text:
HerJourney to Spiritual
Awakening and Enlightenment
Dhamma should not be sold like goods in the market place. Permission to reproduce
this publication in any way for free distribution, as a gift of Dhamma, is hereby
granted and no further permission need be obtained. Reproduction in any way for
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Preface 9
Introduction 13
Epilogue 227
Collected Teachings 231
About the Author 243
While I was living at Nakamnoi Forest Monastery in 2007, the
abbot, Ajaan Intawai Santussako, asked me to translate a biograph-
ical sketch of Mae Chee Kaew from Thai into English, which he
intended to publish in both languages. Although the sketch he gave
me was rather brief, Ajaan Intawai graciously made available all pre-
vious writings about Mae Chee Kaew's life that he had collected.
After translating the shortened version of her life into English, I
decided to write a complete account based on more extensive re-
search into the events that shaped her life and marked each step on
her path to enlightenment. Nakamnoi Forest Monastery provided me
with a calm and supportive environment in which to work, and the
monks there provided valuable research assistance. Mae Chee Kaew's
collected teachings, excerpts of which are quoted at the beginning
of each chapter, presented a special challenge as most of them were
recorded in her native Phu Tai dialect. I am indebted to those ethnic
Phu Tai monks who helped me to decipher their meaning.
This book would not have been completed without the dedi-
cated effort of many friends and helpers. My gratitude to them is
immense. In particular, I would like to thank my longtime copy-
10 Mae Chee Kaew
editor, Swe Thant, for deftly smoothing over the rough edges of
the first draft and helping to set the general tone of the narrative.
Rachel Claveau then did a masterful job of trimming down super-
fluous language and improving the grammatical structure. Rachel also
urged me to clarify many unclear or difficult passages to establish
precisely the intended meaning. Special thanks go to Mae Chee Melita
Halim, who single-handedly created the book's front and back cover
designs, the interior design and all of the pencil drawings. She worked
tirelessly for many months in difficult circumstances to prepare the
manuscript for publication. I feel blessed to have a generous and en-
thusiastic publisher, Silpa Siam Packaging and Printing Co., Ltd.,
who not only facilitated the publication, but also helped to solicit
contributions to fund the cost of printing. Without the generosity
of many dedicated donors, it would not have been possible to print
this book and make it available for free distribution. Their names
are too numerous to mention, but each one of them deserves our
heartfelt appreciation. And finally, a hearty thank you to Forest
Dhamma Books, a worldwide network of friends, for the time and
effort they volunteered in support of this project.
"When I went to the monastery as a young
girl, I had to be accompanied by my parents,
and I wasn't allowed to mingle with the monks.
While listening to the monks discuss Dhamma,
I sat way in the back, just within earshot. The
venerable meditation master taught us how to
pay homage to the Buddha and how to praise
his virtues with chanting. He encouraged us to
radiate loving kindness to all living beings, and
to always be open-hearted and generous. He
told us that no matter how generous we were
as lay supporters, the virtue of that generosity
could not compare with the virtue of ordaining
as a white-robed nun and earnestly practicing
the way to end all suffering. That message
always remained close to my heart."
Moonstone Pearls
Beginning in the 9 th
century, the migration of the Tai people from
southern China progressed as steadily and quietly as the flow of
monsoon floodwaters that seep into dense forests and blanket fertile
plains, changing color with the hue of the sky and form with the con-
tour of the land. Woven together geographically, Tai ethnic groups of
common origins and similar culture spread over mountains and down
valleys from south China into ancient Siam.
Among the many Tai sub-groups were the Phu Tai people, who
were fiercely independent farmers and hunters. Originating from the
Chinese prefecture of Jiaozhi on the banks of the Red River, they
were driven by a succession of political upheavals to forge their way
south through the neighboring Lao kingdoms, gradually pushed fur-
ther with each generation until they reached the banks of the Mekong
River. They settled inland and remained there for centuries, migrating
24 Mae Chee Kaew
later to more fertile land on the river's opposite side and fanning out
along its western territories.
Over centuries of struggle and hardship — through droughts,
floods, natural disasters and communal tragedies — the resourceful
Phu Tai people were eventually united into a cohesive political entity
ruled by a hereditary local lord and a powerful clan of warriors and
administrators. The kingdom of Mukdahan — named for the moon-
stone pearls, or mukda, which the Phu Tai discovered in local stream-
beds — became a regional center for their traditional way of life.
Baan Huay Sai was a small Phu Tai farming community in the
Kham Cha-ee district of old Siam's Mukdahan province. Situated at
the far edge of the Mekong River flood plain, where the southern
range of the Phu Phan mountains rise to form a rolling landscape, the
village perched neatly on a smooth stretch of high ground between
the Huay Bang Sai and Huay Bang Ee rivers. It was a settlement of
rustic wooden houses, built on stilts and shaded by large overhanging
trees, as though the living space had been carved out of a dense pri-
meval forest. The villagers were country people with rough, unrefined
manners and simple guileless lives, sustained by subsistence farming
and the hunting of wild game. They cultivated rice, each family farm-
ing a plot of fertile land on the village outskirts that had been cleared
of trees. Beyond the clearing, lay a thick jungle terrain. Teeming with
tigers and elephants, this vast forest was believed to harbor hidden
dangers and frightening places, compelling the inhabitants to band
together in village settlements for safety and companionship.
Situated over a large expanse of fertile territory along the Mekong,
Mukdahan began as a separate kingdom and later evolved into a semi-
autonomous principality, owing allegiance to Siam's Chakri Dynasty.
Part One — Blessing 25
Legend has it that Baan Huay Sai village was once home to three
royal sisters — Princess Kaew, Princess Klum and Princess Kah —
who, through the female line, stamped a lasting imprint on the Phu
Tai character. By the force of their personalities, they instilled in gen-
erations of offspring a sharp intellect, an implacable determination
and a fair-minded viewpoint. Proud of their heritage and independent
in spirit, the Phu Tai were unified by the bonds of tradition, custom
and language. These bonds were passed down like sacred trusts from
one generation to the next.
In late 19th century Siam, the local magistrate of Baan Huay Sai
village was Tason Sianglum. Tason's authority came from jao meung, the
provincial lord who had appointed him. His responsibilities were to
mediate local disputes, moderate local tempers, and engage his fellow
Phu Tai's innate sense of justice in order to preserve neighborly peace
and harmony.
Magistrate Tason was a fair-minded man of simple wisdom who
resolved to serve his people well. By maintaining communal peace,
he was doing his part to maintain the traditional Phu Tai identity.
His wife, Don, was a gentle and kind woman who carried the title
of magistrate as well, but had no public duties as such. Instead, she
raised a family of five children. The oldest three were boys, followed
in quick succession by two girls. The youngest was born early on the
morning of November 8, 1901. Her mother named her Tapai, which
meant "eye-catching".
From an early age, Tapai had an aura of mystery about her, as
though she knew more than she could ever express. When she was
old enough to speak, she giggled with delight as she whispered to her
mother about nocturnal adventures in which she accompanied glow-
26 Mae Chee Kaew
of warmth and devotion. Each morning, after Tapai and her mother
placed their offerings of sticky rice and curries, wrapped in banana
leaf, into the monks' alms bowls, her father followed the monks to
the edge of the village. Tason always kept a respectful distance as the
monks received their daily offerings and helped carry the food-laden
bowls back to the temple. On the four religious observance days of
each month — the days of the new and full moons and the two days
of the half-moon — Tason scrupulously maintained the precepts
while enjoying the luxury of spending a whole day at the temple,
chatting and doing odd jobs for the monks.
As a young child, Tapai's life energy moved freely between her
physical world and her spiritual world. Then, suddenly, when she was
five years old, both worlds collapsed. Without thought or warning
— before the possibility ever crossed her mind or entered her imagi-
nation — her mother fell ill and died. In her shock and confusion,
everything she believed in crumbled and fell apart.
At the simple funeral ceremony, Tapai stared on, gripped by fear
at seeing her mother's cold, stiff body, wrapped in layers of white
cloth, lying atop a crude pyre of logs and branches. When the flames
leapt up and tore through the cloth and skin to expose raw, blistering
flesh and twisted sinews, she turned her head away in pain. Even as
the fire finally came to rest, and all that remained were ashes and
charred bones, she still could not bear to look.
With her mother's death, Tapai learned at an early age that change
and loss are part of life; that life is inseparable from pain and death.
Gradually, with the help of her family — especially her two brothers,
P'On and P'In — she began to heal. The boys loved their sister —
she with her bright eyes and strong will. Although they too were in
28 Mae Chee Kaew
pain over the loss of their mother, the brothers constantly tried to
cheer Tapai up and lighten her mood. Finally, however, it was a new,
closer, more personal relationship with her father that ultimately lift-
ed her heart and cleared away the burden of grief.
After his wife's death, Tason began taking Tapai to the temple on
lunar observance days. She sat with her father for hours, watching,
listening, daydreaming — but, most of all, healing. She grew so fond
of the temple atmosphere that whenever she had free time she liked
to sneak into the grounds, sit beneath the mango tree, and do nothing
but enjoy a sense of calm.
Tapai liked to celebrate Visākha Pūjā, the May festival honoring
the Buddha's birth, enlightenment and passing away. May in Baan
Huay Sai village was one of the most beautiful months of the year.
With the first showers of the annual rains, flowers burst into bloom,
bringing small explosions of color everywhere and armloads of blos-
soms for offerings at the festival. Flowers were gathered in abundance
and placed lovingly around the radiant shrine of the Buddha with its
multi-tiered altar. In the evening, a candle-lit procession of monks
and laity would wind its way around the ordination hall; after which,
the monks led the entire congregation in chanting ancient verses of
praise for the Lord Buddha and his teaching. The chants were deeply
inspiring and so moving that they lifted the participants from the
commonplace of daily existence to a higher, more exalted plane.
As the spiritual bond between father and daughter deepened,
Tapai began, hesitantly at first, to tell him about her other world, her
inner world of mystery and surprise. Tason listened patiently, quiz-
zically, to tales of playful deities and dream-world escapades —
Part One — Blessing 29
From time to time during the dry and hot seasons of the year,
wandering dhutanga monks passed through Baan Huay Sai, searching
for secluded places to camp and meditate in solitude. The mountains
and forests surrounding the village were areas of vast wilderness, for-
bidding and inhospitable. Wild animals roamed freely, and malevolent
spirits were believed to reign supreme. The terrain remained a jungle,
and fear kept it remote and sequestered. This made it an ideal place
for wandering meditation monks to live and practice their ascetic way
of life in solitude.
Detached, reserved and intent on renunciation, dhutanga monks
hiked through the wilderness, often alone, along deserted trails. They
sought secluded locations that offered body and mind a calm, quiet
setting — a ridge, a cave, an overhanging cliff — places suitable for
striving to attain the end of all suffering. Living a life entirely out-
of-doors, the dhutanga monk constantly put himself at the mercy of
34 Mae Chee Kaew
the elements and the vagaries of the weather. Living in harmony with
his natural surroundings, a dhutanga monk's daily life featured nature's
rich diversity: rocks and trees, rivers and streams, tigers, snakes,
elephants and bears. For his livelihood, he depended on collecting
alms food in the small settlements that had sprung up at the jungle's
The Phu Tai felt a common bond with the wandering ascetics and
their fearless warrior spirit. Because of that, the monks easily found
support for their lifestyle in Phu Tai communities. Tapai's father was
especially fond of the forest monks: "True sons of the Buddha" he
called them, with an appreciative smile. Energized by seeing them, he
welcomed their arrival with childlike enthusiasm.
In 1914, the arrival of Ajaan Sao Kantasīlo — the renowned
dhutanga master — transformed the spiritual landscape of Baan Huay
Sai village life forever. Having come from afar, he and a small band
of disciples simply wandered into the area on foot one day. They had
been hiking for months, first crossing the Mekong River from Laos
to Siam's Nakhon Phanom province, then trekking over the eastern
hills of Sakon Nakhon and down through the Phu Phan wilderness
to reach Mukdahan.
Though he was 55 years old, Ajaan Sao walked entire days in the
tropical heat, crossing the most arduous terrain with steady, effortless
steps. When he and his group reached the vicinity of Baan Huay Sai
village, the annual rains were just beginning. Cloud bursts and cool-
ing showers were followed by lustrous sunshine illuminating the sky,
while damp heat hugged the ground. Ajaan Sao knew that the chang-
ing climate beckoned him to search for a suitable site to spend the
rains retreat, an annual three-month period of intensive meditation.
Part One — Blessing 35
the instigators, of human pain and suffering; and the belief that
bribes of sacrificial offerings could guard against adversity and mis-
Local deities and ghosts were as much a part of Phu Tai village
life as the sun, the rain and the morning fog; as inescapable as birth,
life and death. This Ajaan Sao did not refute. But he taught them
that every nonphysical being experienced the karmic consequences of
its own actions; each was the product of its own kamma, just like the
villagers themselves. Worshipping these beings was, in effect, attribut-
ing to them a power that they did not possess. The essence of Ajaan
Sao's message was personal responsibility. Pleasure or pain, happiness
or suffering, having or lacking: all are a result of an individual's past
karmic deeds, combined with one's moral behavior in the present.
Preparing Ajaan Sao's encampment for the retreat required the
construction of shelters to weather the monsoon rains: a single-room
hut for each monk and a central sala for meals and recitations of the
monastic rules. Paths for walking meditation needed leveling and la-
trines needed digging. With joy in his heart and a bounce in his step,
Tapai's father quickly volunteered his services — cutting and sawing
trees for stout posts, splitting and pressing bamboo for floors and
walls, collecting and binding tall grasses for roof thatching. Paths
were cleared, graded and swept; outdoor toilets were excavated and
encircled with thatch. By the time Tason and his friends completed
the work, a small, orderly forest monastery had been crafted from
the jungle wilderness.
Spiritual transformation happened gradually for the Phu Tai
village. First one family, then another, took the leap of faith — faith
in the protective power of the Lord Buddha and faith in their own
38 Mae Chee Kaew
moral virtue. Many burned their spirit shrines and objects of ritual
worship to ashes. Some were skeptical of Buddhism, and hesitated.
Who knew how the local deities would react. Might they not take
Naturally frugal with speech, Ajaan Sao used his words sparingly
to counter common fears and inculcate faith and virtue among the
villagers. In talks that were direct and easy to understand, he taught
them simple lessons. To instill faith, he encouraged them to replace
the custom of sacrificial offerings with the practice of taking refuge in
the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. To inculcate virtue, he encouraged
them to observe the five moral precepts: refraining from killing, steal-
ing, lying, committing adultery and taking intoxicants. The villagers
learned that by guarding their minds and actions with simple, yet po-
tent practices, and thus avoiding behavior harmful to themselves and
others, they would acquire the means to protect themselves.
So as to help them overcome and rid themselves of fear, Ajaan
Sao taught them the protective power of meditation. First, he guided
people in paying homage to the Buddha by chanting the Blessed One's
virtues in unison. Once their hearts were calm and clear, he proceed-
ed to allay their doubts and worries, speaking simply and concisely:
"Don't be afraid. As long as you meditate, focusing on 'buddho, buddho,
buddho', the spirits will never disturb you. Everyone falls ill at some
point in life. But it's nonsense to think that sickness is caused by
ghosts and spirits. Our bodies are constantly decaying and renewing
themselves. The human body and illness go hand in hand. It's point-
less to ask your dead relatives for help. Far better that you practice
meditation and dedicate the merit of your actions to their spirits.
Then you both will gain some benefit."
Part One — Blessing 39
She first felt this pull on one memorable occasion. She heard
Ajaan Sao praise the womenfolk for their generous support of the
monks. Their daily offerings of food and other necessities were not
only beneficial to the monks, but they were also a blessing for their
own futures as well. He then added, briefly and emphatically, that
the virtue of generosity was nothing compared to the virtue of re-
nunciation practiced by white-robed nuns meditating in the forest.
This remark stirred Tapai at the core of her being. The nuns, said
Ajaan Sao, were a fruitful field of merit for all living beings. With
that pointed pronouncement, Ajaan Sao had planted a small seed
in the young girl's heart that would one day grow into a majestic
Bodhi tree.
Don't doubt the value of meditation or under-
estimate your abilities. Be content with whatever
progress you make because it reflects a part of
the truth you are seeking. As such, it is some-
thing you can rely on.
Blessing of a Lifetime
Ajaan Sao spent three years living in the vicinity of Baan Huay
Sai village, first in one forest location, then in another. By the time
he departed Kham Cha-ee district and wandered north, the religious
landscape in the area had been altered for good. So influential was
Ajaan Sao, that most of the locals now favored Buddhist practices
over spirit worship.
Tapai's father had accompanied Ajaan Sao as he moved to dif-
ferent places in the area, suggesting new secluded spots and working
with his friends to construct small bamboo shelters for him and his
disciples. As much as anyone, he was pleased by the Buddhist renais-
sance spreading through the community. While Tapai's father was
saddened to see Ajaan Sao leave, he was simultaneously consoled
by his knowledge that Buddhism was now firmly established in the
hearts and minds of his Phu Tai neighbors. Little did he suspect,
42 Mae Chee Kaew
After a brief time, her mind withdrew slightly from deep samādhi,
and she became uncomfortably aware of an image of her body lying
dead in front of her. She recognized her own corpse very clearly. The
image was so real, and so vivid in detail, that it convinced her she must
have died. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, an anxious thought
ruffled the calm: "Since I'm dead, who'll take my place cooking rice to
put into the monks' bowls tomorrow? Who's going to tell Ajaan Mun
that I died sitting in meditation tonight?"
Quickly suppressing these worries, Tapai steadied her mind and
accepted her fate. She mused: "If I'm dead, I'm dead! Everyone in the
world is bound to die. Nobody can escape from death. Even a great
king must die one day."
