..续本文上一页at Baan Naa Mon, Ven. Acariya Mun was really observant and astute. Of all the sages of our day and age, who could be sharper than he

　　 He knew I had vowed not to accept food that came afterwards, but on the occasions he would come to put food in my bowl, he”d say, ”Maha, please let me put a little food in your bowl. This is a gift from one contemplative to another.” That”s what he”d say. ”This is a gift from a fellow contemplative. Please accept it.” That meant he was giving me the food himself.

　　Sometimes there”d be groups of lay people from Nong Khai, Sakon Nakhorn, or other places who would come to Baan Naa Mon to present food to Ven. Acariya Mun and the other monks in the monastery. This would happen once in a long, long while, because in those days there were no cars or buses. You”d have to travel on foot or by cart. These people would hire ox-carts to come and would spend a night or two -- but they wouldn”t stay with the monks in the monastery. They”d stay in the shack in Yom Phaeng”s rice field. When morning came, they”d prepare food and, instead of waiting outside the monastery to place the food in our bowls as we returned from our alms round, they”d bring it into the monastery to present it to us. I wouldn”t dare accept their food, for fear that my observance would be broken. I”d walk right past them. As I noticed, though, Ven. Acariya Mun would accept their food out of pity for them.

　　There would be a lot of food left over from presenting it to the monks, so they”d bring it to the meeting hall -- fruit, inpidual servings of food wrapped in banana leaves -- but we wouldn”t take any of it. It”d get passed around without making a ripple. No one, except sometimes one or two of the monks, would take any of it. It must have looked not just a little strange to the lay people. As for me, I wouldn”t dare take any of it, for fear that my observance of this ascetic practice would be broken. Several days later, Ven. Acariya Mun asked to put food in my bowl, saying, ”This is a gift from a fellow contemplative. Please let me put it in your bowl.” And then he put it in my bowl. He did it himself, you know. Normally -- who would I let put anything in my bowl! I”d be afraid that my observance would be broken or at the very least wouldn”t be complete. But he probably saw that there was pride lurking in my vow to observe this practice, so he helped bend it a little to give me a number of things to think about, so that I wouldn”t be simply a straight-arrow type. This was why he”d find various ways to teach me both directly and indirectly.

　　I in particular was very straight-arrow. I was very set on things in that way, which is why I wouldn”t let anyone destroy my ascetic practice by putting food in my bowl -- except for Ven. Acariya Mun, whom I respected with all my heart. With him, I”d give in and let him put food in my bowl the times he saw fit. I was solidly determined not to let this observance be deficient, not even the least little bit. This was something that kept chafing in the heart. I”d have to be complete both in terms of the observance I was following and in terms of my determination, but because of my love and respect for him, I”d accept his gifts even though I didn”t feel comfortable about it. This is the difference between a principle in the practice and a principle in the heart.

　　I admit that I was right in the earnestness of my practice, but I wasn”t right in terms of the levels of Dhamma that were higher and more subtle than that. Looking at myself and looking at Ven. Acariya Mun, I could see that we were very different. Ven. Acariya Mun, when looking at something, would see it thoroughly, in a way that was just right from every angle in the heart -- which wasn”t like the rest of us, who would view things in our stupid w…

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