Ven. Acariya Mun - Spiritual Biography + photos

of wild animals, the abundant variety of wild plants and fruits
being a rich, natural source of sustenance. Animals such as mon-
keys, languars, flying squirrels, and gibbons, which depend on
wild fruits, came and went contentedly. Preoccupied with their
own affairs, they showed no fear in Ãcariya Mun’s presence. As
he watched them foraging for food he became engrossed in their
playful antics. He felt a genuine spirit of camaraderie with those
creatures, considering them his companions in birth, ageing, sick-
ness, and death. In this respect, animals are on an equal footing
with people. For though animals and people differ in the extent
of their accumulated merit and goodness, animals nonetheless
possess these wholesome qualities in some measure as well. In
fact, degrees of accumulated merit may vary significantly among
individual members of both groups. Moreover, many animals may
actually possess greater stores of merit than do certain people, but
having been unfortunate enough to be reborn into an animal
existence, they must endure the consequences for the time being.
Human beings face the same dilemma: for although human exist-
ence is considered a higher birth than that of an animal, a person
falling on hard times and into poverty must endure that misfor-
tune until it passes – or until the results of that unfortunate kamma
are exhausted. Only then can a better state arise in its place. In
this way the effects of kamma continue to unfold, indefinitely. For
precisely this reason, Ãcariya Mun always insisted that we should
never be contemptuous of another being’s lowly status or state of
birth. He always taught us that the good and the bad kamma, cre-
ated by each living being, are that being’s only true inheritance.
Each afternoon Ãcariya Mun swept the area clean in front
of the cave. Then for the rest of the evening he concentrated on