Ven. Acariya Mun - Spiritual Biography + photos

likely to show the same appreciation for your amazing talents as
we, your disciples, do.”
Ãcariya Mun was adamant in his response:
“The kind of craziness that you suggest will destroy us both.
I have never considered speaking out publicly about this matter.
Should I do so, you and I and the rest of the monks sitting here
would end up being a bunch of lunatics. And once the whole
monastery has gone mad, what kind of monastic asylum do you
think would accept us all? The sãsana was proclaimed and taught
with discretion – to be practiced, understood, and spoken about
with discretion. This nonsense you suggest – is it really a matter
of discretion, or is it something foolhardy? Think about it. In my
opinion, the very thought of it is crazy, let alone actually suggest-
ing it. Even though people might survive listening to us talk about
it, we ourselves would surely be doomed. So why bring it up?
“If you consider the tangible, visible things all around us,
people everywhere are quite capable of dealing with them in
an appropriate, reasonable manner. Although Dhamma is the
Supreme Truth, it still counts on the involvement of people in the
world, so we should always work to harmonize the proprieties of
society with the Truth of Dhamma. The Buddha was the first to
clearly know and understand the true nature of all phenomena.
He spoke about them with absolute assurance, but he was always
impeccably discreet in the way he handled these issues. Speaking
publicly about any of them, he invariably took the specific circum-
stances and the people he was addressing into consideration. He
spoke then only with the utmost discernment and discretion.
“Knowledge and understanding about the diverse nature
of nonphysical phenomena is a prerogative of the one who has