..续本文上一页 come see me, but didn”t dare because of the uproar over the monk. Although the story doesn”t involve me, it”s worth telling: It seems that the monk had told the nuns that his legs hurt from sitting in meditation and delivering sermons so much, so would they please massage his legs — and they actually started giving him massages. That”s when the uproar started. The authorities looked into the matter and discovered that the monk had no identification papers, so they forced him to disrobe.

　　During my stay at Ratchaburi, Mae Samawn came out to see me. "I”m over two months pregnant," she said, and then went on, "I”d like to dedicate the child to you right now, because it”s your child, and not my husband”s." She seemed dead serious about what she was saying. I didn”t respond in any way, but I did feel surprised. She hadn”t had a child in 15 years, so how had it come about

　　From there I returned to Bangkok and stayed at Wat Boromnivasa. I happened to arrive just as the Somdet fell ill, so I helped look after him.

　　* * *

　　While I was at Wat Boromnivasa this time a large number of people from Bangkok, Thonburi and Lopburi came to practice meditation. One day there was a strange event. A woman named Mae Khawm, a native of Lopburi, came and presented me with three relics of the Buddha.

　　"Where did you get them

　　" I asked her.

　　"I asked for them from the Buddha image right over your pillow," she told me. This Buddha image belonged to Nai Udom, who had brought it down from Keng Tung during World War II. From what he had told me, it seems that there have been a lot of strange events connected with this image.

　　Here I”d like to back up to tell the history of the image. Originally Nai Udom was a person who never fel, t much respect for monks. He was a government official working with the Radio Division of the Mass Communications Department. During World War II he went along with the Thai Army, headed by General Praphan, to Keng Tung. One day he went to set up quarters in an old temple with a group of enlisted men. That evening, after lying down but before going to sleep, he saw a bright light shooting out from the shelf over his pillow, so he sprang up to see what was there. At the time he was the sort of person who, even though he was staying right next to sacred objects, never showed them any respect. But that day he became curious. He craned his neck up to see what was on the shelf, and there he found a gold-alloy Buddha image, about eight inches tall and three inches across at the base, black and glistening as if it had been polished every day. Seeing it, he grabbed it and put it in his suitcase. From that day on, his fortunes improved greatly. People started helping him, and he began to have more than enough money to spend. He got the money from people native to that area.

　　When the war was over he headed back to Thailand. On the way back, he spent a night on the bank of the Mae Jan river. That night the Buddha image entered his dreams and said, "Dom, you bastard, you”re going to take me across the river, but I”m not going to stand for it."

　　Nai Udom didn”t pay any attention to the dream. "What power could a metal Buddha have

　　" he thought. In the end, he brought the image back to Chanthaburi, retired from government service and set himself up in business as a merchant. During this period, he started looking wan and unhealthy. Life was becoming more and more of a hardship.

　　After a while his wife and children started falling ill, one after another. Nothing seemed to cure them. "Luang Phaw" entered his dreams again. "I”m staying here with you against my will," he said. "You”re going to have to take me back to my home!"

　　That year it so happened that I had gone out wandering in Prajinburi province, staying at YoungSavage Mountain. Around Apri…

《The Autobiography of a Forest Monk》全文未完，请进入下页继续阅读…