..續本文上一頁nn expressed his admiration of Luang Pu, saying, "Your health is very strong. Even at your age, you”re still able to climb all the way up the hill."
Luang Pu responded,
"I”m not really all that strong. I”ve looked the matter over and seen that I have no bad karma with regard to the body. When I can”t use the body any more, I”ll just drop it, that”s all."
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92. Stranger still
I”m sure you can imagine how thrilled the large surrounding crowd of lay people was to be present at this coincidental meeting of three great ajaans. This sort of opportunity isn”t easy to find. So two photographers from Surin starting taking as many pictures as they could.
When we were back on the bus for the trip home, the photographers saw that everyone was hungry for the pictures, so they announced that they would blow them up to 12" prints and sell them, with the proceeds going to help Jawm Phra Forest Monastery. I thought to myself that it wasn”t a very pretty thing to see a price put on an ajaan”s pictures with the purpose of selling them, but almost everyone on the bus placed an order.
When the photographers developed their film, they discovered that, of the more than twenty pictures they had gone to all that effort to take, all were totally blank, like a cloudless sky. That put an end to everyone”s hopes for the pictures and, as it turned out, that was the last meeting among those three great ajaans.
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93. The truth as he saw it
When people asked Luang Pu if he had read any of the many accounts of Ajaan Mun”s life, he would answer, "A few." The next question would be, "And what do you think of all the psychic powers and miraculous events they describe
" Luang Pu would answer, "Back in the days when I was living with Ajaan Mun, I never heard him mention anything about them."
Normally, when Luang Pu would speak of Ajaan Mun, he”d speak only of his ascetic practices, saying,
"Among the later generations of monks, I”ve never seen a single one adhere to these practices as strictly as Ajaan Mun. He wore only robes made of rags that he had sewn and dyed himself. He never used finished robes received from anyone else. He stayed in forest dwellings his entire life. He ate only the food he had received on alms round, and only out of his alms bowl. Even when he was severely ill, he would sit up and hold his bowl in his lap for others to put alms in. He never took the special allowances that come from spending the Rains Retreat or receiving the kathina. He never got involved in construction work, and never tried to persuade other people to do so."
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94. Answering questions with questions
Because I had been on familiar terms with Luang Pu for a long time, when I would ask him a question he would tend to answer by asking a question in return — his way of getting me to think out the answer on my own.
For example, when I asked, "The minds of arahants are clean and bright. Can they predict the next lottery number accurately
" he answered, "Would arahants be interested in knowing stuff like that
"
When I asked, "Do arahants dream in their sleep like ordinary people
" he answered, "Aren”t dreams an affair of the aggregate of fabrication
"
When I asked, "Have there ever been any run-of-the-mill people still thick with defilements who have nevertheless been able to teach other people to become arahants
" he answered,
"Haven”t there been a lot of doctors who, even though they themselves are ill, have been able to cure other people of their illnesses
"
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