Her mind then became resolute and focused as she fixed her atten-
tion to the dead body lying prostrate before her. The image had not
faded or changed in the least, which reinforced her impression that
she was actually dead. As she pondered the consequences of her death
without reaching any conclusions, a small group of local villagers ap-
peared in her vision. They simply materialized in the picture, slowly
picked up her limp, lifeless body and carried it to a nearby charnel
ground. As the villagers laid her body in the middle of the desolate
area, she noticed Ajaan Mun and a group of monks solemnly walking
toward the corpse. Ajaan Mun stopped in front of it and gazed down
for a moment before turning to the monks to say: "This girl is dead.
Now I'll perform the funeral rites."
As the monks looked on impassively, heads slightly bowed, Ajaan
Mun softly intoned the funeral chant: "Aniccā vata saṅkhārā…"
46 Mae Chee Kaew
"When the components that make up the body have died, the
body is no longer of use. The heart, however, does not die; it
goes on working ceaselessly. When it develops in the way of
virtue, its benefits are unlimited. But if it is used in harmful
ways, it becomes a danger to oneself."
"The body does not last; having been born, it must die. The
heart, however, does last. It is never born, and it does not die
when the body dies. It is constantly in motion, spinning and
shifting, following the causes and conditions that lead it on."
Continuing to tap the corpse rhythmically with the tip of his walking
stick, Ajaan Mun appeared to reiterate this truth over and over again.
With each gentle tap of his stick, her body started to decompose.
First the skin blistered and peeled, exposing the flesh beneath. Fur-
ther tapping rotted the flesh and sinews, revealing the bones and
inner organs. Entranced, Tapai watched passively as her entire body
quickly decayed, until only the hard bones remained intact. Placing
his hand in the skeletal debris and picking up the "kernel" of the
heart in his palm, Ajaan Mun announced:
Ajaan Mun finished speaking, she puzzled: "If the whole body de-
composes at death, leaving only the bones behind, what is it that
regains consciousness?"
Still looking at the kernel in his hand and without lifting his
gaze, Ajaan Mun immediately answered her thought: "It's bound to
return! How could you not regain consciousness when the kernel
that brings it back is still there? You will regain consciousness tomor-
row morning at dawn."
Tapai spent the entire night seated in meditation, completely
absorbed in the vision of her dead body. Only at the first light of
dawn did her mind withdraw from deep samādhi. As she was be-
coming aware of herself, she looked down at her body, seated on the
bed. She realized, with a sigh of relief, that she had not died. Her
normal waking state had returned, and she felt pleased to be alive.
But, then, as she pondered the night's events, she began to chide her-
self for falling asleep and dreaming throughout the night when she
should have been meditating instead. She was sure that Ajaan Mun
would be disappointed with her.
Later in the morning, Ajaan Mun passed by her house on his
daily almsround. As Tapai placed food in his alms bowl, he looked at
her quizzically; then, he smiled and told her to come see him when
he had finished eating. Her father accompanied her on the familiar
walk to Ajaan Mun's encampment, unsure why she was asked to go.
Could there be a problem? Tapai walked silently, brooding and feel-
ing ashamed of herself for falling asleep in meditation. What was
she going to tell Ajaan Mun? Certainly he'd be displeased. She wanted
to hide, but she didn't know where, or how.
48 Mae Chee Kaew
please come and tell me about the visions that you experience in
your meditation."
Cultivate your mind, as a farmer cultivates his
fields. Gradually clear the land; prepare the
soil; plough the rows; sow the seeds; spread the
manure; water the plants and pull the weeds.
Eventually, you'll reap a golden harvest.
the far end of her family's field, a large knoll of partially forested
land suitable for a Mulberry grove. Working diligently, she cleared
and leveled the ground. In the flat clearings, surrounded by shady
hardwood trees that protected the saplings from the harsh sun, Tapai
planted the mulberry trees. She tended them carefully until they
took firm root and began to flourish in the damp tropical heat. As
soon as the trees in her grove matured, she planned to begin raising
Not long thereafter, Tapai overheard Ajaan Mun explaining to
the villagers that he was looking for a suitable place to spend the
rains retreat. He wanted a broad stretch of high ground where the
foliage was not too dense, and where the earth had some exposure to
the drying heat of the sun, so that the dampness would not become
too oppressive during the long, wet monsoon season. Tapai immedi-
ately thought of her mulberry grove. It rose above the rice fields on
a hillock allowing the rainwater to drain away easily. The breezes
off the rice fields helped blow away the humidity and keep the area
cool. The level clearings, where she had planted the mulberry trees,
were suitable for building bamboo huts; and the forest trees provided
adequate seclusion.
After consulting with her father and her brothers, she invited
Ajaan Mun to visit her property so that he could see its suitability
for himself. When Ajaan Mun showed delight and satisfaction with
the environment, she smiled joyfully and prepared to beg the great
master to accept the land as a gift and, out of compassion for her,
to spend the rains retreat there. But, before she could open her
mouth to speak, he declared loudly for all to hear that the grove was
precisely the kind of place he needed to build a small monastery for
52 Mae Chee Kaew
elders therefore took great care in its construction, cutting and trim-
ming solid hardwood posts and beams to strengthen the structural
framework, and raising the floor on stilts to a height of four feet to
protect against flooding in heavy downpours.
Tapai was seated in the congregation at Wat Nong Nong to cele-
brate the first day of the rains retreat. From his elevated seat, Ajaan
Mun addressed a large crowd of local supporters that spilled out of
the sala and onto the ground below, where straw mats were spread
out to accommodate them. He opened by expounding the virtues of
giving, and Tapai felt a warm glow lift her heart as she recognized
that her gift of land had made this inspiring occasion possible.
In a powerful, thundering voice, he explained that the real value
of giving is the merit gained from acts of self-sacrifice. The most
meritorious gifts are those given freely to benefit others without hop-
ing for anything in return, other than the good results of the act
of generosity itself. The spiritual qualities obtained from that charit-
able effort are experienced in the heart as merit and goodness. And the
inspiration behind the good intention to give comes from the heart.
He emphasized that it is the heart that sows the seeds of virtue, and
the heart that reaps the harvest. Acts of generosity are an investment
for the future for they are the foundations of a favorable rebirth.
Next, Ajaan Mun expounded the virtues of moral conduct. He
explained that the moral virtue gained by faithfully observing the five
moral precepts is the foundation for being a decent human being.
Each of the five precepts carries a particular benefit. By refraining
from harming living creatures, we can expect to enjoy good health
and longevity. By refraining from stealing, our wealth and property
will be safe from theft and misfortune. By refraining from adultery,
54 Mae Chee Kaew
partners will be faithful toward each other and live contentedly with-
out feeling guilt or shame. By refraining from lying, we will always
be trusted and respected for our integrity. By refraining from intoxi-
cants, we will guard our intelligence and remain bright, knowledgeable
people who are not easily misguided or thrown into confusion.
People who maintain a high level of moral virtue tend to reassure
living beings everywhere by conveying a sense of contentment and
mutual trust, and by promoting this feeling in others. The supportive
and protective power of morality ensures rebirth into higher realms
of existence, so those who adhere to high moral standards will surely
reach a heavenly destination in their next life.
And, while such goodness comes of virtuous living, Ajaan Mun
went on to explain that meditation brings the greatest rewards of all.
The heart is the most important element in the whole universe; and
one's material and spiritual welfare depend on the heart's well-being.
He said that one lives by means of the heart. Both the contentment
and the dissatisfaction one feels in this life are experienced in the
heart. When one dies, one departs by means of the heart. One is
reborn according to one's kamma — with the heart as the sole cause.
Because it is the source of everything, one's heart should be trained
in the right way so that one conducts oneself properly now and in
the future. Through meditation, the heart can be trained correctly.
By using meditation to rein in unruly thoughts, one can lay a firm
foundation for spiritual calm and contentment.
For the next three months, Tapai applied herself wholeheartedly
to her meditation practice. Supported by her strong faith in Ajaan
Mun and nurtured by his wise counsel, her practice developed quick-
ly. Being naturally inclined to have visions and to experience psychic
Part One — Blessing 55
his young pupil. Tapai became deeply devoted to Ajaan Mun, and
she felt privileged to get so much of his time and attention.
One day, shortly after the end of the annual three-month rains
retreat, Ajaan Mun sent for Tapai. He told her that he and his monks
would soon leave the district to continue wandering from place to
place in the traditional style of dhutanga monks. He glanced down at
her with eyebrows arched and a faint smile on his lips and asked her
if she had a boyfriend. Tapai shook her head and said, no. He nodded
slowly and suggested she could ordain as a white-robed renunciant
and follow him on his travels, if she wished, but she must first re-
ceive her father's permission. She stared up at him, speechless, and he
silently coaxed her for an answer. Groping for a deep breath, and the
right words, Tapai said that she wanted to ordain and go with him,
but that she feared her father would never allow it. With a reassuring
smile, and a short flick of his head, Ajaan Mun sent her home.
Tapai's father gave the proposal a cold reception. He refused to
grant her permission to ordain because he feared that, should his
daughter later disrobe and return to lay life, she would meet difficul-
ties in finding a husband. He urged her to enjoy a normal life and be
satisfied with her lay religious practices.
Receiving the news with a knowing smile, Ajaan Mun encouraged
Tapai to be patient — her time would come. Meanwhile, she had to
follow his parting instructions explicitly. He forcefully insisted that
she stop practicing meditation after his departure. He told her she
must be content to live a worldly life for the time being. When the
right time came, she would have another opportunity to develop her
meditation skills. He promised her that in the future another qualified
Part One — Blessing 57
teacher would come to guide her on the right path. In the meantime,
she must be patient.
Ajaan Mun saw that Tapai's mind was extremely adventurous and
dynamic by nature. She did not yet have sufficient control over her
mental focus to meditate safely on her own. Should something un-
toward occur in her meditation, she would have no one to help her in
his absence. He realized that she needed a highly-skilled meditation
teacher who could rein her in when she got out of hand; otherwise,
she could easily go the wrong way and do damage to herself. For that
reason, he forbade her to meditate after he left.
Although Tapai did not understand Ajaan Mun's reasons for this
strict prohibition, she had enormous faith in him. So, she abruptly
stopped her practice, even though she wanted to continue so much
that she felt her heart would break. It would be another twenty years
before she picked up her meditation practice again.
Your body, your mind, your life — these don't
belong to you, so don't depend on them to bring
true happiness.
Little Kaew
Tapai did not like this busy world, but she tolerated it. Her one
abiding solace had always been the monastery, the religious ceremo-
nies, the spiritual practices. In this vacuum, she was further restricted
by her husband who felt that a woman's place was in the home and
with her family; not in the outside world, and certainly not in
the spiritual world. Very old beliefs divided Phu Tai culture and
community life into separate spheres: high and low, male and female.
That was part of Tapai's world, too. It was ingrained in her upbring-
ing and not to be violated. Tapai's husband allowed her precious little
personal freedom. That was his prerogative and part of the unspoken
marriage bargain. He forbade her to attend observance days at the
monastery, and limited her spiritual activities to offering food to the
monks in the morning and chanting parittas at night. She acquiesced
to his demands. She had no other choice.
Part One — Blessing 65
she felt, how she wanted to be relieved of her domestic duties so she
could renounce the world and ordain. Her husband's response was
cold and uncompromising. He flatly refused, rejecting all further dis-
cussion. Silently, with eyes dutifully cast down, Tapai accepted his
judgment and went on with her life.
Tapai's life continued much the same, day after day. Patiently,
hopefully, she bided her time. Some weeks later, when she saw her
husband in a good mood, she tried again, pleading for her freedom.
And again, her husband refused. He said that if he let her become a
nun, people would gossip, saying that she left him because he was an
unworthy husband, because he'd failed to give her a child.
Tapai didn't know what to say. It was true that they had lived
together for ten years without children. They were both surrounded
by large, extensive families, but their own family never grew. Perhaps
it was a fortunate karmic consequence: this turn of fate should have
made it easier for her to simply walk away. Instead, it was used as a
reason to thwart her departure. She tried one more time to reason
with him, to reach a mutual understanding; but to no avail. His an-
swer was no.
Phu Tai families were generally large. Each birth was celebrated as
a victory to their survival, with each new child expected to help bear
the workload. Children grew up to share the burden of farming and
housekeeping, and then to take care of their parents in old age. After
so many years of childless marriage, Tapai's aunts and cousins worried
about her welfare: who would look after her when she grew old?
So when one of her cousins — a woman with many children —
became pregnant yet again, it was decided that the baby should be
given to Tapai to bring up as her own. By prior arrangement with the
Part One — Blessing 67
mother, Tapai helped deliver a healthy baby girl, whom she cradled
in her arms and lovingly carried home immediately after birth. Tapai
quickly named the girl, "Kaew", her "little darling".
When people noticed Tapai's delight with the baby, and how
motherly her affections were, always attentive and caring, they began
to call her Mae Kaew, "Kaew's mother". Because it sounded so natu-
ral, the name stuck; and from then on, she was known affectionately
as Mae Kaew.
Little Kaew grew up to be a spirited and intelligent girl who en-
thusiastically learned her mother's daily tasks, skillfully imitating
Mae Kaew's agile movements and training her young body to assume
the rhythm of work until it became second nature. Mae Kaew had
been forced by the untimely death of her own mother to develop
these skills at a tender age, so she expected her daughter to cultivate
the same sense of purpose and commitment.
Raising a daughter became a playful and joyous experience. It dis-
tracted Mae Kaew from the confining restrictions of her life, and
freed her, at least temporarily, from their tedium. She yearned to share
her spiritual longings with someone, but Kaew was still too young,
too innocent, too carefree to notice the suffering in the world around
her. For Mae Kaew, who had long ago become intimate with the pain
and suffering of the world, the affliction borne by those around her
affected her like a wound in the chest, sharp and heavy. She felt the
harsh unforgiving life of ordinary village people who struggled daily
with work. They worked all their lives, from youth through old age,
until death. The joy of birth was followed by the sorrow of death;
ravaging floods followed by devastating droughts.
68 Mae Chee Kaew
The same year that she adopted Kaew, Mae Kaew's father died.
Sorrow followed joy. Then, the rains failed, and so did their rice crop.
Happiness and suffering, seeming to appear always as a pair, like two
wheels of a cart working in tandem to drive a person's life towards
death — and future birth, when the wheels started churning anew.
Mae Kaew saw that change and suffering were central in life; that
everything changed, and no one escaped suffering.
Through the joys and sorrows, the good seasons and the bad,
Mae Kaew never relinquished her heart's true aspiration. Being
fixed and deeply rooted, below the shifting surface of appearances,
renunciation remained the abiding purpose of her existence. She
often visualized herself joining the nuns at Wat Nong Nong, shaving
her head, wearing plain white garments, living in bare, uncomplicat-
ed silence — and meditating again, undisturbed. Renunciation as a
way of life. For so many years she had trained herself to live in the
world, and not get lost in it; to know the turbulence of her mind and
make it peaceful. Happiness and suffering, gladness and sorrow, these
were the fluctuations that gave her no peace, the moods that deceived
the mind and made her forget herself and her purpose. As she assumed
more responsibility with age, peace was losing out to frustration —
the nagging disappointment of unfulfillment. Ajaan Mun's parting
promise, that one day she would experience the realization of that
dream, had always been a sanctuary for her restive heart. But now,
with a daughter to bring up, the possibility of ordaining seemed more
remote than ever.
Still, if a life of total renunciation was out of the question, per-
haps a short retreat could be managed. After all, young village men
often ordained temporarily, becoming monks for the duration of a
Part One — Blessing 69
raise — and that was a fulltime job. He didn't want to hear anymore
about her dreams.
So Mae Kaew crawled back into the tight corners of her life and
waited. Patience was a virtue. Compassion and forgiveness were also
virtues. She resisted resenting her husband and the restrictions he
placed on her. She loved her daughter, and she respected his wishes.
But, she did not give up dreaming. Hope, for Mae Kaew, became a
saving virtue. So, the following year, with the retreat period approach-
ing, she tried yet again to negotiate a concession from her husband.
Though her husband's reply was more conciliatory this time, and less
blunt, it was no less dismissive than before, and no less dishearten-
Her predicament was known and gossiped about on both sides
of the family. Some were in favor, others opposed. An elderly uncle,
respected and admired by all for his wisdom and sense of fairness, was
asked to mediate. He had known Mae Kaew since she was a young
girl accompanying her father to visit Ajaan Mun, and he sympathized
with her righteous intentions. He decided to honor her recently de-
ceased father by arguing for a favorable outcome. Speaking privately
with his niece's husband, he extolled the virtues of religious practice
and urged him to be fair and reasonable, gently pressuring him to ac-
cept a short-term compromise. In the end, an agreement was reached:
Bunmaa would allow his wife to ordain for the three-month rains
retreat — but not a day longer. As his part of the bargain, he vowed
to uphold the integrity of the family and take care of their daughter
in her absence. He was even persuaded to observe three months of
abstinence, by keeping faith with the five moral precepts until her
return: to refrain from killing, stealing, lying, adultery and intoxi-
Part One — Blessing 71
On a clear and cloudless Asāḹha full moon day in July, at the age of
thirty-six, Mae Kaew knelt before the monks and nuns at Wat Nong
Nong and, without regret, left behind everything that embodied her
former life, everything that she considered herself to be. By taking
part in an age-old ritual of grace and simplicity, she declared herself
to be a mae chee, a rightfully ordained Buddhist nun.
