..續本文上一頁ening and after that I just wasn”t tired at all. When I lay down to sleep I was so mindful that I didn”t really need to sleep. Just laying there on my side watching the breath gave so much happiness, was so peaceful. When I did go off to sleep, it was only for a very short time, and I woke up afterwards and immediately was just so mindful. Not like it was this morning - not "oh, here we go again! What shall we do, where am I

　　!" - but completely mindful in getting up and going to the hall before three o”clock, before the bell, and sitting meditation there and just going into nice samadhi all morning. It was great. And I thought "at last, this is it, oh great!". And it”s nice to think you”re enlightened - it”s quite a nice way to start the day!

　　Some of you who know this story know what happened next… when I went on alms round I was just perfectly mindful, there were no defilements in the mind at all, it was just so clear. Until it came to the meal time. And meals are very good if you”ve got any defilements coming up, especially if it”s the only meal of the day and that”s all you”re going to get. And I was in a monastery in the north-east of Thailand, a very poor monastery away from the cities or towns, and usually we used to get the same meal every day, day after day. It was sticky rice and what they called rotten fish curry. And it was called rotten fish for two reasons - first of all it was fish which was pickled, caught during the rainy season and put in a jar and closed up and left to ferment. So it was like "ripe" fish. And it was also rotten because that was how it tasted! It was really awful stuff - you got sort of used to it but not really used to it. And so you”d have this every day - rotten fish curry with your rice, and that was all you had. But this one day it just happened after I became "enlightened", somebody made us this pork curry (there was no vegetarian food in those places) as well as the rotten fish curry, and as soon as I saw this I thought "I”m going to have something nice to eat today". And the abbot (I was second in line), this Thai monk, he took these really big scoops of this pork curry, huge scoops, and put it in his bowl. And I thought that was really greedy, but it didn”t matter because there was plenty left for me. But what he did next was, after taking out two huge scoops for himself (and he didn”t take any of the rotten fish curry - even he didn”t like it!)… he said "well, it”s all the same isn”t it, whatever curry it is, it”s just the four elements" and then he poured all the curries together and mixed them up. And I thought "if you really thought that, then why didn”t you mix them up before you took yours! Now I haven”t got any nice food today". And I got really angry at this monk, really livid at him, thinking "how can you do this, taking away my nice meal. It”s not every day we get this nice pork curry. And you”re a north-easterner - I”ve come from the West, I”m not used to rotten fish, you should be used to rotten fish. Now you”ve mixed it all up!" And what stopped me from getting more and more angry was the thought "hang on, I”m supposed to be enlightened!" And that really makes you depressed, when you find out that you”re not enlightened after all. That spoiled my whole day!

　　But that”s what happens sometimes, because for many hours the defilements are just gone, and you”re just so clear and bright and you think "wow, this is it, this is the way it should be". Perfectly clear and peaceful and light. But it”s not, it”s just samadhi experience. So, be careful sometimes that you don”t come back and say that you”re enlightened because little things like the hindrances will, sooner or later, when they”ve recovered, come up and will play with you again, take you around by the nose.

　　But the importa…

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