In memory of Phra Ajaan Maha Boowa Ñanasampanno
(12 August 1913 – 30 January 2011)
10th Death Anniversary
[Luangta Maha Boowa was born on Aug 12, 1913, as Bua Lohitdee to a wealthy farming family and passed away on Jan 30 when he was going on to his 98th year. Before he passed away, Luangta was nursed at his kuti. Even though he was on drips and oxygen, he would go around the monastery in a golf cart when he wasn't too tired, thus giving his lay followers a chance to see him.]
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“I had heard that Ajaan Mun could read other people’s minds, and this intrigued me. So one day I decided to test him to see if it was true. In the afternoon, I prostrated three times before the Buddha statue and set up a determination in my heart: should Ajaan Mun know what I am thinking at this moment, then let me receive a clear and unmistakable sign that will dispel all my doubts.
Later that afternoon, I went to Ajaan Mun’s hut to pay my respects. When I arrived, he was sewing patches on his robes, so I offered to help. As soon as I approached him, his expression changed and his eyes grew fierce. Something didn’t feel right. I tentatively put my hand out to take a piece of cloth, but he quickly snatched it from my grasp with a short grunt of displeasure.
“Don’t be a nuisance!”
Things didn’t look good at all, so I sat quietly and waited. After a few minutes of tense silence, Ajaan Mun spoke, “Normally a practicing monk has to pay attention to his own mind and observe his own thoughts. Unless he’s crazy, he doesn’t expect someone else to look into his mind for him.”
In the lengthy silence that followed, I felt humbled and my mind surrendered to him completely.
I made a solemn vow never again to challenge Ajaan Mun. After that, I respectfully asked permission to help him sew his robe, and he made no objection.
When staying with Ajaan Mun, I felt as though the paths, the fruitions and Nibbana were nearly within my grasp. Everything I did felt solid and brought good results. But when I left him to go wandering in the forest alone, all that changed. Because my mind still lacked a firm basis, doubts began to arise. When doubts arose that I couldn’t handle myself, I’d have to go running back to him for advice. Once he suggested a solution, the problem usually disappeared in an instant, as though he had cut it away for me.
Sometimes, I would leave him for only five or six days when a problem started bothering me. If I couldn’t solve the problem the moment it arose, I’d head right back to him the next morning, because some of those problems were very critical. Once they arose, I needed advice in a hurry.
Speaking of effort in the practice, my tenth rains – beginning from the April after my ninth rains – was when I made the most intense effort. In all my life, I have never made a more vigorous effort than I did during my tenth rains. The mind went all out, and so did the body. From that point on, I continued making progress until the mind became solid as a rock. In other words, I was so skilled in my samadhi that the mind was as unshakeable a slab of rock. Soon I became addicted to the total peace and tranquillity of that samadhi state; so much so that my meditation practice remained stuck at that level of samadhi for five full years.
Once I was able to get past my addiction to samadhi, thanks to the hard-hitting Dhamma of Ajaan Mun, I set out to investigate. When I began investigating with wisdom, progress came quickly and easily because my samadhi was fully prepared. The path forward was wide-open and spacious, just as my vision had prophesied.
By the time I reached my 16th rains retreat, my meditation was progressing to the point where mindfulness and wisdom were circling around all external sensations and all internal thought processes, meticulously investigating everything without leaving any aspect unexplored. At that level of practice, mindfulness and wisdom acted in unison like a Wheel of Dhamma, revolving in continuous motion within the mind. I began to sense that the attainment of my goal was close at hand. I remembered my earlier vision* predicting attainment in that year and accelerated my efforts.
But by the end of the retreat, I still had not attained. My visions had always prophesied accurately before, but I began to suspect that this one had lied to me. Being somewhat frustrated, I decided to ask a fellow monk who I trusted what he made of the discrepancy. He immediately retorted that I must calculate a full year: from the beginning of the 16th rains retreat to the beginning of the 17th. Doing that gave me 9 more months of my 16th year. I was elated by his explanation and got back to work in earnest.
Having been gravely ill for many months, Ajaan Mun passed away shortly after my 16th rains retreat.
Ajaan Mun was always close at hand and ready to help resolve my doubts and provide me with inspiration. When I approached him with meditation problems that I was unable to solve on my own, those issues invariably dissolved away the moment he offered a solution. The loss of Ajaan Mun as a guide and mentor profoundly affected my hopes for attainment. Gone were the easy solutions I had found while living with him. I could think of no other person capable of helping me solve my problems in meditation. I was now completely on my own.
Fortunately, the current of Dhamma that flowed through my meditation had reached an irreversible stage.
By May of the next year, my meditation had arrived at a critical phase. When the decisive moment arrived, affairs of time and place ceased to be relevant. All that appeared in the mind was a splendid, natural radiance. I had reached a point where nothing else was left for me to investigate. I had already let go of everything – only that radiance remained. Except for the central point of the mind’s radiance, the whole universe had been conclusively let go.
At that time, I was examining the mind’s central point of focus. All other matters had been examined and discarded; there remained only that one point of “knowingness”. It became obvious that both satisfaction and dissatisfaction issued from that source. Brightness and dullness – those differences arose from the same origin.
Then, in one spontaneous instant, Dhamma answered the question. The Dhamma arose suddenly and unexpectedly, as though it were a voice in the heart: “Whether it is dullness or brightness, satisfaction or dissatisfaction, all such dualities are not-self.” The meaning was clear: Let everything go. All of them are not-self.
Suddenly, the mind became absolutely still. Having concluded unequivocally that everything without exception is not-self, it had no room to maneuver. The mind came to rest – impassive and still. It had no interest in self or not-self, no interest in satisfaction or dissatisfaction, brightness or dullness. The mind resided at the center, neutral and placid. It appeared inattentive; but, in truth, it was fully aware. The mind was simply suspended in a still, quiescent condition.
Then, from that neutral, impassive state of mind, the nucleus of existence – the core of the knower – suddenly separated and fell away. Having finally been stripped of all self-identity, brightness and dullness and everything else were suddenly torn asunder and destroyed once and for all.
In the moment when the mind’s fundamental delusion flipped over and fell away, the sky appeared to come crashing down as the entire universe trembled and quaked. When all delusion separated and vanished from the mind, it seemed as if the entire world had fallen away and vanished along with it. Earth, sky – all collapsed in an instant.
On May 15th of that year, the 9-year prediction from my earlier vision was fully realized. I finally reached the island of safety in the middle of the great wide ocean."
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*NB: In his seventh year as a monk, Ajaan Maha Boowa had a vision of a white-robed renunciant telling him that he’d attain his goal to gain freedom from suffering in nine years, i.e. in his 16th year in monkhood.
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From Samana by Ajaan Mahā Boowa Ñānasampanno, edited by Ajaan Dick Sīlaratano
https://forestdhamma.org/ebooks/english/pdf/Samana.pdf
“Within my heart, I have no sense of courage and no sense of fear; no such thing as gain or loss, victory or defeat.
My attempts to assist people stem entirely from loving compassion. I sacrificed everything to attain the Supreme Dhamma that I now teach. I nearly lost my life in search of Dhamma, crossing the threshold of death before I could proclaim to the world the Dhamma that I realised.
Sometimes I talk boldly, as if I were a conquering hero. But the Supreme Dhamma in my heart is neither bold nor fearful. It has neither gain nor loss, neither victory nor defeat. Consequently, my teaching emanates from the purest form of compassion.”
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