Ven. Acariya Mun - Spiritual Biography + photos

just thinking about it now. I was hit with a case of malaria my very
first year at Ban Nong Pheu, an ordeal that severely chastened me.
Fever plagued me the entire rainy season, then lingered on inter-
mittently into the dry season, refusing to completely go away. How
could I fail to be chastened? Being fully sensitive to pleasure and
pain like everybody else, monks naturally dread the thought of
pain and discomfort.
Once Ãcariya Mun became settled at Ban Nong Pheu, the
number of monks coming to stay with him on a regular basis stead-
ily increased. As many as twenty to thirty monks came each year
to spend the rains retreat with him. In addition to the monks who
lived in the monastery, many others stayed close by in the vicinity
of other small villages. A few monks lived together in some loca-
tions, five or six in others, and occasionally nine or ten in some
places. Each of these groups stayed in separate places, all within
walking distance of Ãcariya Mun’s monastery. As many as thirty
to forty monks from the surrounding area used to assemble at his
monastery on uposatha observance days. Combined with resident
monks, the total assembly easily reached fifty or sixty. Outside
the retreat period, it sometimes exceeded that number, as monks
continuously arrived at Ban Nong Pheu seeking Ãcariya Mun’s
guidance. During the day they dispersed into the thick forest, sur-
rounding the monastery grounds, to do their practice in solitude.
The forest in this region was many tens of miles wide, while its
length was almost unlimited as it extended along a series of over-
lapping mountain ranges that seemed to stretch on forever.
In those days, virtually the whole region from the district
of Phanna Nikhom south to the province of Kalasin was blan-
keted by forests. For this reason, Ãcariya Mun’s monastery at Ban