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99. Making no show
Luang Pu never did anything to make a show or call attention to himself. For example, if people wanted to take his picture, their timing would have to be right. For instance, if he had already put on his full set of robes to listen to the Patimokkha or to ordain a monk or to participate in one sort of ceremony or another, then if you asked to take his picture at a moment like that, it would be easy. But if he was sitting informally and you asked him to get up and put on his robes to pose for a picture, you”d have a hard time getting him to comply.
Once, a lady from Bangkok brought a fine blanket for Luang Pu to use in the cold season. A few months later, in the middle of the hot season, she happened to come and pay her respects again. She asked him to get the blanket and pose with it so that she could take a picture, because she had forgotten to take a picture when she had donated it. Luang Pu refused to do so, saying gently, "There”s no real need for that." Even when she asked him a second time, and a third, he kept saying, "There”s no real need."
When she left I felt ill at ease, so I went to Luang Pu and asked him, "Do you realize how dissatisfied she was
"
Luang Pu smiled and said,
"I know. And the reason she was dissatisfied is because she has a dissatisfying heart."
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100. The end of rebirth
Once a senior meditation teacher came to discuss many high-level topics of Dhamma with Luang Pu and ended with a question: "Some of the senior meditation monks conduct themselves well and inspire great respect. Even other monks agree that they”re firmly established in the Buddha”s teachings. But then something happens. Either they disrobe, or their behavior starts going astray, running afoul of the Dhamma and Vinaya. So what level of Dhamma does one have to reach in order to cut transmigration for sure, so that there”s no more becoming and birth
"
Luang Pu said,
"Being strictly restrained in line with the Vinaya and observing the ascetic practices is an admirable form of conduct that”s extremely inspiring. But if you haven”t developed the mind to the level of heightened mind and heightened discernment, it can always regress, for it hasn”t yet reached the transcendent. Actually, arahants don”t need to know much. They simply have to develop their minds to be clear about the five aggregates and to penetrate dependent co-arising (paticca samuppada). That”s when they can stop fabricating, stop searching, stop all motions of the mind. Right there is where everything ends. All that remains is pure, clean, bright — great emptiness, enormously empty."
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101. A comparison
"The desire to know and see so as to put an end to one”s doubts is something you find in all advanced people. Every science, every branch of learning, has been established so that people will question and want to know. That”s when they”ll make the effort to study and practice to reach the goal of that branch of learning.
"But in the area of the Buddha”s teachings, you have to study and practice in a balanced way. And your effort has to be intense so that you can enter into the highest thing in the Dhamma on your own. That”s when you”ll end your doubts totally on your own.
"It”s like a person from the countryside who”s never seen Bangkok. When people tell him that, in addition to being developed in other ways, Bangkok has a ”Jewel Wall” [the name of the fortress wall around the Grand Palace] and an enormous ”Gold Mountain” [the name of the cetiya at Wat Sraket], he makes up his mind to go to Bangkok with the expectation that he”ll be able to get some jewels from the wall and…
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