Khanti - Wat Pah Nanachat

going to do it. And so I started. In the morning – same spittoon.
I’d look at it: urine, betel nut juice, phlegm, and so on. But, it
was really tough taking care of that, even though it was exactly
the same stuff as in Ajahn Chah’s spittoon. It wasn’t as if
Ajahn Chah’s urine had this wonderful kind of mystic smell to
it – but still it was difficult. I forced myself.
In the evening I’d go to his kuti 12 , massage him, make
him cocoa, and listen to his rants and endless anecdotes about
Laos which I couldn’t understand at all. I had just learned this
Lao-word ‘kah noi’, and at every pause I’d say ‘doy kah noi’ 13 ,
and he was really pleased. I was a captive audience… The
other thing I remember is that he told me the whole story of
Venerable Ratthapala from the Ratthapala-sutta 14 in great
detail. But because in Thai‚ “Ratthapala” is pronounced
“ratthabahn” (government), I thought he was talking about
politics. He was telling me the whole story mumbling the
words “rattabahn, rattabahn”, and I though, no, this is just
really the pits, you know, expecting to be with Ajahn Chah and
having to listen to this old monk talking about politics and the
government. Well, I spent six months with him, so I got the
record, and a great deal of respect from my fellow monks for
doing this, and I feel I became quite good friends with that old
monk, became fond of him in a way, and I don’t regret the time
that I spent with him. I certainly learned about upatthaking and
performing duties without discrimination.
One of the most important points to be made about the
observances is their role in the practice of mindfulness. As
12
kuti: a monk’s hut
13
kah noi and doy kah noi: very polite form for replying with ‘yes’,
just as ‘krap’ in Thai.
14
One of the suttas (discourses) of the Buddha in the “Middle
Length Sayings”
14