab township, 
  went to the offices of the District Official and denounced me as a 
  vagrant.  This simply increased my determination to stay.  "I haven't 
  done anything evil or wrong since coming here.  No matter how they 
  come at me, I'm going to stick it out to the very end."  The outcome 
  of it all was that the District Education Officer had no authority to 
  drive me out of the village.  I told the people that if there was any 
  more of this sort of business, I wouldn't leave until my name had been 
  cleared.
    
    One day the District Official himself came out to check up on some 
  government business, and spent the night in the village.  The village 
  headman, a relative of mine, told him about all that had been 
  happening.  The District Official's response was this:  "It's a rare 
  monk who will teach the lay people like this.  Let him stay as long as 
  he likes."  From that point on, there were no more incidents.
  
                                 * * *
  
  
  After a while, I took leave of my relatives and set out for Yasothon.  
  There I met Ajaan Singh with a following of 80 monks and novices 
  staying in the Yasothon cemetery, the spot where the jail is now 
  standing.  Soon afterwards a letter came from Phra Phisanasarakhun, 
  the ecclesiastical head of Khon Kaen province at Wat Srijan 
  (SplendorousMoon Temple), inviting Ajaan Singh to Khon Kaen.  So the 
  citizens of Yasothon, headed by Ajaan Rin, Ajaan Daeng and Ajaan 
  Ontaa, rented two buses, and we all set out for Khon Kaen.  Ajaan Bot, 
  the first meditation monk I had met, went along as well.  The first 
  night we spent in Roi Et; and the second at Ancestor Hill in Maha 
  Sarakham, a spot where the local people said the spirits were fierce.  
  Crowds of people came to listen to Ajaan Singh's sermons.
  
    I began to realize that I wasn't going to find any peace and quiet 
  in these circumstances, so I took my leave of Ajaan Singh and, 
  accompanied by a novice, went to visit my relatives -- Khun 
  MahaWichai, an uncle on my mother's side of the family -- in Nam Phong 
  district.  When I arrived there I found a number of families in the 
  area related to me.  They were all glad to see me, and gathered around 
  to ask news of the folks back home.  They fixed up a place in a forest 
  of giant trees on the bank of the Nam Phong River, and there I stayed 
  for quite a few days.  The novice who had come with me took his leave 
  to visit his relatives back home in Sakon Nakhorn, so I stayed on 
  alone in the forest, which was full of nothing but monkeys.
    
    After a while I began to develop a persistent headache and earache.  
  I told my Aunt Ngoen about this, and she sent me to see a nephew of 
  hers, a policeman in Phon district.  He in turn had a driver take me 
  to Nakhorn Ratchasima, were I stayed at Wat Sakae.  I spent three days 
  looking for my relatives there, but couldn't find them.  The reason I 
  wanted to find my relatives was that I had my heart set on going to 
  Bangkok to take care of my illness and to find Ajaan Mun.  Finally a 
  rickshaw driver took me to the government housing settlement for 
  railway officials, where I met my cousin, Mae Wandee, the wife of Khun 
  Kai.  Everyone seemed glad to see me, and asked me to stay on to spend 
  the Rains Retreat there in Nakhorn Ratchasima.  I didn't accept their 
  invitation, though, because as I told them, I was set on going to 
  Bangkok.  So my cousin bought me a train ticket to HuaLamphong Station 
  in Bangkok.
    
    As the train passed through the Phaya Yen Jungle and burst out into 
  the open fields of Saraburi, I thought of my elder brother who had a 
  family at the Nawng Taa Lo watergate, the one I had visited back when 
  I was still a lay man.  So when we stopped at Baan Phachi junction, I 
  got off and walked all the way to my brother's house.  On arriving, 
  though, I learned that he had taken his family and moved to Nakhorn 
  Sawan province.  The only people left that I knew in the village were 
  some friends and older people.  I stayed there until the end of May, 
  when I told my friends of my plans to go to Bangkok.  They bought me a 
  ticket and accompanied me to the station.  I took the train all the 
  way to Bangkok and got off when it arrived at HuaLampong Station.
    
    Never before in my life had I ever been to Bangkok.  I had no idea 
  of how to find my way to Wat Sra Pathum, so I called a rickshaw driver 
  and asked him, "How much will you charge to take me to Wat Sra 
  Pathum?"
    
    "Fifty satang."
    
    "Fifty satang?  Why so much?  Wat Sra Pathum is practically just 
  around the corner!"
    
    So in the end he took me for fifteen satang.
    
    When I reached Wat Sra Pathum, I paid my respects to my preceptor, 
  who told me that Chao Khun Upali had invited Ajaan Mun to spend the 
  rains in Chieng Mai.  So as it turned out, I spent the rains that year 
  at Wat Sra Pathum.
    
