Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 S E C O N D M O O N 06Nowhere in this land was away from people. The analogy we cameup with at the time was walking across a city park on a sunny Sundayafternoon: you might think you had spotted a quiet corner with no onein it, but when you got there, someone was always there. To make itworse we were like the ice cream van—wherever we went the peopleclustered around us.We gave up on our peaceful glade and made our way on. We still hada long way to go to get to Vaishali that night. Sitting in the shade of theglade, the afternoon autumn heat of India had been pleasant, but backon the road it was oppressive. My mind turned to the idea of tea, as it sooften did in the afternoons.By this point in the walk the lovely Indian milky tea I had been buyingin the afternoon was coming to an end. Milk was quite clearly classedas food in the monastic rules and so not supposed to be consumed afternoon. Faced with the difficulty of getting tea without milk in India,other Western monks had given in. But not Ajahn Sucitto. To begin withhe went along with their precedent but then discovered with his growingHindi and enough effort he could get the chai wallah to make blacktea. I dutifully followed his lead but could never quite summon thedetermination in my efforts to get the man to understand, and as a resultit often still came with milk. My heart was obviously not in it.The way Ajahn Sucitto would accept milky tea without a fuss waswhen someone else offered it; he did not want to reject their kind gesture.So I was often looking out for possible offers of tea. That afternoonas our dirt track passed through villages I started looking for invitations.I walked along attuned to any possibility, smiling at any likely offerers.Amazing how my attitude to the local people could change! The samepeople who could vex me so with their repetitive questions would seemcompletely different were they likely to offer milky tea.1 4 6