Luang Por Liem: The Ways of the Peaceful - Wat Pah Nanachat

substances is already something that causes feelings of aversion in
us. Nevertheless, we still experience feelings of sensual desire.
There are people, though, who become weary and disenchanted
with the body, who see its unattractiveness, who see that it is not
something that can be considered beautiful in any way.
The Buddha emphasised that we should see the body as an
unbeautiful thing. He even admonished one of his monks who
gave it too much importance and was attracted to the Buddha’s
physical appearance. He scolded him so he would start to reflect:
“what is so desirable about such a foul and filthy object?”. The
Buddha pushed him towards realizing the truth about himself.
One shouldn’t be enamoured and infatuated with mind states of
desire. These are worldly mind states. If we want peace and
seclusion from sensual desires, we need to pay attention to our
states of mind.
Living in society, we wash and dye our robes because we
want them to be in a condition that isn’t indecent and intolerable
for society. That’s why we need to wash them.
We wash our robes with an astringent liquid – the dye made
from jackfruit wood, and we have a well set-up place for that, the
dyeing shed. Using this method for washing our robes is
uncomplicated and there needn’t be any difficulties in maintaining
them. Also, we have a limited amount of cloth. All we have is a
lower, upper and outer robe, a waist-band, an angsa 27 , and a
bathing cloth.
27 angsa (Thai): a small rectangular cloth that covers the chest area that is
used in Thailand whenever the main robes aren’t worn, e.g. in informal
situations, out in nature or at work.
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