    My quarters were quite a ways away from my preceptor's.  I made a 
  resolution that Rains Retreat to practice mediation as I always had, 
  and at the same time not to neglect any of my duties in the temple or, 
  unless it was really unavoidable, any of the services a new monk is 
  supposed to perform for his preceptor.
    
    I was very strict in practicing meditation that year, keeping to 
  myself most of the time, my one thought being to maintain stillness of 
  mind.  I took part in the morning and evening chanting services, and 
  attended to my preceptor every morning and late afternoon.  I had 
  noticed that the way he was living left a large opening for me to 
  attend to him in a way that appealed to me -- no one was looking after 
  his bedding, cleaning his spittoons, arranging his betel nut, keeping 
  his mats and sitting cloths in order:  This was my opening.
    
    So from that point on I observed my duties towards my preceptor as 
  best I could.  After a while I felt that I was serving him to his 
  satisfaction, and had found a place in his affections.  At the end of 
  the rains he asked me to take on the responsibility of living in and 
  watching over the temple storehouse, the Green Hall, where he took his 
  meals.  Although I had set my mind on treating him as a father, I had 
  never dreamed that being loyal and good could have dangers like this.
    
    So at the beginning of the hot season, I took leave of my preceptor 
  to go out and find some seclusion in the forest.  I left Bangkok, 
  passing through Ayutthaya, Saraburi, Lopburi, Takhli, Phukhao, 
  Phukhaa, all the way to Nakhorn Sawan where, passing through Thaa Tako 
  district and around Boraphet Lake, I reached my brother's place.  
  There I met not only my brother, but also many old friends from the 
  days back when I was still a lay man.
    
    During my stay in Nakhorn Sawan, I lived in a forest about half a 
  kilometer from the village.  One day I heard the calls of two 
  elephants fighting, one a wild elephant and the other a domesticated 
  elephant in rut.  They battled for three days running, until the wild 
  elephant could no longer put up a fight and died.  With that, the 
  elephant in rut went insane, running wild through the forest where I 
  was staying, chasing people and goring them with his tusks.  The owner 
  of the elephant -- Khun Jop -- and other people in the area came to 
  invite me to take shelter in the village, but I wouldn't go.  Even 
  though I was somewhat afraid, I decided to depend on my powers of 
  endurance and my belief in the power of loving-kindness.
    
    Then one day, at about four in the afternoon, the elephant came 
  running to the clearing where I was staying and came to a stop about 
  40 meters from my hut.  At the time, I was sitting in the hut, 
  meditating.  Hearing his calls, I stuck my head out and saw him 
  standing there in a frightening stance with his ears back and his 
  tusks gleaming white.  The thought occurred to me:  "If he comes 
  running this way, he'll be on me in less than three minutes."  And 
  with that, I lost my nerve.  I jumped out of the hut and ran for a 
  large tree about six meters away.  But just as I reached it and had 
  taken my first step up the trunk, a sound like a person whispering 
  came to my ears:  "You're not for real.  You're afraid to die.  
  Whoever's afraid to die will have to die again."  Hearing this, I let 
  go of the tree and hurried back to the hut.  I got into a half-lotus 
  position and, with my eyes open, sat facing the elephant and 
  meditating, spreading thoughts of good will.
    
    While all this was happening, I could hear the villagers yelling and 
  crying to one another:  "That monk (meaning me) is really in a fix.  
  Isn't anybody going to help him?" But that was all they did, cry and 
  yell.  No one -- not even a single person --  had the courage to come 
  anywhere near me.
    
    I sat there for about ten minutes, radiating thoughts of good will.  
  Finally the elephant flapped its ears up and down a few times, turned 
  around and walked back into the forest. A few moments later I got up 
  from where I was sitting and walked out of the forest into the open 
  rice fields.  Khun Jop and the others came thronging around me, amazed 
  that I had come through without mishap.
    
    The next day, crowds of people from all over the area came to see me 
  and to ask for "good things':  amulets.  The word was that since the 
  elephant had been afraid to come near me, I was sure to have some good 
  strong amulets.  Seeing all the commotion, I decided to cut short my 
  stay, so a few days later I said goodbye to my relatives and headed 
  back to Bangkok.
    