Mae Kaew arrived at the monastery in the early morning to start
her initiation. She greeted the resident nuns with a nervous smile and
sat respectfully to one side, joining them for an austere meal. Finally,
Mae Kaew's long awaited dream of living a life of noble equanimity
and detachment was being realized. One by one, the distinguishing
marks of her old identity were stripped away. Soon she was squatting
anxiously at the well, with butterflies fluttering in her stomach, her
neck extended forward as the head nun, Mae Chee Dang, deftly ma-
neuvered a pair of blunt scissors across her head, chopping off lumps
76 Mae Chee Kaew
Mae Chee Kaew withdrew from the world and entered a cloistered
spiritual realm. Although her dream was achieved, her work had just
begun. The nuns lived in their own section of the monastery, separat-
ed from the monks' quarters by tall, thick clumps of tangled bamboo.
Here Mae Chee Kaew was given a tiny hut, so newly constructed that
its split bamboo floor and walls were still freshly green and shiny, and
the thatch of its grass roof still dense and bushy.
Mae Chee Dang was the senior-most nun in the community. Mae
Chee Kaew had been present six years earlier when Mae Chee Dang
solemnly took her vows in this same monastery, and had always
admired and respected her, both as a close family friend and as a
devout and dedicated renunciant. She set the example for the younger
nuns who looked to her for inspiration. Together with Mae Chee
Ying, who ordained shortly after her, Mae Chee Dang made sure that
Part Two — Renunciation 81
the small group of women at Wat Nong Nong remained focused and
in proper harmony.
Mae Chee Kaew began her new life by stepping into its quiet
rhythm at the earliest stirring of the first new day. She rose at three
a.m. each morning and washed the sleep from her face with handfuls
of cold water. She then lit a candle lantern and stepped onto the
meditation path beside her hut to take up her practice. Silently
repeating 'bud…dho, bud…dho' with each pair of footsteps, she
internalized her senses and concentrated her mind until she felt fully
awake and sufficiently fresh to continue her meditation in a seated
position. Sitting still and erect, she maintained her calm, peaceful
concentration until daybreak. She then hurried toward the main sala
to join the monks and nuns for the morning chanting.
When the soft cadence of the chanting faded to a close, the monks
and nuns remained in a still, contemplative silence for several minutes.
Afterwards, the nuns gathered in the open-air kitchen to cook rice and
prepare simple dishes to augment the offerings the monks received
on their daily alms round. Mae Chee Kaew cheerfully helped with the
cooking chores and then joined the nuns for their daily meal. Like the
monks, the nuns ate only one meal a day, a practice that suited their
meditative lifestyle. Eating less often, and only small amounts, light-
ens the work of meditation: eating too much can easily make the
mental faculties sluggish and unresponsive, and greed and obsession
for food can be a corrosive poison in the mind. Once the chores
of cooking and cleaning were completed, the nuns turned their full
attention to meditation, buoyant in body and spirit, and free of
concern about food for the rest of the day.
82 Mae Chee Kaew
She realized intuitively that the fear itself was the real danger, not
the image that induced it. Images perceived in meditation are merely
mental phenomena that have no inherent power to harm one's body
or mind. They are neutral, and, in and of themselves, carry no specific
meaning. The mind's interpretation of them is the crucial point, and
the source of danger. An interpretation brings about a reaction of
fear and loathing, which are poisonous and negative emotions that
destabilize the mind, threaten its equilibrium and endanger its sanity.
Focusing attention on the terrifying aspects of an image instinctively
magnifies the negative emotional reaction, and increases the danger.
Withdrawing attention from the image, and focusing on the fear
itself, restores it solidly to the present moment, where fear and image
can no longer co-exist. Mae Chee Kaew realized then, with clear
insight, that only unrestrained fear could harm her in meditation.
The meditation that Ajaan Mun had taught her was deceptively
simple, and the rhythmic repetition of buddho made it appear easy. But
the massive effort required to focus her mind on a single object after
so many years of neglect made meditation frustratingly difficult at
first. She felt her body and mind out of sync, as though they were
tugging against each other. The mind needed one thing, the body
wanted another; the mind wanted this, the body needed that. Dis-
harmony prevailed. Too much food brought lethargy; too little
escalated errant thinking. She pondered how to balance eating and
sleeping, walking and sitting, communal and personal. She wonder-
ed how to maintain a sharp, mindful focus during each changing
moment, and every new circumstance, throughout the day.
Mae Chee Kaew experimented with fasting, going entirely without
food for several days at a time. But she discovered that lack of food
Part Two — Renunciation 85
left her feeling mentally dull and sluggish, and vulnerable to changing
moods and wayward thoughts, as if the flow of her spiritual energy
was somehow constricted. That subtle hindrance seemed to lessen her
motivation to intensify in meditation. She knew that many of the
monks in Ajaan Mun's tutelage found fasting to be a valuable tool for
advancing their spiritual development. They regularly endured hunger
and discomfort because fasting increased their mental vigilance, mak-
ing the mind bold, and its focus sharp. But Mae Chee Kaew's mind
failed to respond positively. So in the end, she concluded that going
without food did not suit her temperament.
Going without sleep, however, was a different matter. Mae Chee
Kaew passed most of the second month of her retreat in three pos-
tures: sitting, standing and walking, but never lying down. She started
the "sitter's practice" as another experiment, an attempt to find a
practical way of accelerating her meditation that took advantage of
her natural strengths. She discovered that refraining from sleep ren-
dered her mind so bright and sharp, so calm and serene, mindful and
alert, that she practiced continuously for twenty-one days without
ever lying down.
With each day of sleeplessness, her meditation deepened and her
confidence grew. Sharpened spiritual faculties made her courageous
and daring, which coordinated perfectly with her bold and adventur-
ous nature. Her unusual visions, more frequent than before, became
more extraordinary as well: sometimes foreseeing future events or per-
ceiving nonphysical realms; at times revealing profound truths of the
Buddha's teaching.
Emerging from deep samādhi late one night, Mae Chee Kaew
saw a vision of her body lifeless and stretched across a weaver's loom.
86 Mae Chee Kaew
Little Kaew spent the rainy months working around the house
and playing with her cousins. She was a happy, cheerful girl, but she
missed her mother's calm and comforting presence. She worked hard
to please her father, Bunmaa, but he often appeared distracted by
some inner turmoil. He frequently left home in the morning, and
did not return until late at night.
On lunar observance days, Kaew followed the womenfolk to Wat
Nong Nong and joined her mother for daily chores, chatting in-
cessantly about life at home. What she said worried Mae Chee Kaew:
her husband's regular disappearances were unusual, and, from what
Kaew described, he seemed to be intoxicated when he returned. Mae
Chee Kaew decided, for her daughter's sake, that she should visit
home occasionally to help with the housework and to keep an eye on
the situation.
88 Mae Chee Kaew
Entering the house, her husband's absence was the first thing she
noticed. Mae Chee Kaew spent whole days cleaning, laundering and
cooking for her daughter, but Bunmaa never appeared. During the last
month of her retreat, Mae Chee Kaew went home once a week, but
she never once caught sight of him. Rumors soon reached her that
he was secretly having an affair with a woman from another village,
a young widow with two children. She was told that he had started
drinking and carousing in her absence.
Mae Chee Kaew was repelled by her husband's behavior. Now
weary of her marriage and wishing to make the noble path her life,
the thought of returning home was unbearable to her. While Mae
Chee Kaew was morally obliged to keep her word, her husband's fail-
ure to adhere to the fundamental rules of moral conduct jeopardized
the future of their marriage.
As the retreat approached its final days, Mae Chee Kaew agonized
over her next course of action. She felt no desire to return to mar-
ried life, but she was deeply concerned about the well-being of her
daughter. She wanted to remain close to Kaew, to guide and comfort
her; but at ten years of age, Kaew was still too young to live at the
monastery with her mother. Besides, having renounced all worldly
possessions, she had no means to support a child, but only the meager
daily rations sufficient to sustain one person.
Slowly, following several weeks of deliberation, the idea took
shape in Mae Chee Kaew's mind that she could combine both the
household and the monastic worlds into her daily life. By spending
her daylight hours at home being a mother and a wife, she could
fulfill her worldly obligations; by passing her nights at the monastery,
absorbed in meditation, she could pursue her spiritual goals. As un-
Part Two — Renunciation 89
lesson and stop sticking your hand into the fire. Even if you don't get
burned, your reputation will be."
Mae Chee Kaew debated cutting off all contact with her husband.
But her brothers urged her to settle her affairs with him first. Heeding
their advice, she returned to the house several days later to negotiate a
formal settlement to their marriage. Her husband was in no mood to
compromise. He insisted that everything she had acquired since their
marriage rightfully belonged to him. All that remained to decide was
what to do with the belongings she had inherited from her parents.
Having already renounced the world and its material possessions,
Mae Chee Kaew found it natural, even gratifying, to give everything
she owned to Bunmaa and ask for nothing, except this: that she be
allowed to keep the small knife she had always used to cut betel nut.
Her husband quickly retorted that she had acquired the knife during
their marriage, and it was therefore his. With that final dismissal,
Mae Chee Kaew completely turned her back to domestic life and
relinquished all worldly possessions, without exception.
Having finalized the agreement, Mae Chee Kaew spoke privately
with her daughter. Carefully and in detail, she told little Kaew about
the events reshaping their lives, and asked for her patience and under-
standing. Learning of her mother's intention to leave home for
good, little Kaew pleaded with a childish innocence for the chance
to accompany her mother and live with her at the monastery. With a
heart heavy with sympathy, Mae Chee Kaew described the austere
conditions of a nun's life. She explained that since she had now given
everything to her father, she had no means to adequately support her
daughter. Besides, the monastery wasn't a place to bring up a child.
Part Two — Renunciation 91
Gently, but insistently, Mae Chee Kaew urged the child to remain
with her father for the time being. She explained that Kaew's father
had the resources to look after her needs, and reassured Kaew that his
wealth and property would be her rightful inheritance. When Kaew
reached maturity, she could, if she still wished, live with her mother.
Mae Chee Kaew would welcome her with an open heart and be her
spiritual guide and companion for life. Reluctantly, but obediently,
Kaew finally accepted her mother's urging to remain with her father.
Mae Chee Kaew walked back to the monastery in a quiet and
pensive mood, replaying the pros and cons of her decision to per-
manently separate from her family and friends. In the end, her
thoughts always came to rest with Prince Siddhartha, who left his
wife and son and princely inheritance behind to follow the spiritual
path, unencumbered by worldly concerns. Although he abandoned
universally honored parental obligations, he did so for the sake of
the supremely noble goal of unconditional awakening to the truth of
Dhamma, and the total destruction of the cycle of birth and death.
Becoming a fully enlightened being, the Lord Buddha's achievement
transcended all mundane sacrifices, and all worldly conventions.
Having freed himself from suffering, he had helped countless living
beings do the same. With the ultimate goal of the holy life clearly and
unalterably fixed in her mind, Mae Chee Kaew was inspired to follow
steadfastly in the Buddha's footsteps.
Carefully observe the ebb and flow of defiling
influences in your mind. Don't let them deceive
you so readily. When you're skilled enough to
catch their movements, you can transform their
negative power into positive spiritual energy.
term well-being, must move far enough away that village affairs could
no longer impinge daily upon its tranquil environment.
Ajaan Khamphan, the abbot of Wat Nong Nong monastery,
was a longtime disciple of Ajaan Sao Kantasīlo, and a dhutanga monk
well respected for his strict discipline and proficiency in meditation.
As abbot of the monastery and spiritual guide to his disciples, Ajaan
Khamphan assumed responsibility for the community's welfare. Be-
cause the monks were also adversely affected by local events, Mae
Chee Dang and Mae Chee Ying discussed the matter at length with
Ajaan Khamphan. Ultimately, the decision would be his. After close
consultation with the monks and nuns, he chose to move to a near-
by mountain range along with those who wished to accompany him
and establish a new forest monastery.
Phu Gao Mountain was located in a small range of the Phu
Phan foothills, six miles northwest of Baan Huay Sai. In an age of
foot trails and buffalo carts, the rugged terrain made it a remote
and inaccessible destination for the casual visitor. The upper ridges
were covered with solid sandstone cliffs that dropped precipitously
twenty or thirty feet to densely forested slopes of tall bamboos
and hardwoods. The massive strata of rock that stretched along
the cliffs' length were tinted dark brown by the dry lichen clinging
to their surface. The cliff jutted out over the slope below, forming
natural recesses of long open grottos beneath the overhanging rock
to offer protection from the harsh sun and rain. Lacking suitable
dwellings at first, the monks and nuns took up residence in these
bare, earthy caves, making simple platforms from bamboo, raised
on stout legs several feet above the damp ground. There they lived
and meditated, each in a separate location. Having no toilets, they
94 Mae Chee Kaew
water became a simple task: nothing more or less than what she was
doing, here and now, in the present, one mindful step at a time.
Occasionally Mae Chee Kaew's brothers came to visit her at Phu
Gao Mountain. They were shocked and dismayed to see her living
conditions, and the hardship she endured. They loved their sister and
wanted to show solidarity with her cause. So they helped the nuns
fetch water from the stream, hauling it up the mountain, two heavy
bucketfuls at a time. But no amount of collected water was enough
to satisfy the needs of six monks and five nuns. In the end, tired and
dispirited, her brothers tried to persuade her to return with them to
Baan Huay Sai, where they could properly look after her needs. They
assured her that her husband had remarried, sold their house and
moved with Kaew and his new family to a distant province. But Mae
Chee Kaew was steadfast in her determination to remain with Ajaan
Khamphan and pursue an austere, meditative lifestyle on Phu Gao
As time went on, and the mountain monastery began to take shape,
water shortage became an obstacle that seemed to threaten its long-
term survival. All attempts to discover a nearby source had failed. One
evening, out of desperation, Mae Chee Kaew sat down, crossed her
legs, straightened her back and focused inward. She made the solemn
resolve that if she and the others were destined to stay at Phu Gao
Mountain, she would discover a convenient source. She then prac-
ticed her meditation as usual. Later that night, as her mind withdrew
from deep samādhi, a vision spontaneously surfaced of eleven pools
of water, overgrown with vines and tall grasses. She recognized the
mountainous terrain, for she had walked past the area several times
and it was only a short distance from the main cave.
96 Mae Chee Kaew
At Mae Chee Kaew's urging, the nuns searched the area the fol-
lowing day. As Mae Chee Kaew indicated, they found many pools
of water beneath the thick vegetation. Delighted, Ajaan Khamphan
had the nuns and local villagers cut back the vines and grasses and
dig sediment out of the pools, some of which were twenty feet deep.
When the work was complete, they found enough fresh water to
supply the needs of the monks and nuns all year round.
People suffer because they grasp and don't
let go. Dissatisfaction follows them everywhere.
Look carefully at your own heart and learn how
to relinquish the cause of suffering.
While living in the cliffs at Phu Gao Mountain, Mae Chee Kaew
came upon many strange and unusual phenomena in her nightly med-
itation. They were extraordinary; things that she never experienced
before. As she emerged slightly from deep samādhi, Mae Chee Kaew
found her mind entering a familiar world of intersecting spiritual
energies; a world occupied by countless realms of nonphysical living
beings. Some of these beings hailed from the dark and lowly regions,
where they suffered the consequences of their evil deeds; others came
from the lofty spheres of radiance inhabited by celestial devas and
brahmas. It was as though her meditation delivered her to an open gate,
where her heart felt the pull of competing force fields, each vying
for her attention. Ajaan Mun had called it "access concentration",
warning her how vulnerable she was to the disparate spiritual ener-
gies that she might encounter there, and how she must establish
steadfast control over her mind before stepping out the gate. While
98 Mae Chee Kaew
Mae Chee Kaew took heed of Ajaan Mun's advice, she was curious
and venturesome by nature, and could not resist the temptation to
venture out and look around.
What she witnessed both fascinated and horrified her. Disembod-
ied spirits called — some howling, others screaming, or weeping —
besieging her, begging, pleading for redemption from the miserable
retribution of their own misdeeds. Forms and faces clung to them like
shrouds, the ghostly remnants of some past existence, some previous
life, which followed them like deathly souvenirs from an unfinished
journey. All pleaded for her attention, her sympathy, her grace —
some gesture that would shine a ray of hope into the darkened cor-
ner of their existence.
Often the disembodied spirits of slain animals appeared in her
meditative visions, begging for a share of her spiritual merit to help
them overcome their immense suffering. Late one night, just after
Mae Chee Kaew had withdrawn from samādhi, a disembodied con-
sciousness of a recently slain water buffalo appeared in front of her,
wailing in pain and bemoaning its fate. Suspended in her vision, like
a ghostly apparition, the buffalo immediately communicated its sad
history. As Mae Chee Kaew absorbed the message with her heart,
the buffalo related that its owner was a fierce and cruel man whose
heart lacked all kindness and compassion. He very often put his buf-
falo to work, pulling ploughs or wagons from dawn until dusk, and
never showed any appreciation for the animal's daily hardship. On top
of that, this merciless master beat and tortured the buffalo constantly.
In the end, the poor animal was tied to a tree and brutally slaughtered
for the sake of its meat. Before dying, it endured unspeakable pain
and torment. It bellowed loudly, ripping the air with a sickening
Part Two — Renunciation 99
The reply of the slain water buffalo deeply touched Mae Chee
Kaew's heart. It admitted, "I did such things only out of ignorance. I
was worked in the fields all day, and was never allowed in the pasture
to graze. Hunger and fatigue drove me to eat whatever plants I could
forage. All vegetation looked the same to me. It never occurred to
me that certain plants might have an owner who was keeping an
eye on them. I had no intention to steal. Had I understood human
language, I might never have made that mistake. But people are far
more intelligent than animals, so they should be more sympathetic
and forgiving of our natural habits. They shouldn't just mercilessly
exercise their power over other creatures, especially when it violates
human standards of moral decency. A good person doesn't behave in
such a shameful and offensive manner. Most of the farmers in this
area are actually kind and gentle people, like you said. But my former
master, Mr. Ton, is a fierce and cruel man who lacks human decency.
