caught and raised as pets, they still retain their old habits. They
can never really adapt to human behavior. Please excuse me for
presuming to compare Ãcariya Mun’s translations with those of
Pãli scholars. Some readers may feel that I have overstepped the
mark here.
IN DUE TIME ÃCARIYA MUN left Ban Na Mon and moved to Ban
Khok, just over a mile away, where he spent the rainy season
retreat. Since it was difficult to find a better location, the monas-
tery was located only half a mile from the village. Still, the place
was very quiet. Not more than eleven or twelve monks stayed with
him at any one time in either of those places due to the limited
number of available huts. It was while he resided at Ban Khok that
I arrived. He was kind enough to accept me as a student, although
I was about as useful as an old log. I lived there like a ladle in a
pot of stew. I feel ashamed just thinking about it now: this use-
less log of a monk staying with an absolutely brilliant sage of such
universal renown.
All the same, I do feel easier about writing his story from
this period onward. Up to this point in the story I have felt some-
what hampered, and not a little frustrated, by the fact that most
of my information comes secondhand from senior disciples who
lived with him in the early years. In preparation for writing this
biography, I spent many years going around to meet those ãcariyas,
interviewing them and writing down their memories, or taping my
conversations with them. All this material then need to be care-
fully arranged in chronological order before it could be presented
in a meaningful, readable format – a very demanding task. From