reluctant to believe him because the ferocious man-eating tigers
roaming that forest were renowned for waiting to ambush anyone
caught there overnight. Only after he had explained the actual
circumstances of his encounter with the tigers did they finally
believe him, realizing that his miraculous powers were a special
case, and not applicable to ordinary people.
Whether it is the spiritual path of the heart or the physi-
cal path through the forest, ignorance of the path we are on, the
distances that must be traveled, and the potential dangers along
the way are all obstacles to our progress. So we must depend on a
knowledgeable guide to ensure our safety. We, who are journeying
along the path toward safe, happy, prosperous circumstances now
and in the future, should always keep this in mind. Just because
we’ve always thought and acted in a certain way, we must not
carelessly assume that it is necessarily the right way. In truth, our
habitual ways of thinking and acting usually tend to be mistaken,
continuously leading most of us down the wrong path.
DURING HIS LIFE AS a dhutanga monk, Ãcariya Chob had many close
encounters with wild animals. Once while wandering through
Burma,^5 he stopped to do his practice in a cave frequented by
tigers. Although these huge beasts roamed freely through the
area while he lived there, they never harmed him. So he never
dreamed that one would actually come looking for him. But then
one afternoon at about five o’clock, as he was getting up from his
meditation, his eyes glanced up to the mouth of the cave to see a
huge, striped tiger approaching the entrance. It was an enormous
animal and very frightening-looking; but Ãcariya Chob remained