..续本文上一页 me that the night before, he had dreamed that loads and loads of falling stars had dropped into Wat Supat. I thought to myself, "If there really are sacred objects connected with Buddhism, I want them to show themselves."

　　That evening Nai Phit, of the Provincial Fisheries Bureau, brought a friend, a lady teacher, to come and see me. The teacher started asking me a lot of bizarre questions and in the end announced that she was going to leave her husband and come follow me, because the Dhamma I taught was so amazing. Her husband, Nai Prasong, worked in the Ubon branch of the Government Savings Bank, and was a Christian. Thinking that his wife had become mentally unbalanced, he had made a habit of following along wherever she went. People would ask him, "If you”re Christian, what are you doing in a Buddhist ordination hall

　　"

　　The teacher became even more reckless and bold, and came to sit just a meter away from me. I was sitting on a chair, and her husband was sitting about three meters off to one side. Altogether there were about 50 people in the hall. So I made a vow: "Today may the power of sacred objects come and help me, because there is a rumor going around, concerning the relics of the Buddha, that I”m tricking and deceiving the people. With news like this, there”s no one I can turn to, unless the deities and sacred objects can help me. Otherwise Buddhism is in for contempt and derision." At the time, Chao Khun Ariyagunadhara was sitting in front of the major Buddha image. All the other monks had left, because it was so late.

　　I then had everyone sit in meditation and added, "Whoever doesn”t believe, just sit still and watch." After a moment or so, I had the feeling that sacred objects had come and were circling all around, so I ordered everyone to open their eyes, and told Nai Prasong. "Open your eyes and look at me. I”m going to stand up." I then stood up and shook out my robes and sitting cloth for him to see, at the same time thinking, "May the deities help me so that he won”t be able to hold our religion in contempt." Then I said in a loud voice, "Relics of the Buddha have come. People sitting right in front of me will receive them. But when you open your eyes, don”t move a muscle. I myself won”t move."

　　As soon as I had finished speaking there was the ping of something small falling on the floor of the hall. A woman got up to pounce on it, but it sprang from her grasp and came near to where I was sitting. Another person came running after it, but I ordered him to stop. Finally the object came to rest in front of the teacher, so I told her, "It”s yours. Nai Prasong, watch carefully." The teacher picked it up: It was a setting from a ring, very finely done — an object that had once been offered in worship to the Buddha”s relics.

　　As time passed, the teacher would sit there, sometimes with her eyes closed, sometimes with them open, but she”d say, "Luang Phaw, you”ve taken me up to sit on top of a mountain." "All I can see is my own skeleton, but how can that be if I”m still alive

　　" "Even though I have a salary of 500 baht a month, I”ve never known the happiness I feel sitting here right now." The things she”d say got wilder and wilder all the time.

　　In the end, no fewer than ten people received relics of the Buddha that night. All the people there had their eyes wide open and the place was well lit. Just before daybreak, Nai Phae came to me, clutching in his fist a set of relics that he then gave to me, saying he had received them the night before. I turned them all over to Wat Supat.

　　The celebration lasted five days and five nights. One day they arranged a raffle for donating sets of robes to monks who had come to join in the celebration. There were a lot of people in Ubon who still mistrusted me, but none of them were …

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