That scum of the earth is a man so pitiless that he is incapable of
sympathy or forgiveness. He's even cruel to his fellow men, to say
nothing of lowly animals."
Since childhood, Mae Chee Kaew had always felt a profound com-
passion for the plight of farm animals. She fed her cows and water
buffalo lumps of sticky rice every day, whispering sweetly in their
ears that because they worked the rice fields, they too deserved to
eat rice. For that reason, the animals were very fond of her, and felt
appreciated. For example, when the rope around its neck, holding the
cow bell, broke, the cow would walk straight to Mae Chee Kaew to
alert her about the lost bell instead of wandering away, undetected
and grateful for its freedom. Nonetheless, Mae Chee Kaew realized
Part Two — Renunciation 101
that even those animals which were well treated by their masters were
still bound by their kamma to a life of constant suffering.
Mae Chee Kaew knew that feelings of hatred and revenge are
major causes of birth in the lower realms of existence. Sensing the
anger in her unfortunate visitor, she taught it the dangers inherent
in a hate-filled, vengeful state of mind. She warned that those nega-
tive emotions ran counter to its desire to be born as a human being
in its next life. If it really expected to be born human, it must keep
such destructive mental defilements under control.
Mae Chee Kaew explained that the five moral precepts are the
basis of a decent human being. If the spirit were to have any chance to
be reborn in a human form, it must make a solemn resolve to abide
by these fundamental rules of conduct. It must not take life, or cause
injury to other creatures; it must not steal, or take things that belong
to others, like the vegetables people plant in their gardens; it must
not commit adultery, or engage in harmful sexual practices; it must
not lie, or deliberately deceive others; and it must not indulge in any
substance that causes intoxication or drunkenness.
By killing, stealing, committing adultery and lying, you not only
do harm to others, but you also violate the spirit of openness and trust
that forms the basis of human relations. Indulging in intoxication is
considered evil because it clouds the mind and readily conduces to the
other four offences. From a karmic viewpoint, such actions result in
rebirth among common animals, hungry ghosts or the hell realms. In
these lower realms of existence, suffering is intense, and a weakened
capacity for spiritual development makes it very difficult to produce
the necessary conditions for rebirth in the higher realms. Therefore,
faithfully observing the moral precepts prevents the possibility of
102 Mae Chee Kaew
being born into the lower realms, and helps to ensure that you will
be born as a human being. So, if you can maintain this level of moral
virtue, and renounce the tendency to think, speak and act in evil ways,
then you can truly expect to be rewarded with a human birth — if
not now, then in the future.
Fully sympathetic to the troubled spirit's desperate condition, Mae
Chee Kaew compassionately resolved to share with it her spiritual
merit and virtue, hoping that might help to sow the seeds of rebirth
in the human realm: "May the merit and virtue that I share with you
now help to guard your behavior, nourish your spirit and lead you on
the path to develop the spiritual qualities needed to gain birth in a
realm of real happiness."
Having rejoiced in Mae Chee Kaew's exceptional virtue and
received her blessing, the disembodied spirit of the water buffalo
departed in a bright, happy, cheerful mood, as though it was off to
be reborn in its chosen realm of happiness.
Early the next morning, Mae Chee Kaew called aside one of the
local villagers and quietly told him what had happened the night be-
fore. She requested him to inquire about Mr. Ton, the water buffalo's
former owner, and find out where he lived and what had transpired
between him and the buffalo. But she warned the man not to let
Mr. Ton know she had asked him to investigate the matter. Feeling
disgraced, he might think badly of Mae Chee Kaew, which would
merely increase his store of evil kamma.
The villager immediately replied that he and Mr. Ton lived in the
same village and that he knew the man well. He knew for a fact that
Mr. Ton had lashed his water buffalo to a tree and slaughtered it at
eight o'clock the previous night. The agonizing cries of the poor an-
Part Two — Renunciation 103
meditation and the purity of her spiritual life. It was for them to
receive and make use of these merits as best they could.
An even more bizarre incident than her communication with the
water buffalo occurred when the disembodied consciousness of a
slain wild boar appeared as a samādhi image in Mae Chee Kaew's
meditation. Wandering alone at night in search of food on the far
side of Phu Gao Mountain, the boar was killed by a local hunter,
who hid near a watering hole frequented by wild animals, waiting
for his next kill.
In the early hours before dawn, a ghostly image of the wild boar
arose spontaneously in Mae Chee Kaew's visual field. Accustomed to
seeing such apparitions, she directed the flow of her consciousness,
immediately asking the boar's reason for coming to see her. The boar
spoke haltingly, stammering as though still in a state of shock. The
boar explained that it was killed on its way to the watering hole by
a hunter, named Dum. Mae Chee Kaew wondered why the boar had
not been more cautious about being shot. The wild boar pleaded with
her to understand that it had always been extremely wary of hunters,
always on guard as its very life depended on it. But a wild animal's
existence was unimaginably difficult, and its suffering, unbearably
harsh. Living in the wild, totally at the mercy of nature's shifting
seasons, boars lived in constant fear. Their lives were constantly in
danger, threatened by natural predators, as well as hunters and trap-
pers. By being extremely vigilant, the boar had survived many years
in the mountains; but, in the end, it could not avoid being killed.
The wild boar told Mae Chee Kaew that it was terrified of being
reborn as a wild animal, enduring a life of unbelievable pain and suf-
fering, a life of persistent fear and distrust. A boar could never relax
106 Mae Chee Kaew
nor find peace. Fearful that it could not avoid another animal birth,
the boar came to Mae Chee Kaew to beg for a share of her spiritual
merit and virtue to boost its chances of being reborn as a human
being. Miserably, the spirit told her that it lacked a sufficient store
of merit and virtue to be confident about its future state. The boar
had nothing of value to offer her — except the meat from its freshly-
killed body. Thus it implored her to kindly eat some of its meat
so that she might gain the bodily strength required to maintain her
exemplary spiritual lifestyle. At the same time, this would allow the
boar to make merit.
Eagerly, the wild boar informed Mae Chee Kaew that, the next
morning, the hunter's family would bring meat from its carcass as an
offering to the monastery. The boar begged her to eat it, hoping that
this act of generosity would bring enough merit for it to be reborn
as a human being. The boar wished to offer her the choicest cuts of
meat from its body; however, people are greedy by nature, so it fear-
ed the hunter's family would keep the best parts for themselves and
leave only the lower quality meat as its offering to Mae Chee Kaew.
Mae Chee Kaew was fascinated by her visitor's request. In many
years of meditation, she had never come across an instance where the
consciousness of a dead animal attempted to make merit by offering
the meat from its own body. Feeling profound sympathy for its hap-
less plight, while radiating loving kindness, she silently acknowledged
the charitable intention. She inspired the wild boar with the virtues of
generosity, instilling a feeling of pride in doing good deeds. As with
so many beings of the lower realms, she emphasized the benefits of
the five moral precepts as the basis of a human birth, and encouraged
the boar to adopt them as training rules for disciplining body, speech
Part Two — Renunciation 107
and mind. She resolved to share the fruits of her spiritual virtue in
the hope that the boar might be reborn as it wished. Satisfied with
Mae Chee Kaew's assurances, and buoyed by her blessings, the boar
respectfully took leave and went its way.
Next morning, after sunrise, Mae Chee Kaew met the monks and
nuns at the main sala and quietly related this bizarre incident. She
described the wild boar's story in detail so that they would fully
understand the situation and accept the meat out of compassion for
the slain animal if the hunter's family were to bring the boar meat
later that morning. She urged everyone to eat the meat as a way to
honor the animal's generous intentions and, hopefully, to help its
consciousness find rebirth as a human being.
Later that morning, the wife of Mr. Dum, the hunter, arrived
with some roasted boar meat, which she respectfully offered to
Ajaan Khamphan and the monks. When they questioned her about
the origin of the meat, her answer confirmed everything that Mae
Chee Kaew heard from the wild boar, down to the smallest details.
The monks and nuns all partook of the offered meat, hoping that
in some way their act of compassion would ease the burden of
suffering carried by that unfortunate creature.
Mae Chee Kaew learned about death and rebirth and the craving
that connects the two, linking lives in an endless continuum of pain
and suffering. She encountered personalities shaped by greed, moti-
vated by anger, and weighed down by the burden of their own kamma
as they swam helplessly, aimlessly, in a vast sea of delusion. Beings
trapped in lower realms of conscious existence have no personal mer-
it, no spiritual virtues on which they can fall back in times of dire
need. In previous lives, when those ghosts were born human beings,
108 Mae Chee Kaew
cause them to be reborn over and over again — without any end in
It's important to understand that these realms exist as dimensions
of consciousness and not as physical planes. By characterizing the cel-
estial realms as being progressively "higher" and more refined levels
of existence, and the ghostly realms as being correspondingly "lower",
the purely spiritual nature of consciousness is erroneously given a
material standard. The terms "going up" and "going down" are con-
ventional figures of speech, referring to the movement of physical
bodies. These terms have very little in common with the flow of
consciousness, whose subtle motion is beyond temporal comparisons.
Physically moving up and down requires a deliberate exertion of
effort. But when the mind gravitates to higher or lower realms of
consciousness, direction is merely a metaphor and involves no effort.
When saying that the heavens and the brahma worlds are arranged
vertically in a series of realms, this should not be understood in the
literal sense — such as, a house with many stories. These realms exist
as dimensions of consciousness, and ascent is accomplished spirit-
ually, by attuning the mind's conscious flow to a subtler vibration
of consciousness. They are ascended in the figurative sense, by a
spiritual means: that is, by the heart which has developed this sort
of capability through the practices of generosity, moral virtue and
meditation. By saying that hell is "down below", one does not mean
going down, physically, into an abyss. Rather, it refers to descent by
spiritual means to a spiritual destination. And those who are able to
observe the heavens and the realms of hell do so by virtue of their
own internal spiritual faculties.
Part Two — Renunciation 115
Though not solid and tangible, those phenomena were, by their very
nature, objects of perception, and thus extraneous to the awareness
that knew them. By focusing exclusively on her visions, Mae Chee
Kaew's meditation had become preoccupied with the outer spiritual
universe, which caused her to overlook the amazing inner world that
existed within her own heart and mind.
Mae Chee Kaew failed to understand this fundamental fault in
her practice, and Ajaan Khamphan did not possess enough innate
wisdom to point out the mistake. He himself had never progressed
beyond the level of samādhi and its psychic effects, so he could not
lead her beyond her infatuation with the spiritual dimension. Though
his mind was rooted in exceptional powers of concentration, he lacked
genuine insight into the fundamentally transient and unsatisfactory
nature of spiritual phenomena. Although Mae Chee Kaew believed
Ajaan Khamphan to be a competent guide, she had yet to understand
her need for a truly exceptional teacher.
Mae Chee Kaew's increasing infatuation with the varieties of con-
scious existence became strong. She craved for the excitement of new
experiences, and greater knowledge — the very craving that causes all
sentient beings to wander endlessly in saṁsāra's spiritual universe.
Mae Chee Kaew had yet to fully comprehend this lesson about the
truth of suffering and its primary cause; and Ajaan Khamphan, with
all his powers of concentration, was unable to guide her away from
the dangers of strongly favoring samādhi over wisdom. Thus, Mae
Chee Kaew became intoxicated by the peaceful tranquility of samādhi,
and inadvertently, had become addicted to its wondrous powers of
118 Mae Chee Kaew
One day, Mae Chee Kaew saw the young man approaching with
his panpipe and asked him where he was going. The nāga teased her,
saying that he had intended to flirt with a woman in the village, but
thought it might be better to flirt with her instead. She shot him a
scolding glance and retorted that she was a woman of moral virtue
who had no desire for men. She urged him to develop basic moral
principles within himself, insisting that moral virtue was the basis
of those special qualities that every living being should cherish and
hold onto. She explained that moral restraint formed a barrier that
prevented living beings from abusing each other's material and spiri-
tual wealth; and that it also protected and maintained one's own inner
worth. Without morality's protective restraint, mistreatment and neg-
ligence would run so rampant in the world that there would hardly
be an island of peace and security left. Mae Chee Kaew urged the
young nāga to cease his callous disregard for spiritual values and to
reform his moral outlook in line with Buddhist principles. Eliminat-
ing such a blight from his heart would produce only peace and
happiness for himself and others.
Impressed by her arguments, the young nāga accepted his faults
and asked for her forgiveness. Responding to the softening in his
heart, Mae Chee Kaew exhorted him to observe the five basic moral
Kaew's taming of the nāga with magical powers, which both awed
and frightened them.
Nok Kraba Cave was situated in a wooded region where village
people normally hunted and gathered wild plants. Stories of Mae
Chee Kaew's powers made the locals feel uneasy about setting foot
in that area. Complaints began to emerge. At that time, there were
unseasonably heavy rainfalls, day and night, which caused extensive
flooding in low-lying villages. The nuns at the cave were soon accused
of causing these torrential downpours, and the ensuing floodwaters.
It was also suggested that the nuns' presence accounted for recent
Japanese army incursions into the region.
A series of unwarranted accusations eventually convinced Mae
Chee Kaew that she should leave the area. Although Nok Kraba
Cave provided conditions of ideal seclusion, circumstances in the
surrounding countryside were less than favorable. She was concern-
ed that misconceptions about her continued presence might cause
others further inconvenience. She thus decided to return to the Phu
Gao Mountain with her group of nuns.
If you neglect to cultivate your inherent mindful-
ness and wisdom, striving only half-heartedly, the
obstacles in your path will multiply until they block
all sight of the way, leaving the end of the road
forever in darkness.
Ajaan Khamphan was the inspiration behind the Phu Gao monastic
community. It was his responsibility to guide the nuns in their daily
practice. This meant frequent contact with the woman renunciants,
meeting them as a group, listening to their experiences and grievances,
and giving them personal advice on a variety of matters. His age and
senior status seemed to preclude the development of worldly attach-
ments between him and the women he taught. But alas, the weaknesses
of the flesh, and failings of the spirit!
A small group of nuns was left behind when Mae Chee Kaew and
the others moved to Nok Kraba Cave. During their absence, Ajaan
Khamphan — with careless disregard for his status as a spiritual men-
tor — became emotionally involved with one of the remaining nuns.
Although his samādhi meditation allowed him to observe and exam-
ine the circumstances of other living beings, Ajaan Khamphan had
neglected to contemplate and penetrate the true nature of his own
124 Mae Chee Kaew
nery would allow. Local villagers helped the nuns create paths for
walking meditation beside each of their simple huts.
A small but sturdy sala was built in a wide, open area that had
previously been cultivated. Wooden posts and planks were sawed and
trimmed, then nailed into place with wooden pegs to form the basic
structure. The roof was a plain grass thatch. A kitchen shelter for pre-
paring meals was constructed nearby, using split bamboo and thatch.
An earthenware, wood-fired stove was used for cooking. Basic living
requisites were scarce. The nuns used bamboo to make cups and other
basic kitchen utensils. As there were no wells on the property, water
from a nearby stream was fetched daily and carried to the nunnery
compound. Basic commodities, such as shoes, were not available to the
nuns, so they used dried betel nut husks to make primitive sandals.
Machetes, hoes and shovels were also hard to come by, forcing the
nuns to borrow most of their tools from the village. But although
Mae Chee Kaew and the nuns lived in conditions of virtual poverty,
they lived for the sake of Dhamma and were willing to accept the
inconveniences associated with its practice.
The Baan Huay Sai nunnery was small and remote from village
life. The training rules were strict and simple. Its living conditions al-
lowed little that was fancy or superfluous. The nuns spent their days
in meditation. Every evening, they convened in the main sala. Seated
respectfully on the hard wooden floor, in a building without comfort
or decoration, they chanted sacred verses praising the virtues of the
Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha.
Mae Chee Kaew often said that it was much easier to put up with
the physical hardships of life as a nun than to be without a good
teacher to guide her through the spiritual uncertainties experienced
128 Mae Chee Kaew
Body Contemplation
Upon arrival, Mae Chee Kaew met Ajaan Kongma at the mon-
astery's main sala. After paying her respects, she told him about her
doubts and disquiet regarding the events that clouded her spiritual en-
vironment and threatened to undermine her calm and concentration.
Her meditation had not gone smoothly since Ajaan Khamphan's
disrobing, and she did not understand why. Ajaan Kongma knew,
intuitively, that her strong mental focus needed to be directed away
from the pursuit of external phenomena, with its attachment to form,
and toward a full examination of her own personal being. Because her
former teacher had fallen victim to carnal desires, he insisted that she
start by initiating a comprehensive review of her physical body. Ajaan
Kongma suggested that Mae Chee Kaew begin body contemplation
by focusing on the disgusting features and inherent impurities
associated with the human body, starting with head hair, body hair,
nails, teeth and skin, then working inward to flesh, sinews, bones,
130 Mae Chee Kaew
She knew her stance was unreasonable, and that it must be changed.
She asked herself: how can I really know the truth when the mind
that I use to acknowledge the truth is so deluded?
The following day, having fully accepted her faults, she resolved
to make amends for her intransigence. Solemnly prostrating before
the Buddha, she silently asked heartfelt forgiveness of Ajaan Kongma.
After preparing her mind by intoning auspicious chants, she began
meditating in earnest on the nature of the human body. Mae Chee
Kaew contemplated the body by meditating on its inherently impure
and repulsive nature. She first reflected on the obvious disgusting fea-
tures that afflict the body while alive. The nose was constantly filled
with mucus, the ears with wax, and the skin exuded sweat and grease;
the body continually excreted feces and urine; and, without constant
cleaning, it reeked of foul odors and suffered discomfort.
