..续本文上一页, coming to the temple to invite monks to chant at the dead person”s place. As soon as he entered the abbot”s quarters, I ran off in the opposite direction, followed by some of the newly ordained monks. When we reached the mango grove, we split up and climbed the trees — and there we sat, perched one to a tree, absolutely still. It wasn”t long before the abbot went looking for us, but he couldn”t find us. I could hear him losing his temper in his quarters. There was one thing I was afraid of, though: the slingshot he kept to chase bats from the trees. In the end, he had a novice come look for us, and when the novice found us, we all had to come down.

　　This is the way things went for two years. Whenever I looked into the books on monastic discipline, I”d start feeling really uneasy. I told myself, "If you don”t want to leave the monkhood, you”re going to have to leave this temple." At the beginning of my second rains retreat, I made a vow: "At present I still sincerely want to practice the Buddha”s teachings. Within the next three months, may I meet a teacher who practices them truly and rightly."

　　In the beginning of November I went to help preach the Mahachaad sermon at Wat Baan Noan Rang Yai in Yaang Yo Phaab township. When I arrived, a meditation monk happened to be on the sermon seat. I was really taken by the way he spoke, so I asked some laypeople who he was and where he came from. They told me, "That”s Ajaan Bot, a student of Ajaan Mun." He was staying about a kilometer from the village, in a forest of giant rubber trees, so at the end of the Mahachaad fair I went to see him. What I saw — his way of life, the manner in which he conducted himself — really pleased me. I asked him who his teachers were, and he answered, "Phra Ajaan Mun and Phra Ajaan Sao. At the moment, Ajaan Mun has come down from Sakon Nakhorn and is staying at Wat Burapha in the city of Ubon."

　　Learning this, I hurried home to my temple, thinking all the way, "This must be what I”ve been waiting for." A few days later I went to take leave of my father and preceptor. At first they did all they could to dissuade me from going, but as I told my father, I had already made up my mind. "I have to leave this village," I told him. "Whether I leave as a monk or a layman, I”ve still got to leave. My father and preceptor have no rights over me. The minute they start infringing on my rights is the minute I get up and go."

　　And in the end they let me go.

　　So at one in the afternoon, on a day in early December, I set out, carrying my necessary belongings, alone. My father accompanied me as far as the middle of a field. There, when we had said our goodbyes, we parted ways.

　　That day I walked, passing the town of Muang Saam Sib, all the way to Ubon. On my arrival, I was told that Ajaan Mun was staying at the village of Kut Laad, a little over ten kilometers outside the city. Again, I set out on foot to find him. It so happened that Phra Barikhut, a former District Official in Muang Saam Sib who had been dismissed from government service and was moving his family, drove past me in his truck. Seeing me walking alone on the side of the road, he stopped and offered me a ride all the way to the Ubon airport, the turnoff to Kut Laad. Even today I think of how kind he was to me, a total stranger.

　　At about five in the evening I reached the forest monastery at Kut Laad, where I learned that Ajaan Mun had just returned to Wat Burapha. So the next morning, after breakfast, I walked back to Ubon. There I paid my respects to Ajaan Mun and told him my purpose in seeking him out. The advice and assistance he gave me were just what I was looking for. He taught me a single word — buddho — to meditate on. It so happened that he was ill at the time, so he sent me to Baan Thaa Wang Hin (Ston…

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