Ven. Acariya Mun - Spiritual Biography + photos

exercise some forceful restraints on their excesses. In the case of
dhutanga monks, this sometimes takes the form of self-imposed
austerities. When a monk notices that a certain type of food kin-
dles an unseemly craving in his heart, he punishes the craving
by refusing to eat that food. Instead, he eats things that he feels
no desire for. If he feels that he’d like to eat a lot, he eats only a
little instead. Or he may eat only plain rice, even though there are
plenty of other foods to choose from. Those foods which invigor-
ate the body may hamper his citta by overwhelming its mental fac-
ulties, thus making meditation more difficult. His practice then
fails to progress as it should, despite the fact that he is striving
with the same intensity as ever. Once he realizes the cause of the
problem, he strives to eliminate it by adamantly refusing to follow
the greed in his heart. This is the attitude of a monk truly com-
mitted to training himself under the guidance of a good teacher:
he resists any temptation to follow his usual self-indulgent ten-
dencies.
Just as a dhutanga monk trains himself to be moderate and
restrained in what he eats, so too, when he goes to sleep, he deter-
mines to awaken at a predetermined time. He doesn’t just let sleep
take its course, waking him up randomly whenever it so desires.
He trains himself to carefully consider the appropriateness of
his actions. He resists doing anything that may violate the eth-
ical principles of Dhamma and therefore be inappropriate, even
though it may not strictly be in violation of the disciplinary rules.
He strives to inculcate Dhamma within his heart so that it stead-
ily flourishes, never deteriorating – an extremely difficult task. So
difficult, in fact, that no other endeavor can compare with it.
When, however, we inculcate the ways of the world in our