With constant practice, she began to understand clearly that
much of her discontent stemmed from embracing the body as the
core of her existence and regarding it as a central feature of self and
personality. Though it was not obvious in her ordinary consciousness
and attitudes, this belief was fundamental and deep-seated, operating
at a subliminal and instinctive level of consciousness. Then, by em-
bodying this basic instinct in her conscious activities, she projected
a very concrete sense of self into all her actions. She realized that a
person's life is often deliberately planned around desires related to
the body: constant concern with matters of appearance, fashion, self-
esteem and personal comfort. By meditating on the body's impure
nature, Mae Chee Kaew began to experience it as inherently repulsive
and unstable, something that repelled rather than attracted desire.
Through the daily practice of body contemplation, she gradually
132 Mae Chee Kaew
reduced the craving that had built up around the body, working to
free herself from the strong sense of self associated with it.
In her daily meditations, she took the body apart, piece by piece,
layer by layer. Investigating skin, she saw it as a thin veneer of tissue
covering the body's flesh and internal organs. Although at a casual
glance it might appear clean and attractive, closer inspection revealed
a scaly, wrinkled layer exuding sweat and grease in abundance. Only
constant scrubbing and cleansing made it seem bearable to oneself
and to others. Hair may be brushed and styled with care, and admired
for its overall appearance; but let a few strands fall into a plate of
food and they quickly induce a reflexive loss of appetite. Head hair
and body hair are inherently filthy, which is the reason they must
be constantly washed and bathed. In fact, nothing that comes into
contact with any part of the human body remains clean for long,
as the whole body is filthy by its very nature. Due to the filth and
odors, accumulated from our bodies, clothing and bedding must be
constantly laundered. Even food becomes filthy, once it is ground
between the teeth and mixed with the body's secretions. The whole
body shares the same repugnant characteristics.
After deeply contemplating the natural filthiness of the body's
external features, Mae Chee Kaew investigated its internal organs
and their secretions, and its many foul excretions. Having carefully
examined hair, nails, teeth and skin, with a growing sense of dismay,
Mae Chee Kaew mentally peeled back the outer layer and visualiz-
ed the body stripped of skin, the underlying flesh exposed, raw and
bloody. Close examination of this glistening mass of blood-stained
tissue produced nauseating revulsion. Keeping in mind that this sight
was no aberration, but rather the reality of the body she had lived
Part Two — Renunciation 133
with her entire life, she delved deeper into the sinews, the bones
and the internal organs. Bands of flesh hugged the bones like raw
meat. She envisioned the heart, liver, kidneys, spleen, lungs, stomach,
intestines and bowels, all sloshing around in mucus-coated cavities
formed within the contour of the ribcage and hip bones, and held in
place by a plaster of fibrous membranes. Methodically, she visualized
each organ within its own context, each encased in fat and oozing
blood and viscous secretions, each enclosing putrid excretions wait-
ing to be discharged.
By using her strong mental focus to explore deeply into the body's
internal composition, Mae Chee Kaew saw for the first time, with
penetrative insight, the body's true nature. Seeing it clearly with
wisdom, she was able to extend that insight to include all bodily
substances and realize that they all had the exact same nature. She
understood that the entire body was disgusting and repulsive, and
that no stable or satisfactory personal essence could be found there.
At that moment of profound realization, her mind suddenly dropped
into total stillness. A small, faint spot of light, located deep inside
her heart, began to flicker and glow. It pulsed and grew brighter, ex-
panding its radiance until her entire conscious being was captured in
light and became bright, clear, buoyant and supple.
She withdrew from meditation at dawn and completed her morn-
ing chores. A subtle sense of harmony and integration pervaded her
every movement. The reserve and hesitancy, that formerly showed in
her demeanor, disappeared. She was happy and cheerful as she offered
food to the monks for their morning meal. Noticing her dramatic
change, Ajaan Kongma announced for all to hear: "Mae Chee Kaew,
you're on the right path now. Stay resolute!"
134 Mae Chee Kaew
With her meditation back on track, Mae Chee Kaew stayed with
Ajaan Kongma for several more months, taking advantage of the op-
portunity of living with a good teacher to deepen her concentration
and cultivate her powers of wisdom. She understood now why Ajaan
Khamphan's meditation had failed to protect him from ordinary and
base desires rooted in attachment to physical form. She understood
the powerful attraction of sensual craving, and she knew the way to
neutralize it.
When she finally felt confident that she had developed a solid
foundation in her practice, she decided to return to help the other
nuns at the Baan Huay Sai nunnery. She was concerned that they
still lacked a reliable teacher to guide them on the correct path. She
believed that she could now contribute her part and help fulfill that
As nuns we must all patiently endure the inevit-
able hardships of our simple existence without
becoming lazy or disgruntled. Let love and
compassion be your ready response to every
velops meditative calm and clarity. Therefore, a nun who abides by the
precepts experiences an unblemished and spacious happiness within.
Life at the Baan Huay Sai nunnery was quiet and simple,
emphasizing the development of mindfulness in each daily activity.
Through her meditation skills, Mae Chee Kaew began to assume an
expanded leadership role in advising junior nuns on the mode and
direction of their mental training. She strove to lead by example,
setting the tone for the others by rising at three in the morning and
walking in meditation until five. With the sun's first early morning
rays illuminating the pathway to the outdoor kitchen, she joined the
other nuns to prepare the day's food. The fragrant aroma of food and
incense mingled softly in the morning air. A generous portion of their
cooking was set aside to be offered as alms to monks from a nearby
monastery. After respectfully placing the food into the monks' bowls,
the nuns quietly gathered at the main sala, and ate their morning meal
together in complete silence. They reflected on the nature of the food
set before them. Viewing it as no more than a necessary requisite
supporting their religious lifestyle, they developed an attitude of con-
tentment with whatever they received. Following the meal, the nuns
washed their utensils and cleaned up the kitchen area before retiring
to their separate huts to continue their meditation practice. Because
they ate only once, they were free to focus exclusively on their inner
development for the remainder of the day.
Having completed the morning's chores, Mae Chee Kaew turned
her undivided attention to meditation. Retiring to a small cabin in a
secluded section of the nunnery, where gigantic clumps of bamboo
mingled with teak and mahogany trees, she entered a calm, quiet en-
vironment free of external distractions. Under the leafy canopy, on a
Part Two — Renunciation 139
shady space of level ground, the local villagers had made a walking
meditation track by clearing a broad swath of earth and smoothing it
out flat. After sweeping the path clean, Mae Chee Kaew stood erect
and alert at one end and joined her hands just below the waist, the
palm of the right hand gently overlapping and clasping the back of
the left. With eyes downcast, and mind focused, she paced back and
forth, from one end of the path to the other, pivoting and turning
in one fluid and easy motion at the end of each span. She found the
continuous movement of walking helpful in relieving the drowsiness
and mental torpor induced by a full stomach. Harmonizing the re-
petition of buddho with each footfall, she completed several hours of
continuous walking every morning. As her mind became absorbed
in buddho, and her concentration deepened, the rhythm and pace of
movement began to change, adapting fluidly to the steady current of
awareness that had developed. Moving in perfect unison, as a single
entity, her whole body appeared to glide effortlessly along the path,
as though on a soft cushion of air.
Refreshed and invigorated, Mae Chee Kaew then sat under the
shade of a spreading phayom tree at the side of the path to continue
her meditation until three p.m., when the nuns took up their after-
noon chores. Together they swept the grounds of the nunnery, filled
the water jars with water from the newly-dug well, and then went off
into the nearby woods to collect mushrooms, bamboo shoots and
other edible plants for the kitchen. After an early evening bath, Mae
Chee Kaew joined the other nuns at the main sala for the evening
chanting. When the chanting was finished, each nun returned to
her small hut to continue walking and sitting meditation in peace
and solitude of the surrounding forest. Mae Chee Kaew walked in
140 Mae Chee Kaew
meditation again for several hours before retiring to her hut to sit
until late at night.
In the first few months after her return from Ajaan Kongma,
Mae Chee Kaew continued her diligent focus on body contempla-
tion. But gradually her attention drifted away from the body as a
meditation subject, and toward her previous habits of external focus.
Body contemplation went against the grain of her inherent spiritual
tendencies; and in the end she succumbed to the natural momentum
of her dynamic and venturesome mind. As soon as she closed her
eyes, she felt herself falling down a precipice. A window to the uni-
verse opened up, and suddenly, she was off on another adventure.
Each person who is born must die and be reborn
again and again in a cycle of suffering and hard-
ship. Perhaps we'll die in the morning, perhaps in
the evening, we don't know. But we can be certain
that death will come when the time is ripe.
Faithfully each year, when the cold season ended and the sun
began rising higher in the southern sky and warmer days lengthened,
Mae Chee Kaew led a small band of nuns on a pilgrimage to visit
Ajaan Mun, who was living in the neighboring province of Sakon
Nakhon. The first late-winter rains had fallen by then, leaving the
mango trees bursting with a constellation of blossoms and humming
with swarms of nectar-hungry bees. Preparations had to be made for
the journey, a 12-day trek over the Phu Phan Mountains, down into
Sakon Nakhon province, proceeding along broken, hilly terrain, and
into the broad valley of Baan Pheu Na Nai. The supplies were heavy
and cumbersome, so the nuns carried only enough food to get them
over the high mountains, where settlements were scarce. When their
meager supplies ran out, they would rely on the generosity of small,
far-flung farming communities that were often located a full day's
hike from one another. Uncooked rice was packed in plaited bam-
142 Mae Chee Kaew
boo baskets. The pungent pickled fish, used as flavoring, was stored in
clay jars sealed with fresh bee's wax. Dried meat and fish completed
their diet, along with the wild forest plants they foraged on the way.
The nuns left Baan Huay Sai Nunnery walking in a single file
with Mae Chee Kaew in the lead. In addition to food, each nun car-
ried a few basic necessities in her shoulder bag and an umbrella-tent
to protect her from the elements at night. Simple home-made sandals
sheltered her feet from rough ground and sharp stones. A plain cot-
ton cloth covered her shaved head, protecting it from direct sunlight.
By the end of the first day, the nuns had reached the Phu Phan
foothills. The jungle was teeming with bears, tigers and snakes, with
only a scattering of human settlements located in crude pockets of
cultivation. The weather was difficult and unpredictable. Still, the land
was beautiful, verdant and rich, thick with bamboo and rosewood, and
carpeted by grasses, ferns and wild flowers — a landscape of massive
trees rooted in tangled undergrowth. Spacious vistas at mountain
passes gave way to vaulted canopies of foliage and creepers, and then
to myopic tunnels of chaotic vegetation. Protruding on ridges, un-
dulating outcrops of black sandstone flowed over hillsides, breaking
and folding into deep crevices where the trail could easily disappear
for an inexperienced traveler.
While passing a small village, the weary travelers could hear an
offer of food and support. Grateful, and with love in their hearts, the
nuns took what little they were offered from the impoverished donors
and searched for a secluded stream to bathe and camp for the night.
Each nun sought shelter under a hand-crafted umbrella, suspended
from a tree limb, with a thin cotton tent-cloth draped gracefully to
Part Two — Renunciation 143
the ground and encircling a bed of straw and dry leaves on which she
could meditate for the night.
Some nights, in the small hours, Mae Chee Kaew dreamed of
Ajaan Mun. His stern but caring face peered at her mischievously, as
if to say, "Where have you been all this time? What's taking you so
long? Can't you see I grow older by the day?" She shuddered, hearing
the urgency and the steely resolve in his voice.
Each morning the nuns partook of a single, simple meal of
steamed-cooked sticky rice, kneaded into bite-size lumps and dipped
in fermented fish paste. Their meals were sometimes augmented with
slivers of dried meat and fish, freshly dug roots and tubers, and a
selection of forest herbs, spices, fruits and berries. Their daily repast
was just enough to sustain body and mind on the long march to
nightfall, as the nuns traveled one step at a time, one mindful moment
after another, and always in the present.
After almost a fortnight of hiking along timeworn footpaths over
mountains and through valleys, past fallow rice fields and orchard
groves, Mae Chee Kaew and her companions finally arrived in the vi-
cinity of Ajaan Mun's forest retreat on the afternoon of the twelfth
day. They were met first by the residents of Nong Pheu village, gra-
cious women bustling with hospitality who helped the nuns bathe and
wash their dusty robes. Once refreshed, the nuns made their final hike
along the gently sloped and winding path to Ajaan Mun's monastery.
Ajaan Mun's monastic community was nestled in a dense jungle at
the upper end of a broad valley. The valley was surrounded by over-
lapping mountain ranges that seemed to stretch on forever, making it
an ideal location for the kind of solitude which the dhutanga monks
sought. Clusters of thatched huts dotted the mountain ridges where
144 Mae Chee Kaew
groups of five or six families eked out a living growing crops and
hunting game. Many dhutanga monks relied on those remote com-
munities for their daily alms food, just as Mae Chee Kaew and her
nuns had done on their journey.
The nuns found Ajaan Mun seated in the central sala, chewing
betel nut. He seemed to be expecting them. Eagerly, the nuns kicked
off their sandals, quickly washed their feet with scoops of potted wa-
ter and scrambled up the wooden steps to meet him. Always pleased at
the sight of Mae Chee Kaew, Ajaan Mun roared out a rough greet-
ing in the Phu Tai dialect, threw his head back and laughed. The
nuns prostrated in unison before him, making three fluid bows, their
white robes swishing gently with each graceful movement. They sat
respectfully to one side with their legs tucked neatly beneath them,
smiling softly, expectantly, and mindful of his fearsome reputation.
Ajaan Mun never failed to greet Mae Chee Kaew and her students
with warmth and courtesy. After exchanging pleasantries and giving
encouragement, he arranged for them to stay overnight in a secluded
bamboo grove on the monastery's edge. Tonight, they would sleep once
more sleep in their umbrella-tents on piles of bamboo leaves. To-
morrow, he would have the villagers construct sturdy platforms of
split bamboo for his guests. He always welcomed Mae Chee Kaew
as if she were part of the family, and insisted she stay as long as she
Each morning, after he finished his meal and the nuns had eaten
theirs, Ajaan Mun gathered them around his seat and began to speak
in a crisp, clear voice, chiding them for their laziness, or urging zeal
and determination. They were lively, animated conversations. He was
particularly interested to hear of Mae Chee Kaew's meditation ad-
Part Two — Renunciation 145
"Don't let defiling emotions take over, Mae Kaew. They are the
source of an endless procession of births and deaths. Never
Part Two — Renunciation 147
Long before the first light of dawn, Mae Chee Kaew withdrew from
samādhi meditation with a cold sweat clinging to her white robes.
She was tired and disheartened. She felt a hole in the bottom of her
heart. She felt a deep loss of her teacher, her pride and her hope. She
laid down to rest but she could not sleep — the energy of the emotion
was too strong. She wept softly to herself, breathing slowly and deep-
ly to ease the pain. When the first rays of light spilled into her room
at dawn, she rose, gathered her composure and moved briskly in the
morning chill to meet the nuns at the main sala. Tears formed as she
opened her mouth to speak. His vision, his admonition, his teaching,
his death — the story of Ajaan Mun's final appearance poured from
her lips and rolled down her cheeks. The nuns had known Mae Chee
Kaew long enough to believe in her extraordinary gifts of prescience.
Still, they were reluctant to accept the sad news so readily.
148 Mae Chee Kaew
As Mae Chee Kaew finished speaking, and the nuns huddled to-
gether with conflicting emotions, the village headman bounded up
the sala steps and blurted out, "Khun Mae, have you heard the news
yet? Have you heard the news?" He took a deep breath and exhaled
slowly; and said, almost in a whisper, "Ajaan Mun passed away last
night in Sakon Nakhon. I heard it on the radio just a few minutes
ago. They said he died late in the night, at 2:23 a.m." As the nuns
wept uncontrollably, he apologetically added, "I'm sorry, Khun Mae.
I thought you should know."
Ajaan Mun died on November 10, 1949, two days after Mae Chee
Kaew's forty-eighth birthday. By the time his funeral ceremony was
held in late January, she had already traveled once to Sakon Nakhon
to pay her respects. Kneeling before his casket, its entire front panel
made of glass, she gazed upon his lifeless remains and felt a twinge
of remorse. Quietly, silently, she asked his forgiveness for all her past
transgressions: "Mahā There pamādena…", and resolved for the future:
no more negligence, no more laziness, no more regrets.
As the cremation day approached, Mae Chee Kaew and the nuns
made the long trek to Sakon Nakhon one more time. They arrived
just in time to see the monks solemnly carry Ajaan Mun's casket from
the temple pavilion to the funeral pyre. Mae Chee Kaew, along with
many in the large crowd, wept openly as his body passed by. He had
long since entered the sublime, pure land of Nibbāna. Never again
would he return to physical, bodily existence — the land of tears and
lamentation. She watched, spellbound, as the fire was lit at midnight,
and felt his unmistakable presence as a small moon-lit cloud began to
rain ever so gently on the burning pyre.
Pa r t T h r e e
Seeing stubbornness in themselves, intelligent
people recognize stubbornness. Seeing gloom,
they recognize gloom. Seeing delusion, they re-
cognize that too. They look for their own faults;
they don't try to fault other people.
