Ven. Acariya Mun - Spiritual Biography + photos

Arahant arrived individually. Those arriving first sat in the front,
while those arriving later sat further away – without regard for
seniority. Even those novices who arrived earlier sat ahead of the
monks who arrived later. Finally the last monk, a very elderly
man, arrived to take the last available seat – way in the back; but
the others showed no sign of shame or embarrassment. Even the
Buddha himself sat down in whichever seat was available at the
time he arrived.
Seeing this, Ãcariya Mun was somewhat incredulous. Could
it be that the monks at the time of the Buddha did not respect
seniority? It was definitely not an inspiring sight. How could the
Buddha and his disciples proclaim the sãsana and then expect
people to have faith in it when the sãsana’s leader and his closest
disciples behaved in such an indiscriminate fashion? Instantly, the
answer arose in his heart without the Buddha and his disciples
having offered any comment: This was an instance of pure vimutti-
dhamma devoid of any trace of relative, conventional reality – so
there was no fixed order of propriety. They were demonstrating
the true nature of Absolute Purity,^31 being perfectly equal for all,
irrespective of conventional designations such as young and old,
or high and low. From the Lord Buddha on down to the youngest
Arahant novice, all were equal with respect to their state of purity.
What Ãcariya Mun had witnessed was a conclusive indicator that
all the Arahant monks and novices were equally pure.
This having been made clear to him, he wondered how
they deferred to each other in the conventional world. No sooner
had this thought arisen, than the vision of the Buddha and the
Arahants seated before him changed. Whereas before they had
been sitting together in no special order, now the Buddha sat at