there less than an hour, he saw a car pull into the monastery
grounds and come to a stop right in front of the hut he had just
moved into.
“When I looked out to see who had come, there was Ãcariya
Mun! Hurrying down to receive him, I respectfully asked why he
had come. He replied without hesitation that he came to pick me
up. He said that he knew the night before that I would be coming.
I asked if someone had informed him that I would be arriving
in Chiang Mai. He replied that it was beside the point how he
learned of it – he knew about it and wanted to be here, so he just
came on his own. Hearing that, I became apprehensive. And the
more I considered the implications, the more apprehensive I grew.
Later, when I was living with him, all my fears were confirmed.
“If our minds were free of conceited opinions when we
received his Dhamma discourse, then we became pleasantly
absorbed in listening. His entire discourse was Dhamma – pure
and simple; and it engaged our full attention more than anything
else we had ever heard. On the other hand, if a monk listened
half-heartedly, burdened by the weight of worldly thoughts, then
we soon perceived fire in his discourse, and the offending monk
would promptly feel the heat. In giving a talk, Ãcariya Mun was
not concerned about whose kilesas his words might disturb – his
Dhamma rushed to confront the kilesas at just that point where
they were most prolific.
“Occasionally, he did identify a monk by name, confront-
ing him directly. ‘Why were you meditating like that last night?
That’s not the right way to meditate, you must do it this way’ Or,
‘Why were you thinking like that this morning? If you want to
avoid being ruined by such harmful thinking, then don’t think
jacob rumans
(Jacob Rumans)
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