Mae Chee Kaew redoubled her efforts. She always started her
meditation with a resolve to redirect her focus inward and hold it
there, to fix it in her heart. But focusing inward for Mae Chee Kaew
meant going into a mental freefall. As soon as she closed her eyes,
the bottom dropped away and she felt herself falling into space as
though she were falling from a cliff, or down into a well. Fragmented
images flashed by for a few moments; and then, utter stillness, calm,
contentment… But hidden beneath the stillness was an almost re-
flexive momentum that soon rebounded her flow of consciousness
back into the realm of fragmented imagery. Suspended in this fluid
mental space, Mae Chee Kaew felt right at home. She had learned to
navigate its mysterious passageways with ease. Following a flash of
recognition, a presence, an emotion, a disembodied consciousness,
she plunged into another world, the myriad realms of sentient exist-
ence. Her desire to understand the truth drove her to observe newer
152 Mae Chee Kaew
The primal delusion that mobilizes the forces of greed and anger
is always cunningly concealed in the deepest recess of the heart. Being
the chief ruler of the entire saṁsāric realm, delusion is defended to
the death by its formidable army of mental defilements. To liberate
the mind from its scourge, these guardians must be disarmed and
stripped of their deceptive power. To breach the ramparts of his own
fundamental delusion, Ajaan Mahā Boowa rallied his own supreme
forces, mindfulness and wisdom, and lay siege to delusion's inner
sanctum. Confronting the defenses with mindfulness, and disabling
them with wisdom, his forces methodically closed in on the enemy
stronghold. When all the mental defilements were finally eliminat-
ed, the last one left in the heart was the great commander — the
underlying delusion that creates and perpetuates the cycle of birth
and death. The final assault had begun. With a lightning strike of
extraordinary power and brilliance, the last vestiges of delusion were
destroyed, causing the entire edifice of saṁsāric existence to collapse
and disintegrate, leaving the mind's true essence absolutely pure, and
free of all defilement. Another fully-enlightened arahant had arisen
in the world.
In that same year, following the annual rains retreat, Mae Chee
Kaew's meditation was witness to a prophetic vision of the moon and
its surrounding stars falling from the sky. She interpreted the vision
to mean that an exceptional meditation teacher, followed by a group
of gifted disciples, would soon arrive at Baan Huay Sai. She became
very excited, convinced by the nature of her vision that this monk
would be the meditation teacher Ajaan Mun told her about many
years before.
154 Mae Chee Kaew
Mae Chee Kaew confidently informed the other nuns that the
coming year would see the arrival of a group of dhutanga monks, led
by a great meditation master. She did not yet know who the monk
was, but she had perceived an unmistakable sign. She compared his
coming to the time Ajaan Mun brought a group of monks to Baan
Huay Sai when she was a young girl. In the following months, just
as she predicted, several groups of dhutanga monks came and went.
With hope and anticipation, Mae Chee Kaew walked to their forest
encampment to greet them and pay her respects. But each time she
left disappointed, certain that they were not the monks represented
in her vision.
In January 1951, Ajaan Mahā Boowa wandered down from the
Phu Phan mountains, leading a group of dhutanga monks. They
camped in the thickly wooded foothills to the north of Baan Huay
Sai. They camped under trees, in caves, on mountain ridges and un-
der overhanging cliffs, living simply and practicing meditation in the
traditional dhutanga fashion. Ajaan Mahā Boowa chose to stay in a
cave on the gently sloping crest of a mountain ridge, well over a mile
from the village center. He took residence in Nok An Cave, with a
lone novice as his attendant. Nok An Cave was a long, broad cavern
that nestled snugly under a prominent overhanging cliff, and was
paved at its entrance with flat, outspreading rocks. The living quarters
were cool and well-ventilated, and the environment radiated natural
peace and harmony.
When news of Ajaan Mahā Boowa's arrival reached her, Mae
Chee Kaew led several nuns up a steep and winding mountain trail
to meet him. The high ground at the ridge's peak flattened into out-
crops of black sandstone that followed the undulating contours of
Part Three — Essence 155
ences and misdirect her efforts towards a false goal. But he also knew
that someone with a powerful mind like hers could progress very
quickly in Dhamma, once she learned to properly train her mind.
Ajaan Mahā Boowa realized that, like Ajaan Mun, Mae Chee Kaew
would be able to use her unusual abilities in profound and amazing
ways to free herself from suffering and to help other living beings
do the same.
From that time on, Mae Chee Kaew regularly visited Ajaan Mahā
Boowa at his mountain retreat. Once a week, late in the afternoon on
lunar observance days, she and the nuns of Baan Huay Sai ascend-
ed the winding mountain trail to pay their respects to Ajaan Mahā
Boowa, and then to hear him deliver an inspirational discourse on
Dhamma. When he finished, he asked the nuns about their medita-
tion. Every time Ajaan Mahā Boowa questioned Mae Chee Kaew, she
spoke only of the extraordinary phenomena, the variety of ghosts
and disembodied spirits she encountered. Her extensive travels in the
heaven and hell realms gave her firsthand knowledge of the various
beings that lived there. She described the ghosts' mental states and
life circumstances in detail, and how their previous kamma resulted
in their birth to these realms.
It was apparent that Mae Chee Kaew was captivated by these
strange visions and the unusual knowledge they revealed. This wor-
ried Ajaan Mahā Boowa. He was astonished by her extraordinary
psychic abilities, but realized that she did not yet have sufficient
control over her mind to meditate safely on her own. Instead of send-
ing her attention out to perceive external phenomena, he wanted her
to learn how to keep it firmly focused within her own body and
mind. Only by keeping her awareness firmly centered inside could
Part Three — Essence 157
she overcome the mental defilements that were preventing her from
taking her meditation to a higher level.
Ajaan Mahā Boowa explained that the initial aim of meditation
is to develop Right Samādhi. To practice samādhi correctly, she had
to relinquish her obsession with thoughts and images that entered
her awareness. She had to free the mind from the unnecessary limita-
tions caused by being habitually focused on the contents of thought
and imagination. Through the right practice of samādhi she could
directly experience the mind's essential knowing nature, which would
allow her to examine physical and mental phenomena with detached
objectivity. The mind's knowing essence is an awareness more vast
than the perception of images, thoughts and feelings. It is an unob-
structed inner space that contains everything, but retains nothing.
Once this power of mental awakening is developed, it can be renewed
and deepened without limit. Before that breakthrough occurs, over-
attention to external phenomena distracts from the primary purpose:
reaching the source of awareness itself.
In the beginning, Ajaan Mahā Boowa simply listened as Mae
Chee Kaew related her unusual adventures. He carefully gauged the
conditions of her mind's spiritual energy, and then gently tried to
persuade her to redirect the flow of her conscious awareness inward
to its original source. He repeated that consciousness is a function of
mind, not the essence of mind. She must let go of consciousness, and
its conditioned awareness, to let the mind's true essence shine forth.
When Ajaan Mahā Boowa noticed after several weeks that she
was ignoring his advice, he insisted that she keep her mental focus
entirely inside for some of the time during meditation. She could
still direct her awareness to observe external phenomena from time
158 Mae Chee Kaew
to time. But, she must also force it to stay at home at other times. He
urged her to learn how to control her mind so that she would be able
to direct the flow of consciousness either inward or outward, as she
Because her visions involved contact with the mind's internal
sense fields, Mae Chee Kaew viewed them as being explorations of
her own mind. She believed that by investigating the phenomena
arising in her samādhi meditation, she could learn the truth about
the conscious awareness that perceived them. Stubbornly set in her
ways, and reluctant to alter her approach, she began openly resisting
Ajaan Mahā Boowa's teaching, arguing that her meditation was al-
ready providing her with knowledge and insight of a profound nature.
She saw no reason to change. Ajaan Mahā Boowa patiently explained
that the phenomena she witnessed were merely things that existed
naturally in the universe. They were no more special than things seen
with open eyes. Although the worlds that appeared in her spiritual
visions were realms of being just as real and distinctive as the human
realm, they were also just as external to the awareness that perceived
them. Though not solid and tangible like material objects of per-
ception, they were still separate from the awareness that knew them.
Essentially, from the observer's viewpoint, there was no difference
between physical objects and spiritual ones. All were objects in the
external world. He wanted her to reverse the direction of her focus,
halting the outward flow of consciousness and turning inwards to re-
alize the true essence of mind — the very source of awareness itself.
Mae Chee Kaew continually countered that, unlike the physical
eye, the inner eye could see unusually strange and wonderful things.
The inner eye was capable of seeing many varieties of ghosts and
Part Three — Essence 159
other disembodied beings. It could see and interact with devas in all
the heavenly realms. It could see past life connections and accurately
foresee future events. She maintained that this sort of knowledge and
vision was superior to that perceivable by the ordinary senses.
Ajaan Mahā Boowa did not tolerate stubbornness indefinitely.
Abruptly changing tack, he demanded, with a powerful and vigorous
insistence, that she prevent her mind from venturing out to perceive
spiritual phenomena. Such misdirected awareness would never help
her overcome the fundamental causes of birth, ageing, sickness and
death. He reminded her that he was teaching her this for her own
good, and he made it clear that he expected his instructions to be
Ajaan Mahā Boowa's admonition notwithstanding, Mae Chee
Kaew felt so confident of her own knowledge and understanding that
she continued meditating as before, and later argued with him again
about its true value. Exasperated and thoroughly weary of her intran-
sigence, Ajaan Mahā Boowa became fierce. He raised his voice and
gestured forcefully as he forbade her to direct her awareness outward
to encounter external phenomena. In no uncertain terms, he ordered
her to reverse the direction of her focus, and keep it centered inside
at all times. He was uncompromising. Only by accepting his teaching
and practicing it diligently could she eliminate the defiling elements
that deluded her mind.
Late one afternoon, as Mae Chee Kaew stubbornly continued to
argue her case, Ajaan Mahā Boowa abruptly broke the conversation
off, and curtly dismissed her from his presence. He told her point-
blank to leave the cave immediately, and to never return. Uttering
harsh and fiery words, he chased her off in front of the other nuns.
160 Mae Chee Kaew
Mae Chee Kaew was taken aback by the intensity of his verbal attack
and the seriousness of his tone. Such an outcome had never occurred
to her. Mae Chee Kaew left Ajaan Mahā Boowa's cave in tears, feeling
utterly devastated, her confidence shattered. With his stern repri-
mand still ringing in her ears, she made the long trek back to the
nunnery feeling that she would never see him again.
Despondently, Mae Chee Kaew trudged down the steep moun-
tain path, gripped by her dilemma. She had been convinced from
the first moment she saw Ajaan Mahā Boowa that she could depend
on him as the right teacher to guide her meditation. Now that he
had unceremoniously chased her away, who could she depend on for
expert guidance? After so many years of searching for such a teacher,
Mae Chee Kaew now felt hopelessly lost.
As knowledge concerning your mind's true es-
sence blossoms and blooms within your heart, the
end of the long road of suffering will gradually
come into view.
A Portent of Dhamma
certain that he was right, she renewed her resolve to rein in her mind's
wayward tendencies.
During the next several days, Mae Chee Kaew concentrated on
finding a reliable method for firmly anchoring her awareness inside.
Emerging from deep samādhi, she clearly comprehended the chal-
lenge of controlling the mind's outward flow, and refused to allow
its impulsive movement to take over and drag away her attention.
The mind's out-flowing movement was always accompanied by the
activities of thought and imagination. That flowing, revolving con-
sciousness created and maintained the entire sentient universe. But
when not a single thought arose, spontaneous mindfulness was born.
Being a moment of pure attention, this awareness of the present was
alert, but relaxed. It did not fall into the elements of body and mind,
where material and spiritual illusions took charge. In the past, upon
withdrawing from samādhi, all sorts of images appeared in her
awareness for no apparent reason, enticing her mind in their direc-
tion. She felt she could not turn them away if she wanted to, and
even felt comfortable going along with them. When the mind stayed
unified until pure mindfulness arose, she witnessed the moment-to-
moment creation and cessation of a myriad of thoughts and images,
while remaining detached and dispassionate. Having witnessed the
essential transformation of focused awareness, she realized the value
of receiving the guidance of a true teacher.
When she felt confident that she could effectively reverse her
mind's dynamic flow, by unifying it and keeping it grounded in the
present, she decided to risk Ajaan Mahā Boowa's displeasure and
return to Nok An Cave, so she could respectfully relate her progress
166 Mae Chee Kaew
in meditation. When she arrived at the cave, she was met by Ajaan
Mahā Boowa's stern, unwelcoming countenance.
"Why have you come again?" he barked. "I told you to stay away!
This is no place for a great sage!"
She pleaded with him to let her speak, to listen to what she had
to say. She explained that the traumatic experience of being chased
away had caused her to accept her faults and take seriously his advice
to focus inward. In precise detail, she described the new direction
of her meditation, and how she had learned to maintain detached
presence of mind. She knew she had been wrong to value her mis-
guided knowledge of spiritual phenomena, which she now realized
had gotten her nowhere. She had worked hard for several days dis-
covering how to control her mind's dynamic tendencies, until she
finally succeeded in keeping it solidly centered inside. With immense
gratitude, and a sense of accomplishment, she had returned to pay
homage to her teacher, and humbly ask for his forgiveness.
Only those who practice meditation can truly understand the
spiritual path. But learning meditation properly requires the guid-
ance of a gifted teacher. The teacher cannot afford to make even the
slightest mistake, especially when his disciple is meditating at a very
high level. The teacher must know more than the disciple, so that
she can respectfully follow his lead. It is wrong for a teacher to teach
above his level of understanding. The disciple will not benefit from
such instruction. When a teaching is based on direct experience of
the truth, gained through penetrating insight, a talented disciple will
be able to progress very quickly along the path of wisdom.
Seeing that her meditation was now firmly on the right path,
Ajaan Mahā Boowa graciously accepted her back. He told her that
Part Three — Essence 167
she had been living with the ghosts of her mind for too long.
Compulsively following the flow of her conscious mind had caused
her to live at the mercy of ghosts and spirits, and to be a slave to
the phantoms created by her own mind. By turning the flow of con-
sciousness back on itself, she temporarily interrupted its momentum,
and restored the mind to its essence. What she experienced was the
true essence of mind — the mind's intrinsic knowing nature. Con-
sciousness is a function of the mind's essence, but conscious activity
is transient and lacks the mind's intrinsic quality of awareness. States
of consciousness exist in conjunction with the awareness that knows
them, and the knowing essence of mind is the very root and source
of that awareness. The transient states of mind that arise and cease
within the flow of consciousness are merely conditioned phenomena.
Because the mind's essence is conditioned by nothing, it is the only
stable reality.
Consciousness naturally flows out from the mind's essence, mov-
ing from the center of the mind to the surface. Surface consciousness
constantly changes form, shape and substance as it is rippled by the
shifting winds of greed, anger and delusion. But the true essence of
mind exhibits no activities and manifests no conditions. Being pure
awareness, it simply knows. The activities that spring from mind es-
sence, such as awareness of the material world or the spiritual world,
are conditions of the consciousness that emanates from the mind.
Since consciousness represents mental activities and conditions that
are, by their very nature, constantly arising and ceasing, conscious
awareness is always unstable and unreliable.
When the outward flow of consciousness intersects with the per-
ceptual fields of the sensory organs, awareness becomes mixed up
168 Mae Chee Kaew
means of freeing the mind from gross mental hindrances, and lay-
ing a solid foundation for further development. Ajaan Mahā Boowa
warned her that the experience of mind essence could easily lead her
to a false sense of confidence in the knowledge arising from concious
perceptions. This made it imperative that everything flowing from the
mind be investigated carefully. Each time that she withdrew from deep
samādhi, it was necessary to examine the activities of consciousness
for the remaining taints of compulsive mental conditioning, ruled by
lingering attachments to physical form, mental imagery and thought
In this way, Ajaan Mahā Boowa taught Mae Chee Kaew how to
probe deeper into her mind so that she could learn to completely
uproot the mental defilements that were wrapped tightly around her
heart. He reiterated that this — and not the perception of countless
phenomena in the conventional world — was the essence of Buddhist
practice. He urged her to first turn her mental energy toward solv-
ing the enigma of physical embodiment, and the mind's inevitable
attachment to form. He reminded her that the practice of wisdom
begins with the human body, the objective being to directly penetrate
the body's true nature.
In investigating the body, he taught her to make use of the power
of spontaneous observation as a contemplative technique. So as to
avoid falling into conditioned patterns of thinking — based on
habitual interpretations and fueled by conjecture and supposition
— Mae Chee Kaew must employ the clear, unclouded mindfulness
present right where consciousness emerged from the mind's true es-
sence. For spontaneous insight to arise, the limitations of ordinary
thinking and imagining must be overcome. That meant perceiving
Part Three — Essence 171
Mae Chee Kaew meditated in that way every day. She focused on
the corpse within over and over again until the experience of death
and decay became habitual features of her mind's conscious perspec-
tive, and the mental image of her body began to decompose every
time she turned her attention to it. In each meditation sitting, Mae
Chee Kaew's inner eye watched the process of dissolution unfold with
a deepening sense of calm and clarity. Gradually, the constant break-
up of bodily substance drew her attention to the body's fragmentary
nature, so she began concentrating on its constituent elements — the
properties of earth, water, fire and wind that comprise all matter.
Flesh, bones, teeth, nails and hair had the solid material charac-
teristics of earth. Blood, urine, mucus and other fluid secretions
possessed the liquid qualities of water. Fire was present as warmth,
energy and vitality in the body. The wind element was evident in
breathing, circulation and bodily movement.
Mae Chee Kaew observed how decay broke down the material
bonds that hold elements together within the body, and how it re-
leased them to revert to their original, elemental state. The occurrence
of death, when consciousness abandoned the body for good, released
the life-giving forces of fire and wind to return to their elemental
conditions. Observing further, from the inner perspective of spon-
taneous awareness, she watched as bodily liquids seeped into the
ground, or evaporated into the air. When the liquid elements had
either drained into the ground or vanished into the air, the bodily
parts dried out, gradually dehydrating until only hardened tissue and
bare bones remained. Slowly crumbling, and then turning to dust,
those parts finally returned completely to the earth element.
