..續本文上一頁one version of what had happened, my second child would have another version, and my wife still another. I didn”t know whom to side with. It was as if I was standing in the middle, and my wife and children were pulling me off in three different directions. My new child wanted me to buy this or that — eventually my wife and children started competing with one another to see who would get to eat the best food, wear the best clothes and squander the most money. It got so that I couldn”t sit down and talk with any of them at all. My salary was being eaten up every month; my family life was like falling into a thorn patch.

　　Finally I decided to call a halt. My wife wasn”t what I had hoped for, my earnings weren”t what I had hoped for, my children weren”t what I had hoped for, so I left my wife, was reordained and returned to the contemplative life.

　　When I came to the end of the story, my interest in worldly affairs vanished. The sense that life was closing in on me disappeared. I felt as free as if I were up floating in the sky. Something inside me sighed, "Ah!" with relief. I told myself that if this was the way things would be, I”d do better not to disrobe. My old desire to disrobe was reduced about 50 to 60 percent.

　　Throughout this period a number of other events occurred that helped turn my thoughts in the right direction. Some nights I”d dream that my old meditation teachers had come to see me: Sometimes they”d be fierce with me, sometimes they”d scold me. But there were four events — you”d have to call them strange, and they certainly were important in changing my thinking. I have to beg the reader”s pardon for mentioning them, though, because there”s nothing at all pleasant about them. But since they were good lessons, I feel they should go on record.

　　The first event: During the period when I was spending my nights thinking about worldly matters, there was one day I started feeling constipated, so that afternoon I took a laxative, figuring that if the medicine acted as it had before, I”d have to go to the bathroom at about 9 p.m. For some reason, it didn”t work. The next morning I went for my alms round down the lane to Sra Pathum Palace. Just as I was coming to a house where they had prepared food to give to the monks, all of a sudden I had to go to the bathroom so badly I could hardly stand it. I couldn”t even walk to the house to accept their food. All I could do was hold myself in and walk in little pigeon steps until I came to an acacia grove by the side of the road. I plunked down my bowl and hurried through the fence into the grove. I wanted to sink my head down into the ground and die right there. When I had finished, I left the grove, picked up my alms bowl and finished my round. That day I didn”t get enough to eat. Returning to the temple, I warned myself, "This is what it”s going to be like if you disrobe. Nobody”s going to fix food to put in your bowl." The whole event was really a good lesson.

　　The second event: One day I went out early on my alms round. I crossed ElephantHead Bridge, passed Saam Yaek and turned down Phetburi Road. There was no one to place even a spoonful of rice in my bowl. It so happened that as I was passing a row of flats, I saw an old Chinese man and woman yelling and screaming at each other in front of their flat. The woman was about 50 and wore her hair in a bun. The old man wore his hair in a pigtail. As I came to their flat, I stopped to watch. Within about two seconds, the old woman grabbed a broom and hit the man over the head with the handle. The old man grabbed the woman by the hair and kicked her in the back. I asked myself, "If that were you, what would you do

　　" and then I smiled: "You”d probably end the marriage for good." I felt more pleased seeing this incident than if I had re…

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