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Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

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^0 S E C O N D M O O N 06village edge. My mind would start yammering, and I would often endup trying to give advice. “Ah, Bhante, that looks a good place over there,”mentioning a little temple or tree that just so happened to be in the middleof the village and next to some big houses. Afterward I would resolveto show more restraint next time, usually to no avail.Once we had stopped and sat, my mind would calm. There was nothingleft to do, we could only be open and wait. My mind, so intent onthe outcome, would be right there in the moment. Waiting, not knowing,is powerful. When someone did offer us food it would be such abeautiful blessing.The offering would manifest in so many different ways that my mindcould never predict how it would be. There was one infallible rule, however:whoever first asked us would be the one to feed us. No matter ifthere were a hundred people around us, or whether the asker was richor poor. No matter if all they did was ask if we had eaten—even if othersasked whether we ate rice, chappatis, and so on—it was now thatperson’s duty, and duty is a very powerful thing in India.To begin with we weren’t having breakfast, for Ajahn Sucitto hadwanted us to live on one meal a day, as the Buddha had recommendedhis followers to do when possible. So that one meal was often it! Whateverwe were given would have to last us the next twenty-four hours. Aswe went on, that resolve slowly got worn away by my offers to stop ata tea stall in the mornings and then perhaps to have a little somethingwith the tea. If there is an Achilles’ heel in Ajahn Sucitto’s asceticarmour, it is his fondness for tea.Tea stalls are everywhere in India, erected wherever there is theopportunitytomakeasmall living frompassingtrade. Cobbled togetherout of planks, plastic sheeting, and anything else that comes to hand,they do not seem much to us, but to the owner they are their life. Theylive and work in them, willing to make tea at any time of day or night.At least one member of the family, if not all of them, will sleep there toprotect their meagre investment.1 3 6

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