Part Three — Essence 177
Spontaneous Awareness
tree under whose shade Mae Chee Kaew had built a rustic bamboo
platform where she could rest and meditate during the hot midday
hours. The phayom tree, a variety of rainforest mahogany, had become
one of her favorite spots. The phayom was a steely and compact wood
that was admired for its bright yellow blossoms, which dotted the
green foliage during seasonal bursts and littered her small medita-
tion platform with its falling petals. Combining hardness and beauty,
the phayom was indicative of the toughness and splendor that charac-
terized Mae Chee Kaew's present state of mind.
Late one evening Mae Chee Kaew had a vision. The vista of a
spacious pool filled with golden lotus blossoms stretched before her
mind's eye. The floating blossoms were as big as oxcart wheels, their
thin, fine gold petals flaring like feathery spokes. Other lotus flow-
ers, their petals closed around the stem and pointing skyward, stood
tall above the azure water like gold-domed temples. Others were sub-
merged just below the surface of the clear cool water, their radiance
rippling across the pool like a golden breeze. The water appeared so
magically transparent that the soft undulating mud on the bottom
was clearly visible. Detached from their stems, some of the petals
floated on the surface, wet and sparkling, their delicate fragrance
permeating the air in all directions. As Mae Chee Kaew watched in
quiet awe, a small golden duck glided down from the sky, skimmed
across the placid surface and began swimming playfully among the
lotus blossoms. It pecked at the floating petals, gracefully circling
each petal as it ate. After consuming four petals it stopped, satisfied,
and remained perfectly still. Watching, fascinated, from the edge of
the lotus pond, Mae Chee Kaew felt her body lift and float, like a
cloud, over the water. As she approached the golden duck, she felt
182 Mae Chee Kaew
her legs spread to straddle its back. But as she mounted, she merged
completely with it. At that instant she realized that she herself was
the golden duck. Immediately she withdrew from samādhi medita-
tion and returned to normal consciousness.
Mae Chee Kaew thought about this mystical vision for days,
searching for its essential meaning. A gold duck eating golden lo-
tus blossoms. Lotus flowers symbolize offerings in homage to the
Dhamma, the essence of the Buddha's noble path. Gold stands for
light, the light of the mind; the flower represents the blossoming,
or opening up, of the mind's radiant light. She understood that the
four lotus petals were the four ariya magga, the four milestones on the
noble path to arahantship. Like the golden duck, Mae Chee Kaew
radiated the clear, luminous light of understanding: knowledge that
in this lifetime she would surely complete her journey along that
noble path.
Mae Chee Kaew knew that consciousness pervaded all moments
of awareness, regardless of whether attention was focused internally
or externally. Nothing she experienced ever stood outside conscious-
ness. Since all phenomena were grasped, conceived and experienced
only on that basis, they had no independent existence separate from
the conscious mind. For that reason, awareness of the body was in-
herently a function of consciousness. In essence, she was investigating
an internalized bodily form, a mental picture of the body based on
sensation. Consciousness spread out naturally through the entire
body, animating the sense spheres and activating sensory awareness.
The experience of embodiment — of body as self — was comprised
chiefly of mental images shaped in conjunction with sensory aware-
Part Three — Essence 183
tures of the external world. It then fell for its own mental imagery,
believing it to be substantially real.
At that stage, the infinite, space-like awareness of mind essence
and the particularity of conscious perception were operating simul-
taneously. Gradually the illusion of cohesive mental images began
to break down as well. Within the flowing current of consciousness,
myriad amorphous forms and fragmentary shapes arose, coalesced
into images, and then broke apart immediately, only to regroup and
disband time and time again. No sooner did an image of the body ap-
pear than it vanished instantly. Before a particular desire or expression
could fully formulate, the source of awareness simply enveloped it,
causing it to dissolve into emptiness and disappear. Countless poten-
tial ways in which body and mind could express themselves seemed
to arise in random succession, only to dissolve into emptiness, one
after another. Habitual concepts of bodily existence expressed a de-
sire to take form and declare their individual characteristics, but the
knowing essence dissolved them all before they could establish a
definite presence in the mind.
Rising and passing images happened so quickly that concepts of
external and internal were no longer relevant. In the end, forms flick-
ered on and off, appearing and disappearing from consciousness in
such rapid succession that their meaning was no longer discernable.
After each disappearance, awareness experienced profound emptiness
— emptiness of imagery, and emptiness of attachment to form. An
extremely refined essence of pure knowing stood out within the
mind. As each new image flashed and vanished, the mind felt the
resulting emptiness more profoundly. From that point on, Mae Chee
Kaew's mind was wondrously empty and clear. Even though the body
186 Mae Chee Kaew
Luminous Essence
The hut, the meditation path and the little platform under the
phayom tree were Mae Chee Kaew's constant companions through-
out the year. Except for her daily meal, she seldom left the confines
of her meditation environment. Although the nuns still went to see
Ajaan Mahā Boowa once a week on lunar observance days, Mae Chee
Kaew rarely accompanied them, instead choosing to focus on inten-
sifying her meditation practice. Despite Mae Chee Kaew's dedication
to her practice, she still possessed an abiding sense of gratitude and
respect for Ajaan Mahā Boowa and so every morning she cooked a
small pot of sticky rice and prepared a basket of betel nut for him.
Normally, Mae Chee Kaew would have one of the nuns bring her
daily offering to Ajaan Mahā Boowa, only occasionally did she go
herself; and even then she would speak with him only briefly.
Ajaan Mahā Boowa's monastery was situated northeast of town,
while Mae Chee Kaew's nunnery was two miles away to the south-
188 Mae Chee Kaew
west. Baan Huay Sai was in the middle. Despite the distance and
the fact that he never announced his travel plans in advance, Mae
Chee Kaew always knew intuitively when Ajaan Mahā Boowa left
his monastery to wander through the region in search of solitude.
She always knew when he had vacated his monastery, and she always
knew when his return was imminent. Mae Chee Kaew said she would
suddenly feel a chill pervade the environment when Ajaan Mahā
Boowa went away. And although he often traveled for months, Mae
Chee Kaew always knew when he was coming as she could feel the
warmth returning even before he arrived. The chill and the warmth
were the external signs that came through perception; but the know-
ing came from inside her heart.
As soon as Ajaan Mahā Boowa left to wander, Mae Chee Kaew
immediately told the nuns not to cook the pot of sticky rice or pre-
pare the basket of betel nut. Several months later, when she sensed
his return, she would tell the nuns to begin cooking the rice and
preparing the betel nut for him once again. Normally, when he was
living at the monastery, the nuns prepared only sticky rice for him.
But on the day of his return, Mae Chee Kaew insisted that the nuns
prepare fluffy rice as a special offering. On the morning after his re-
turn, the nuns appeared at the monastery bearing gifts of rice and
betel nut. He asked the nuns how they knew he was back in the mon-
astery since he had only arrived late the evening before. The nuns
replied that Mae Chee Kaew had sensed his return and therefore
asked them to prepare the usual offerings. Each time he returned
from these travels, Ajaan Mahā Boowa heard the same thing. Mae
Chee Kaew always knew; she never failed.
Part Three — Essence 189
existing in the minds of all beings, the awareness that knows forms
and concepts becomes attached to these creations of consciousness.
Grasping at an individual, personal identity, the mind turns feelings,
memories and thoughts into self. That grasping turns the mind itself
into a personality. But thinking and feeling are actually just condition-
ed functions of the mind; not its original essence. Essence turning
into consciousness creates a conceptual reality, not an essential one.
And the conceptual reality of self is the object of deep-seated attach-
Mae Chee Kaew realized that the true mind had no form, and
formed no conceptions. By spontaneously observing phenomena with
clear mindfulness, she attained freedom from conceptual thinking,
which allowed the knowing essence to relinquish mental constructs
before they could establish a definite presence in the mind's conscious
continuum. Before a particular thought or expression could fully
form, the knowing essence simply let go, causing mental formations
to dissolve into nothingness. Eventually, the detached nature of the
mind's true essence became so all-encompassing that the multitude
of conscious expressions failed to take hold, dissolving before its
still, potent immanence.
At that stage, Mae Chee Kaew's mind resembled a battlefield
where the forces of conscious existence were pitted against the all-
embracing essence, which encompassed everything, but retained noth-
ing. As profound emptiness constantly dissolved countless forms of
emerging existence, the mind's knowing essence gained the upper
hand, increasing in brightness and purity.
When insight thoroughly penetrated the illusory nature of men-
tal phenomena, the knowing essence relinquished all concepts, fully
Part Three — Essence 191
recognizing that they were merely ripples inside the mind and had
no real substance. No matter how they appeared mentally, they were
just conditioned forms — conventions of the mind that simply
vanished into emptiness. There were no exceptions.
Mae Chee Kaew's meditation was destroying mental patterns that
have dominated saṁsāric existence for eons. Not a single thought
managed to rise or form, indicating that true, spontaneous mindful-
ness was born. The mind's spontaneous observation was pure, undi-
luted attention, that led naturally to clear and penetrating insight.
When the mind understands clearly with intuitive wisdom that no
self can be found within mental phenomena, liberating detachment
occurs of its own accord. As the mind's focus grows narrower, the
currents sent out by the mind grow shorter and more limited. Mae
Chee Kaew had investigated and understood conceptual phenomena
so thoroughly that the clear, bright essence no longer made conscious
contact with them. Thought and imagination within the mind had
come to a complete halt. The mind's essential knowing nature stood
out alone, on its own.
Except for an exceedingly refined awareness — an awareness that
suffused the entire cosmos — absolutely nothing appeared. Mind
transcended conditions of time and space. A luminous essence of
being that seemed boundless, yet wondrously empty, permeated eve-
rything throughout the universe. Everything seemed to be filled by
a subtle quality of knowing, as if nothing else existed. Cleansed of
the things that clouded and obscured its all-encompassing essence,
her mind revealed its true power.
When the offshoots of delusion were completely cut, her mind
converged into a nucleus of sublime radiance — a radiance so ma-
192 Mae Chee Kaew
jestic and mesmerizing that Mae Chee Kaew felt certain it signaled
the end of all suffering that she had been striving to attain. Having
relinquished all attachment to the factors of personal identity, the
subtle radiant splendor at the center of the mind became her sole
remaining focus. The focal point of her awareness was so exceedingly
delicate and refined as to be indescribable, and emitted a happiness
that was unprecedented and so wondrous that it seemed to entirely
transcend the realm of conditioned phenomena. The luminous mind
exuded a strong sense of power and invulnerability. Nothing seemed
capable of affecting it. Mae Chee Kaew was now certain that she had
finally reached the ultimate goal, Nibbāna.
Seeing delusion clearly in a flash of insight,
we become fed up with our attachment to this
mass of suffering and loosen our grip. In that
moment of coolness, the fires in our heart abate,
and freedom from suffering arises naturally of
its own accord.
By the middle of October 1952 the phayom tree was in full and
radiant bloom. Sitting beneath it one afternoon, her mind awash in
splendor, Mae Chee Kaew felt the time was right to inform Ajaan
Mahā Boowa about her crowning achievement. He was, after all, the
inspiration that had led her to this profound majestic radiance of
mind. It was time she repaid his confidence in her with the fruits
of her triumph. As it was a lunar observance day, she went to visit
him late in the afternoon. She left the nunnery with several nuns as
companions, walking together through the fields that rimmed the
village until they reached the other side. From there they began the
steep climb to Ajaan Mahā Boowa's mountain cave.
Seeing Ajaan Mahā Boowa seated at the cave's entrance, Mae Chee
Kaew prostrated before her teacher to pay obeisance and exchanged
greetings with him. She then bowed her head, pressed her palms
together and asked permission to speak. She spoke of her progress
194 Mae Chee Kaew
over the past year, carefully detailing the consecutive stages of her
experience, and concluded with her "lion's roar", the radiant empti-
ness of mind that permeated the entire cosmos and transcended all
When she stopped speaking, Ajaan Mahā Boowa looked up and
calmly asked, "Is that all?" Mae Chee Kaew nodded. Ajaan Mahā
Boowa paused for a moment and then spoke:
empty until you depart, that is the moment when that fun-
damental delusion about your true self disintegrates, and
the pure, delusion-free mind arises.
"Once the mind has let go of phenomena of every sort,
the mind appears supremely empty; but the one who ad-
mires the emptiness, who is awestruck by the emptiness, that
one still survives. The self as reference point, which is the
essence of all false knowing, remains integrated into the
mind's knowing essence. This self-perspective is the primary
delusion. Its presence represents the difference between the
subtle emptiness of the radiant mind and the transcendent
emptiness of the pure mind, free of all forms of delusion.
Self is the real impediment. As soon as it disintegrates and
disappears, no more impediments remain. Transcendent emp-
tiness appears. As in the case of a person in an empty room,
we can say that the mind is truly empty only when the self
leaves for good. This transcendent emptiness is a total and
permanent disengagement that requires no further effort to
"Delusion is an intrinsically blind awareness, masquer-
ading as radiance, clarity and happiness. As such, it is the
self 's ultimate safe haven. But those treasured qualities are
all products of subtle causes and conditions. True emptiness
occurs only when every single trace of one's conditioned re-
ality disappears.
"As soon as you turn around and know it for what it is,
that false awareness simply disintegrates. Clouding your vi-
198 Mae Chee Kaew
sion with its splendor, that luminous deception has all along
been concealing the mind's true, natural wonder."
and uncertainty to slip in. The minute fluctuations that she observed
revealed enough variance to make her suspicious and to encourage
her to persevere. Eventually she became so absorbed in attending to
those fluctuations that she lost all sense of time. She completely for-
got the time of day, the time for sleep, and even, how tired she was.
Without letting up, she continued for days on end, noting the slight-
est inconsistencies as they arose, until all certainty about the radiant
awareness eroded and disappeared.
"Body, mind and essence are all distinct and separate realities.
Absolutely everything is known — earth, water, fire and wind;
body, feeling, memory, thought and consciousness; sounds, sights,
smells, tastes, touches and emotions; anger, greed and delusion —
all are known. I know them all as they exist — in their own
natural states. But no matter how much I am exposed to them, I
am unable to detect even an instant when they have any power
over my heart. They arise, they cease. They are forever changing.
But the presence that knows them never changes for an instant. It
is forever unborn and undying. This is the end of all suffering."
Pa r t Fo u r
People say they want to reach Nibbana so they
crane their necks and look up into the vastness
of space. They don't realize that no matter how
far and hard they look, they still can't find it.
It simply isn't within the realm of conventional
Rivers flow inexorably towards the sea, each with its own name
and state of being. Once emptied into the vast ocean, however, the
waters merge into one essential element and the rivers lose their in-
dividual identities. The river water is still there but it no longer has
separate characteristics apart from the ocean. River and ocean are
neither the same, nor are they different. In a similar way, Mae Chee
Kaew's pure essence of being had merged into the boundless ocean
of Nibbāna. The essence was the same; it had not changed. But it was
indistinguishable from Nibbāna's essential element of pure Dhamma.
And just as the river water cannot reunite with the stream, so the
merged essence of mind can no longer link with past moments of
consciousness that give birth to the illusion of self continuity. Living
in the timeless present, devoid of past and future, the essence does
not reap the fruits of old kamma or sow the seeds of new kamma. It
no longer leaves the slightest trace to mark its existence.
204 Mae Chee Kaew
deaths. There were far, far too many to even try. She felt deep dismay
as she reviewed her past. Why, being born into suffering so often, had
she constantly endeavored to be born again?
Eventually her focus turned to the innumerable corpses that have
been discarded at death by each and every person living in the world.
She saw the same situation everywhere. All living beings, whether
male or female, have exactly the same history of death and rebirth;
all are caught in the same vicious cycle. Everyone is equal in that
respect. There is no injustice and no inequality — just karmic causes
and conditions leading to the many recurring forms of becoming and
dissolution. Stretching back indefinitely, she saw sentient existence
crowded with the remains of death and decay. It was an unforget-
table sight.
Mae Chee Kaew had always been compassionate — she was
deeply sympathetic to the spiritual fate of her fellow human beings.
But the reality of the supreme Dhamma which now filled her heart
transcended all forms of human conception. How could she possibly
explain the true nature of that Dhamma to others? Even if she tried,
ordinary people, steeped in delusion, could never hope to compre-
hend such extraordinary purity of mind. She was unlikely to find
enough receptive ears to make teaching worthwhile. Consequently,
Mae Chee Kaew initially felt little incentive to speak about her ex-
perience. As though, having found a way out, she was satisfied to
escape alone. She was free to live a life of perfect solitude for her
remaining years. It was sufficient that she had fully realized her life-
long aspiration of reaching Nibbāna. She saw no reason to burden
herself with troublesome teaching duties.
206 Mae Chee Kaew
Further reflection led her to the Lord Buddha and his guiding
role in revealing the true path to the cessation of suffering. Recon-
sidering the transcendent Dhamma and the path she took to uncover
it, she finally recognized herself in everyone else: she too was a per-
son like them. Certainly others with strong spiritual tendencies were
equally as capable as she was. Reverently reviewing all aspects of the
Buddha's teaching, she saw its relevance for people the world over, and
its potential rewards for those who were willing to practice correctly.
Those insights gave her a renewed desire to help every living being
that was willing to listen.
Mae Chee Kaew had spent nearly two years in virtual seclusion
within the nunnery, striving for liberation with a single-minded in-
tensity. Now she shed her self-isolation to become more intimately
involved with the day-to-day matters of her monastic community.
She wanted to ensure, as best she could, that each of her spiritual
companions had the best opportunity to realize her full potential.
She was, however, somewhat handicapped in her teaching skills. Mae
Chee Kaew, the person, was essentially a simple, uneducated coun-
trywoman who had never been very eloquent or articulate when ex-
pressing her ideas. Being a karmic legacy of her transient personality,
this deeply-ingrained aspect of her character did not change. She
was only comfortable when speaking in the local Phu Tai dialect,
voicing her remarks in the plain and earthy language of rural folk.
