external aspects of his practice, like devas, brahmas, and vari-
ous types of ghosts, leaving it up to his listeners to investigate as
best they could. Besides receiving encouragement in their prac-
tice, those who shared his natural inclination to perceive such
phenomena, were able to significantly broaden the scope of their
knowledge, enabling themselves to deal expeditiously with the
mysterious phenomena they encountered.
Some of his disciples bore witness to these phenomena,
though they did not possess nearly the mastery that he did. I’ll
give you an example. One night Ãcariya Mun received groups
of devas late into the night, having no chance to rest. Eventu-
ally feeling very tired, he wanted to lay down for a while. When
yet another group of devas arrived late that night, he explained
to them that he was very tired from receiving several previous
groups and now needed a rest. He requested that they go instead
to visit one of his disciples and listen to his Dhamma discourse –
which they did. When told what Ãcariya Mun had said, this dis-
ciple agreed to talk with them about Dhamma for awhile, after
which they left.
The next morning this monk asked Ãcariya Mun about the
incident: “Last night a group of devas came to visit me. They said
that, before coming to me, they had paid you a visit to request a
Dhamma teaching, but you were very tired and needed a rest, so
you sent them to me instead. Is this true, or were they misleading
me just so they could listen to me talk about Dhamma? Feeling
somewhat skeptical, I wanted to ask you about it.”
Ãcariya Mun replied:
“Well, having already received several groups of devas, I was
dead tired. Then the last group came, so I sent them to you, exactly
jacob rumans
(Jacob Rumans)
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