..续本文上一页to spread the Dhamma in Chanthaburi province.

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　　During the years I made Chanthaburi my home base, I wandered about through a number of other provinces as well. Once I went to Trat. I stayed next to the cemetery at Wat Lamduan along with a following of ten or so people from Chanthaburi. That night around 200 lay people came out to hear a sermon. Just as darkness was falling and I was getting ready to preach, there was an incident: Someone threw three huge bricks into the middle of the assembly. I myself had no idea what this was supposed to mean. Sounds of indignation spread through the group. That was the year the war with the French started. I had been constantly hearing the sound of guns out off the coast, and as soon as the incident occurred, I thought of bullets. Some people got up and were getting ready to chase after the bandits, so I stopped them. "Don”t get involved," I said. "Don”t go after them. If they”re good people, you should follow them, but if they”re bad people, don”t. Follow me instead. I”m not afraid of anything — including bullets, not to mention bricks.

　　If you”re shot in the mouth, it”ll come out your rear,

　　So there”s no one in the world you should fear."

　　As soon as they heard this, the whole group fell silent. I then delivered a sermon on the theme, "Non-violence is happiness in the world."

　　After we had stayed there a fair while, we went on to Laem Ngob district to visit the wife of the district official, who was related to one of the lay people in the group. Two days later, I got the group to take a boat across the strait to Ko Chang (Elephant Island), where we stayed deep in the quiet forest. After teaching them for a while, I took them back to Laem Ngob.

　　We went to stay in an area to the north of the district offices, under a giant banyan tree. Altogether there were almost twenty lay people with me. Each of us arranged his own place to stay. When we were all settled, at about three in the afternoon, I started feeling tired, so I entered my umbrella tent to rest for a while. I wasn”t able to get any rest, though, because of all the noise the people were making — cutting firewood, talking, starting fires. So I got up from my meditation, stuck my head out of the tent and called out, "What”s the matter with you all

　　"

　　Before I could say anything more, I saw a huge cloud of sea mosquitoes off the coast, heading for the shade of the banyan tree. It occurred to me, "I”m a person of good will. I haven”t killed a living being since I was ordained." So I opened my mosquito netting, folded it up and said to all the monks and laypeople there, "Everyone put out your fires, right now. Light incense, fold up your mosquito netting and sit together in meditation. I”m going to meditate and spread good will to fight off the mosquitoes — without pulling any punches." Everyone obeyed. I gave a five-minute sermon on good will, and the cloud of mosquitoes dissolved away and virtually disappeared. Not a single one of them bit anyone in our group.

　　We spent the night there. In the evening a large number of lay people, including the District Official, civil servants and others in town, came to hear a sermon, so I preached the Dhamma to them.

　　After staying on for a fair while, we set out on foot through Khlawng Yai township and across Ito Mountain. Reaching Laem Yang, we met one of my followers who had brought a boat from Chanthaburi to transport plowshares. He invited us to return to Chanthaburi on his boat, The Golden Prince. His home was in Laem Singh (Lion”s Point), not far from the town of Chanthaburi. So we returned to Khlawng Kung Forest Monastery and there I spent the Rains Retreat as usual.

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　　During the rains that year I fell ill. I came down with fierce stomach pains, and no matter what I took for them,…

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