Forest Path - Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

154 forest path
(such as a bear or wild boar) next to my dtieng seemingly trying to
determine what it has bumped into. Invariably, these animals smell
who I am and leave me alone. On more rare occasions, monks have
come across deer being attacked by wild dogs, or a panther. Other
monks have seen tigers while doing walking meditation. Some locals
even have reported running into wild rhinoceroses. One recent
night a monk walked down the path from his dtieng to investigate a
curious sound of bamboo being munched upon, only to his astonishment
to find a herd of wild elephants. The earth shook, rumbling as
if there had been a small earthquake, as the elephants fled in
surprise.
The one creature in the forest that does offer a serious health hazard
is the malarial mosquito. Five members in our community of about
twenty have contracted the malarial parasite from a mosquito bite
this year and have had to be brought out to a hospital for treatment.
Mosquito nets offer some protection, but the insects apparently can
bite at any time of the day, not just dawn and dusk. All in all I experience
a renouncing of many comforts and securities I didn’t even realize
I had. The tenuous, uncertain nature of the body really draws
me within in an urgent search for a peace unconditioned by these external
phenomena. If I complicate my daily life by holding on to any
attachments, or acting in an unwholesome way, the suffering and
negative kamma vipàka seems almost instant.
Lastly, the sense of urgency in practice is heightened by the fact that
the forested Tao Dam area, which undoubtedly has taken centuries
to grow, could be gone or nearly destroyed within the next few
years. The hardwood trees fetch a good price for loggers in the timber
industry and the wild animals are prized by hunters. National
Park officials have been known to burn the forest to get reforestation
funds. I can vividly remember sitting in meditation at the upper sàlà
late one night, with a clear vista of the forest for miles and observing
lines of fire apparently set by arsonists blazing from mountain to
mountain. Now commercial interests want to cut a road through the
heart of this pristine, virgin forest to expedite the transfer of goods
from a port in Burma to Bangkok. Firsthand accounts from fellow
monks who have done thudong throughout Thailand indicate that
forests like this, which one generation ago covered this country, now