xviiiwere seen as being dangerous and frightening places, so the inhab-
itants banded together in village communities for the safety and
companionship they provided. In the more remote frontier regions,
such settlements were often a day’s walk from one another follow-
ing trails that made their way through uninterrupted woodland.
Forests and the rhythms of nature were defining features of
the folklore and culture of those hardy people. To the villagers living
together in isolated communities, the vast tracts of wilderness were
forbidding, inhospitable territory where wild animals roamed freely
and malevolent spirits were said to hold sway. The huge Bengal tigers
indigenous to that part of the world were especially fearsome. Such
creatures ruled not only the forests but the fears and fantasies of local
people and monks alike.
Popular fear of those impenetrable forest areas turned them
into places of isolation and solitude where no one dared to venture
alone. It was in this remote wilderness environment that Ãcariya
Mun and his dhutanga monks lived and wandered, practicing the
ascetic way of life. Their meditation practice and the mental fortitude
it instilled in them were their only defences against the hardships and
potential dangers they faced every day. Forests and mountains were
proven training grounds for such monks, who saw themselves as spir-
itual warriors battling their own mental defilements for the sake of
ultimate victory.
The story of Ãcariya Mun’s life is a vivid portrait of a consum-
mate spiritual warrior unrivaled in modern times who practiced the
Buddha’s path to freedom with such perfection that he left those who
knew and revered him in no doubt that he truly was a Noble disciple.
A beautiful story from beginning to end, his life is reminiscent of those
famed accounts of the Buddha’s great disciples chronicled in the ancient
texts. Like theirs, his life shows us that the spiritual ideals taught by
the Buddha are achieved by real human beings struggling against the
same fundamental hindrances that we find within ourselves. Thus we