unusual abilities is a result of my own failure to take enough inter-
est in these matters when he explained them to us. Still, to my
knowledge, none of his disciples possessing similar abilities ever
contradicted what he said about them. Instead, they themselves
bore witness to the existence of these mysterious things. Which
should be enough of an indication to convince the rest of us, who
are not sufficiently skilled in their perception, that these things
do exist even though they are hidden from view. In the same way,
the Lord Buddha was the first person to attain enlightenment and
the first person to perceive many mysterious phenomena – attain-
ments that his Arahant disciples were eventually able to duplicate,
and bear witness to.
IN OUR PRESENT TIME, the sort of unusual phenomena that was per-
ceptible to Ãcariya Mun ceased to be mysterious to a few of his
contemporaries who possessed an ability similar to his. This is
evident in the case of another mysterious affair that, though quite
intriguing, is likely to raise doubts among those of us who are self-
confessed skeptics. While Ãcariya Mun lived at Ban Nong Pheu
monastery, an elderly, white-robed lay woman from the local com-
munity, who had great respect for him, came to the monastery and
told him about an experience she had in meditation. As she sat in
meditation late one night, her citta ‘converged’, dropping deeply
into samãdhi. Remaining absolutely still in that state for a time,
she began to notice a very fine threadlike tentacle flowing out of
her citta and away from her body. Her curiosity aroused, she fol-
lowed the flow of her citta to find out where it had slipped away to,
what it was doing, and why. In doing so she discovered that this