    I reached Wat Sra Pathum in the month of May.  During this, my 
  second Rains Retreat there, my preceptor had me take over the temple 
  accounts from Phra Baitika Bunrawd.  At the same time, my companions 
  talked me into studying for the Third Level Dhamma exams.  This meant 
  that I had a lot of added burdens.  Not only was there my preceptor to 
  attend to, but also the temple accounts and inventories to keep.  On 
  top of that, I had to study Dhamma textbooks and keep up my 
  meditation.  With all these added responsibilities, my state of mind 
  began to grow a bit slack. This can be gauged by the fact that the 
  first year, when any of the other young monks came to talk to me about 
  worldly matters -- women and wealth -- I really hated it, but the 
  second year I began to like it.  My third year at Wat Sra Pathum I 
  began to study Pali grammar, after having passed the Third Level 
  Dhamma exams in 1929.  My responsibilities had become heavier -- and I 
  was getting pretty active at discussing worldly matters.  But when my 
  way of life began to reach this point, there were a number of events, 
  both inside and outside the temple, that helped bring me to my senses.
    
    One day, towards the end of the second Rains Retreat, I discovered 
  that more than 900 baht had disappeared from the temple accounts.  For 
  days I checked over the books, but couldn't find where it had gone.  
  Normally I made a practice of reporting to my preceptor on the first 
  of each month, but when the first of the month came around this time, 
  I didn't go to see him.  I questioned everyone who worked with me, but 
  they all denied having any knowledge of the missing funds.  Finally 
  another possibility occurred to me:  Nai Bun, a student who attended 
  to my preceptor.  Some mornings he would ask for the key to the Green 
  Hall to keep while I went out on my alms round.  So I asked Phra 
  Baitika Bunrawd to question Nai Bun, who finally admitted to having 
  stolen the money while I was out.
    
    The whole affair was my preceptor's fault.  One morning he had been 
  invited to accept some donations on the day following a cremation at 
  the house of a nobleman, but his ceremonial fan and shoulder bag were 
  kept in my room, and since I had gone out for alms and taken the key 
  with me, he couldn't get to them.  So from then on he told me to leave 
  the key with Nai Bun every morning before going out for alms, and this 
  was how the money had disappeared.  I was lucky that Nai Bun had 
  admitted his guilt.  I went back to check the books carefully and 
  discovered that, of the missing funds, more than 700 baht had come 
  from the temple funds, and the remainder from my preceptor's personal 
  funds.
    
    So on October 5th, now that everything was in order, I went to tell 
  my closest friends, Phra Baitika Bunrawd and Phra Chyam, "I'm going to 
  make a report to the abbot at five o'clock today."
    
    "Don't,"  Phra Chyam said.  "I'll make up for the missing money 
  myself."
    
    I appreciated his offer, but didn't think it was a good idea.  It 
  would be better to be open and aboveboard about the whole affair.  
  Otherwise the boy would start developing bad habits.
    
    My preceptor had gotten cross with both of my friends over the 
  temple books many times before, so when the time came for me to make 
  my report, they went to hide in their quarters, shutting their doors 
  tight, leaving me to face my preceptor alone.  Before I made my 
  report, I went to the Green Hall, swept and scrubbed the floor, 
  prepared the betel nut, spread out a sitting mat for my preceptor, and 
  then sat there waiting for him.  A little after four o'clock, he left 
  the large new set of quarters built for him by Lady Talap, wife of 
  Chao Phraya Yomaraj, and came to sit in the Green Hall.  When he had 
  finished his tea and betel nut, I approached him to make my report 
  about the missing funds.  Before I had even finished my first 
  sentence, he got cross.  "Why have you waited till the fifth this 
  month to make your report?  Usually you make it on the first."
    
    "The reason I didn't come on the first," I answered, "was because I 
  had some doubts about the accounts and the people involved.  But now 
  I'm sure that the money is really missing -- and I've found the guilty 
  party."
    
    "Who?" he asked.
    
    "Nai Bun,"  I answered.  "He's already confessed."
    
    "Bring him here," he ordered, and then added, "This is embarrassing.  
  Don't let word of this get out."
    
    So Phra Baitika Bunrawd fetched Nai Bun, who admitted his guilt to 
  my preceptor.  The final outcome was that Nai Bun had to make up for 
  the missing funds.
    
    Now that this was all taken care of, I asked to resign my position 
  so that I could go off to the forest to meditate.  Before the affair 
  had been settled, there had been one night when I couldn't get any 
  sleep all night long.  All I could think of was that I would have to 
  disrobe and get a job to make up for the missing funds.  At the same 
  time, I didn't want to disrobe.  These two thoughts fought back and 
  forth in my mind until dawn.  But when I broached the idea of 
  resigning with my preceptor, he wouldn't let me go. 
    
    "I'm an old man now," he said, "and aside from you there's no one I 
  can trust to look after things for me.  You'll have to stay here for 
  the time being."
    
    So I had to stick it out for another year.
  
  
                            * * * * * * * *