maker
Ajahn Chah was a Thai forest monk in the Theravāda tradition. He was my teacher’s teacher. Many considered him fully enlightened.
One day a man came running through the front gate of his monastery, struggling to speak as his caught his breath. He told Ajahn chah that a very powerful demon had possesed a woman in the local village neighbouring the monastery. In desperation, the villagers decided to seek the help of the monks, as the woman was in poor condition and becoming violent. Ajahn Chah consented to bringing her to the monastery to see if she could be helped.
A silence fell over the hushed grounds as the monks wondered what was about to unfold. Then, in the distance, the piercing screams of a woman could be heard. Even though she was at the front gate, almost a kilometre away, she was yelling so loudly that she could easily be heard in the dānasāla. Held by the arms by two strong village men and accompanied by many people from the village, the screaming became louder and more menacing as she approached.
Finally she was brought right before Ajahn Chah, her eyes wild, her body contorting and thrashing about, with deep, gutteral growls emenating from her throat. In a manic torrent, the demon began cursing him in Laotian, while the body of the woman began frothing at the mouth like a rabid animal. The villagers looked to the renowned Thai meditation master to see what he would do.
Ajahn Chah ordered a group of young novices to dig a large hole, and told the villagers to fetch pales of water from the monastery well. The novice monks, confused but obedient, did as they were told and began digging furiously, whilst the villagers scrambled to collect water, carting buckets back towards the woman. Ajahn Chah instructed the villagers to keep collecting enough water to fill the monastery cauldron, and then to bring the water to the boil.
It’s hot in rural Thailand, and in no time the novices were drenched in sweat, and the villagers began tiring from the back-breaking work. Still the woman thrashed to and fro, pulling at the arms of the village strongmen who barely held her back. Ajahn Chah looked on at the woman, his face unmoved as she spat curses and threats.
As the hole began to deepen, people began to wonder what Ajahn Chah had in mind, and eventually one of the more emboldened monks asked him what he was doing. Ajahn Chah said they were going to dig a big hole, big enough for the woman to be buried standing up, and when it was done, they were going to put her in it, and pour boiling water all over her. Then, when she was badly burnt, they would bury her alive.
At this, the crowd became silent, people exchanging glances out of the corner of their eyes. The novice monks stopped digging, looking up at Ajahn Chah wide-eyed, before Ajahn Chah barked to continue. At this, the crowd snapped back to life also and resumed the mad scramble for water.
Ajahn Chah looked down at the woman, now kneeling on the ground held down by the shoulders, and noticed she was breathing heavily. She had stopped cursing but was staring at him with dark, cold eyes, through narrowed slits.
With each passing minute the work continued, and in short time the hole was almost big enough to house the woman. A look of fear streaked across her face for the first time, her eyes darting between the hole, the water, and the monk standing before her. Ajahn Chah held his ground, gazing down at her.
When one of the small novices announced that the hole was ready, and a villager chimed in that the cauldron water was boiling, the woman, now limp, collapsed at the feet of Ajahn Chah, subdued and silent.
She looked up at Ajahn Chah, who then sat in front of her. Ajahn Chah put his hands in añjali, and she followed. He gave her the five precepts as the crowd looked on, stunned. He told her to treasure these precepts like her life itself, guarding them always.
The villagers and novices were soaked in sweat, and tired from the flurry of activity. He told the novices to go and clean themselves up, and sent the villagers home, saying they must care for the woman always.
I love that story. It was told by my teacher and I’ve taken a little poetic licence for dramatic effect, but the core of the story is sound.
It’s such a powerful display of lucid wisdom; the kind of creative, lateral, reflexive genius that comes from an awakened mind. By appealing to the woman’s deeper human need for safety, he overcame her frenzied state and was able not only to help her, but to give her a foundation for an ethical life, one grounded in safety for her future.
What it teaches us is that in order to overcome our problems, whether they be problems in meditation, or habitual tendencies which cause us pain, or our interpersonal struggles; that we must be bold and break the moulds that restrict us from finding solutions.
The Dhamma is a creative force, a maker. It challenging us to stretch beyond the capabilities we think contain us, and into new fields of awareness, into new states of mind and ways of being. There is no better proof of this than when we witness how a person who embodies the Dhamma in a powerful way - such as a figure like Ajahn Chah, or my teacher Ajahn Brahm - acts in the moment. It is then that we see the power of this Dhamma express itself by responding in mind-bending, paradoxical, and surprising ways – it is proof again and again of the powerful potential of our mind. It is the mind itself that holds the key to becoming this Dhamma, and through practicing this path, we can become the path, we can become this Dhamma.
- Peace