Rhetorical skill was a gift that she had never possessed. For that rea-
son, her teachings tended to be brief, direct and simple — succinct
explanations that cut straight to the heart of the matter, leaving much
of the broader implications to the listener's own deduction. While
Mae Chee Kaew knew intuitively the fundamental moral bias of
Part Four — Purity 207
each person's heart, and the advice that each needed to hear, she was
hampered in articulating that guidance in a lengthy discourse by an
inability to elaborate and expand verbally on her mind's conceptual
formations. To Mae Chee Kaew's clear and penetrating wisdom, those
who really knew the truth remained silent, while those who talked
often about the truth, in fact, knew very little.
Life at Baan Huay Sai nunnery had maintained a balance between
focus on the meditation practice and service to the local community,
and Mae Chee Kaew found herself in a central position to address
the needs and aspirations of both sides. Realizing that each nun was
practicing at a specific level in her meditation, she encouraged her
sisters individually in their practice, speaking from the unique per-
spective of someone who had passed through all levels, and beyond
all barriers. Her uncompromising diligence made her presence an in-
spiration to all the nuns — a living testament to their own inherent
Decades of enduring the rigors of village life had given her an
empathetic appreciation of the burdens borne by village women in
their daily lives. Now, she advised them on the smallest and most
mundane matters with simple, homespun wisdom born of respect
and mutual understanding. Those who entered the nunnery to seek
her help encountered her serene countenance and a heartfelt joy
that lifted ordinary people to a higher and brighter conscious plane
beyond the suffering of their mundane existence. Most of all, she
took a special interest in the welfare of invisible beings from the
nonphysical planes of existence. In the late hours of the night, she
often received guests from the various spirit realms. She ministered
to ghosts and celestial beings in equal numbers, employing a fluency
208 Mae Chee Kaew
in silent dialogue that she had mastered from an early age. Because
those discussions were communicated in the language of the heart,
thus circumventing the constraints of verbal expression, her advice
flowed freely, as unbounded as her pure love and compassion. Because
of those special talents, Mae Chee Kaew felt a personal responsibility
toward the inhabitants of the spirit worlds for the rest of her life.
Even in old age and failing health, she never tired of lending her
From birth through childhood, we've depended
on our parents and teachers as we've grown and
matured. We are here today because of the help
they have given us. We owe them an enormous
debt of gratitude.
Unstinting Gratitude
Ajaan Mahā Boowa and his disciples remained around Baan Huay
Sai village, living and practicing in the area for several more years.
Through her special knowledge, Mae Chee Kaew was constantly
aware of their whereabouts; their comings and goings never eluded
her awareness. In 1953, after the rains retreat had finished, Ajaan
Mahā Boowa witnessed a prophetic vision in his meditation. Levitat-
ing effortlessly above the ground and poised to address a large crowd
of supporters, he looked down to find his ageing mother, prostrate
before him. Peering mournfully into his eyes, she pleaded with him
not to forget her. "Are you never going to return?" she seemed to be
saying. Withdrawing from meditation, Ajaan Mahā Boowa reflected
on the vision and understood it to be a clear sign that the time had
come to help his mother get started on the spiritual path. Out of a
deep sense of gratitude for the many sacrifices she had made on his
behalf, he decided to return to his home village and ordain his 60-
210 Mae Chee Kaew
Lifelong Commitment
By 1967 Ajaan Mahā Boowa's mother and the other mae chees,
practicing under Mae Chee Kaew's guidance, were firmly established
in the principles of meditation. With Ajaan Mahā Boowa's approval,
Mae Chee Kaew respectfully took leave of him and returned to the
nunnery at Baan Huay Sai. During her long stay at Baan Taad forest
monastery, Mae Chee Kaew had worried about her sisters there and
kept in contact with them. She traveled several times a year to visit
with the nuns at Baan Huay Sai, bringing much needed supplies to
supplement their stock of basic requisites. Now, with Ajaan Mahā
Boowa's blessing, she moved back to take up residence at the nun-
nery she founded. Mae Chee Kaew continued to live there until she
passed away 24 years later.
In moving back to Baan Huay Sai, Mae Chee Kaew resumed her
duties as the spiritual head of the nunnery. Life there had remained
quiet and simple, with an emphasis on developing mindfulness in
216 Mae Chee Kaew
every daily activity. All the nuns adhered to the strict guiding prin-
ciples that Mae Chee Kaew laid down for them and conscientiously
observed the eight moral precepts. In her quiet yet forceful way, she
impressed upon everyone the virtues of renunciation:
"Now that you have ordained and come to live in this nunnery
with me and the other nuns, you must always think, speak
and act with the noblest intentions. You have renounced the
mundane world for the purpose of training yourself in the
art of cleansing your heart. Don't concern yourself with the
worldly life you have left behind. It's time to cease worrying
about home and family."
She admonished the nuns never to talk about indecent matters; but
instead, to talk only about matters of real substance. She wanted them
to be exemplary monastics who were patient in their endurance of
hardship, diligent in their practice of meditation, and always striving
to learn the truth about themselves. They were not to fret about lost
opportunities of the past or anticipate future rewards. Such thoughts
would only deceive them. She warned them to fight against tendencies
to laziness, and not simply surrender to their pillows. They were to
watch their thoughts carefully and search only for the truth that lay
within their own hearts.
She wanted her students to trust the way of the Lord Buddha. At
the same time, she encouraged them to focus intently on each forward
step as they sought to find their own path. Because that path lies
within the hearts and minds of each individual, it was up to each of
her students to search within herself to discover the way to transcend
Part Four — Purity 217
velop and expand until they fill our hearts, spreading out to
each other and to all living beings everywhere."
Ajaan Mahā Boowa made regular visits to the nunnery, and often
lauded Mae Chee Kaew as an outstanding example for nuns and lay
devotees to emulate. In truth, her practice of Dhamma was a model
which all Buddhists should follow. He invited her disciples to reflect
on her exceptional courage and resolve, and on her supreme wisdom
and compassion. They were the qualities that buoyed her practice and
steadied her course, and finally delivered her to the deathless state be-
yond all possibility of deterioration. Transcending both suffering and
happiness, Mae Chee Kaew practiced the Dhamma teaching of the
Fully Enlightened One, the Lord Buddha, to its ultimate transcend-
As disciples of the Buddha, we mustn't live our
lives only to rot and decompose without having
found anything genuine within ourselves. When
death comes, die letting go of the body and the
mind, laying them down without attachment.
Pureness of Heart
For the next ten years Mae Chee Kaew energetically committed
herself to the spiritual well-being of the community she had founded.
Then, suddenly, in June of 1977 she fell seriously ill. The symptoms
had been accumulating in her body for some time. But, not wanting
to inconvenience others, she had kept quiet about them. When her
condition became too obvious to hide, she was admitted to a hospi-
tal. The doctors discovered that she had tuberculosis in one of her
lungs. Further tests revealed that she had diabetes as well. By then
her body was weak and pale, and racked by severe pain. Her symp-
toms had already reached a critical stage. Fearful of the worst, the
medical staff suspected that her case was terminal. The most favor-
able prognosis was that she might live another year or two with
constant medical attention. Then, when Mae Chee Kaew started
wheezing and coughing blood, more tests were administered. The
doctors discovered a malignant tumor lodged within her other lung.
220 Mae Chee Kaew
are bound to die from another, Dr. Pensri focused on treating the
sick person rather than the disease. Since Mae Chee Kaew was certain
to die one day anyway, the doctor simply tried her best to ensure
Mae Chee Kaew remained as comfortable as possible. For this reason,
every time that Dr. Pensri wanted to give Mae Chee Kaew a particu-
lar medicine, the doctor would describe her diagnosis and explain the
recommended treatment. It was then up to Mae Chee Kaew whether
to accept or not. If she refused, Dr. Pensri would not pressure her in
any way.
Though it dragged on for another 14 years, ill health did not
prevent Mae Chee Kaew from fulfilling her religious obligations and
practicing meditation. She simply continued to live life as best she
could, compensating for infirmity by adapting her daily routine to fit
the increasing limitations imposed by physical decline. Her presence
exuded an exceptional gentleness and humility. She never tired of ex-
tolling the virtues of those who gave her assistance. In appreciation
of the doctor's generosity, she always held the medicines she received
above her head with both hands before taking them. She met each
person who came to her nunnery in the same way, without bias, and
responded to their queries with inspirational words of wisdom. Her
mind remained clear, and she kept teaching. Knowing that the hu-
man body is caught in a relentless march toward death, she accept-
ed her condition without regrets, and selflessly shared her remaining
time and energy with those who came to seek her grace.
Throughout her prolonged infirmity, Mae Chee Kaew found eat-
ing and digesting food increasingly more difficult. As a consequence,
she ate only sparingly, one tiny mouthful at a time. Most of her teeth
were lost to the ravages of old age, so she chewed very slowly and de-
222 Mae Chee Kaew
merging with rivers and seas, had at last dissolved completely into a
vast, still ocean of timeless emptiness. Soon afterward, Ajaan Mahā
Boowa came to view her body. He stood silently for a long while con-
templating the withered corpse wrapped neatly in a fine white cloth,
then solemnly performed a ritual bathing. He set June 23 as the date
for her cremation, which allowed sufficient time for her relatives and
faithful followers in distant locations to pay their final respects and
participate in the ceremony. Ajaan Mahā Boowa refused to permit
any funeral chanting during the ceremony, reasoning that since Mae
Chee Kaew was already fully accomplished within herself, nothing
further needed to be added.
On the evening of June 22, Ajaan Mahā Boowa delivered a
Dhamma oration to inspire the large crowd of monks and supporters
who had gathered to honor Mae Chee Kaew, the foremost female
arahant of the modern era.
"In death, Mae Chee Kaew directs our attention to the true
nature of this world: for all of us, without exception, will die
one day. Being born as human beings, we should make good
use of this auspicious birth, as it is our best opportunity to
strive for spiritual perfection within our hearts. There is no
reason to doubt the Lord Buddha's teaching. The Four Noble
Truths stand as testimony to its veracity. If we faithfully fol-
low the Buddha's teaching in our meditation practice, we will
inevitably develop the paths and their fruition to perfection.
"As long as there are people who practice Buddhism proper-
ly, the world will never be devoid of arahants. Mae Chee Kaew
was a shining example of this truth, a present-day arahant of
rare virtue. She died, just like the rest of us will; however, it
Part Four — Purity 225
was the virtuous qualities she developed deep within her heart
that are the real significance — the true essence of her being
— and not her death. The heart is fundamental. It dictates
all of our actions, both good and bad. So it is incumbent on
us to develop our hearts to the fullest while we still have the
opportunity to do so."
ments from Mae Chee Kaew's body were shared among her faithful
supporters as sacred keepsakes. They have been cherished ever since
as rare gems of unblemished virtue. Being the relics of an arahant,
they are infused with a supramundane, spiritual potency that blesses
those who possess them with good fortune — and even seeming
miracles — in direct proportion to the strength of faith and virtue
that the owners maintain in their hearts.
In the following months and years, many of those pieces of bone
underwent a miraculous transformation. Over time, the physical ele-
ments gradually coalesced and crystallized, forming dense, hard gem-
stones — some translucent and angular like crystal, others colorful
and polished smooth like beach pebbles. Such bone relics, the physi-
cal remnants of an arahant's pure essence, are an ineffable mystery
of the mind's pure essence: lifeless bone fragments transmuting into
diamonds and pearls. They indicate the cleansing effect that the pure
mind of the arahant exerts on the body's material elements. The in-
trinsic level of samādhi that an arahant maintains throughout all
daily activities works steadily to cleanse those basic elements until
they too become purified. That purifying action results in a transmu-
tation of ordinary bone into crystalline relics after they pass away.
The extraordinary beauty and brilliance of Mae Chee Kaew's bone
relics were often cited as proof — should further proof be needed
— that she was indeed an ariya sāvikā, a genuine daughter of the Lord
Being born into this world, you must rely on your innate wisdom.
You can seek pain or pleasure, seek things of value or things of no
value at all. Depending on the direction you choose, you can find
heaven or hell, or the paths and fruitions leading to Nibbāna. You
can find anything: it's up to you to decide.
Those who fail to restrain their speech are unaware of whether they
are right or wrong in what they say. Those who know the truth usually
remain silent; those who often talk of truth know very little about it.
No matter how close you are with someone, don't let your speech
become careless. No matter how frustrated you are, don't let your
speech become angry.
Collected Teachings 233
Don't be crafty and sly, trying to fool people into thinking you're a
good person when you're not. Someone who feigns virtue and intell-
igence is actually a dumb, silly fool who lacks moral goodness.
Suffering — once we're born, that's all we have; wanting, not wanting,
being satisfied or dissatisfied; sitting, lying, eating, relieving ourselves
— but there's no relief. Suffering is always there. So when we medi-
tate, we should examine this heap of suffering in its entirety.
People's hearts are so clogged up with pain and suffering they can-
not see anything clearly. By leaping after their desires and delighting
234 Mae Chee Kaew
Look carefully at your own heart and mind. Examine them closely.
There alone is where you'll find heaven and hell, the noble path
leading to enlightenment, and that which is secure, beyond all pain
and suffering.
breach of moral virtue. You can lie to the entire world if you like, but
you must never lie to yourself.
If you don't practice, you won't learn how to meditate. If you don't
see the truth for yourself, you won't really understand its meaning.
Don't remain idle, claiming that you're too cold in the morning,
too hot in the afternoon and too sleepy in the evening, and then
complain you don't have time to practice meditation. Don't listen to
the defiling tune of laziness and oppose the teaching of the wise. A
timid person who listens only to himself is so busy groping for his
pillow he can never make progress along the path to enlightenment.
We are born and we die again and again. Birth, aging and death
cycle on. Being descendents of the Lord Buddha, we mustn't live our
lives only to rot and decompose without having found anything
genuine within ourselves. When death comes, die properly, die with
purity. Die letting go of the body and mind, laying them down
without attachment. Die in touch with the true nature of things.
Die following the footsteps of the Lord Buddha. Die thus, and
become "deathless."
Listen to me! Don't just eat and sleep like a common animal. Make
sure you remain disenchanted with worldly life and have a healthy
Collected Teachings 237
fear of all future birth. Open your heart to true happiness. Don't just
sit around idly, keeping vigil over the smoldering embers of your life.
Everything is created by our minds. The eyes see images, the ears
hear sounds, the nose smells aromas, the tongue tastes flavors, the
body feels sensations, and the heart experiences emotions. But the
mind is aware of all these things. It knows them and it thinks about
them, imagining them to be this or that. When our mindfulness
and wisdom are strong, we can see these creations for ourselves. But
mostly the defilements carry us along in their flow, in their power-
ful natural momentum. Before we realize what has happened, we
become angry, greedy, deluded or conceited — because we've been
deceived by the defilements. So please watch the ebb and flow of
those defiling influences carefully. Don't let them deceive you so
readily. When we are skilled enough to keep up with their move-
ments, we can transform their negative power into positive spiritual
from the past, and on the amount of present-moment effort you put
into sitting and walking meditation. So always cultivate virtue and
never let evil thoughts enter your mind. The more you practice in
this way, the clearer your presence of mind will become, and the more
comprehensive your understanding will be. As knowledge concern-
ing your own true nature blossoms and blooms within your heart,
the end of the long road of suffering will gradually come into view.
People say they want to go to Nibbāna so they crane their necks and
look up into the vastness of space. They don't realize that no matter
how far and hard look, they still can't find Nibbāna. It simply isn't
within the realm of conventional reality.
The practices that I have maintained all these years are not easy to
do — they are extremely difficult. I have endured many hardships to
test my determination and my stamina along the path. I have gone
without food for many days. I have refused to lie down to sleep for
many nights. Endurance became the food to nourish my heart and
diligence became the pillow to rest my head. Try it for yourself. Test
your resolve. You will soon discover the mysterious power of your
own mind.
Collected Teachings 241
Be a nun in the truest sense. You don't want to spoil your vocation
by mingling with the foul-smelling grit of worldly life, so don't
glance back, longing for your home and family. Avoid being a lazy
nun who talks a lot and asks for favors. Always be satisfied with
living a simple life, and never be afraid of death. Never talk about
indecent matters; instead, talk about matters of real substance. My
nuns should always behave properly. If you truly wish to be my
disciples, pay attention to what I say. When I complain about your
behavior, understand that I am teaching you to always follow my
example in whatever you do.
You who have come here to be my students, make the effort to be-
come exemplary human beings. Be beautiful nuns who are patient
in your endurance of hardship and diligent in your practice of
meditation, always striving to learn the truth about yourselves.
People suffer because they grasp and don't let go. They harbor evil
intentions and ill will, and won't let go. Suffering follows them ev-
erywhere. So you must examine yourself and learn how to let go.
Only the true sage can take refuge in the cool shade of the three
Bodhi trees of Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha.
About the Author
Bhikkhu Sīlaratano was born Richard E. Byrd, Jr. at Winchester,
Virginia in 1948. He began his life as a Buddhist monk in 1975
in Bangalore, India where he ordained as a novice monk with Ven.
Buddharakkhita Thera. While still a novice he moved to Sri Lanka,
taking full bhikkhu ordination at Sri Vajiragnana Dharmayatanaya
in Maharagama in June of 1976. In early 1977 Bhikkhu Sīlaratano
traveled to Thailand, where he was ordained into the Dhammayutha
Nikāya at Wat Bovornives Vihāra in Bangkok on April 21, 1977. He
soon moved to Baan Taad Forest Monastery in Udon Thani province,
where he has been living and practicing under the tutelage of Ven.
Ajaan Mahā Boowa Ñāṇasampanno and his senior disciples ever
since. Bhikkhu Sīlaratano's other books include Ācariya Mun Bhūridatta
Thera: A Spiritual Biography and Arahattamagga Arahattaphala: The Path to
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