3


Samadhi Suicide:
Our Example

MICHAEL TOLD ME that he and Herbie were going to the nearby town of Ampher Warin to do some shopping. He asked me if I wanted anything. I asked him to buy a cup I could use for drink time. I wanted something personal.

“Any particular colour?” asked Michael.

“Red. Real red. The redder the better. I don’t have any red, only white. I need a little red in my life,” I said.

Next morning at meal time I found at my sitting place a fine plastic mug which could have been an accessory on a fire engine.

“Turn it upside down and it doubles as a police flasher,” said Michael, who was pleased with himself. “I thought we’d never find a cup like that in Warin. But there it was, right in the centre of the display, as if it were meant for us.”

“Perhaps it felt a calling to come to the wat. It’s a perfect red. Thanks,” I said.

“There was a baht change so I got something extra for you,” said the pakhao in a low voice. I peered into the bottom of my cup and saw the secret: two wrapped toffees.

Jim and I prepared for our ordination. The ceremony, which must be performed in Pali, involved taking our vows from the Ajahn. We were required to recite by heart the eight precepts and the triple refuge. The triple refuge is a Theravada Buddhist’s profession of faith:

I go to the Buddha for refuge.

I go to the Dhamma for refuge.

I go to the Sangha for refuge.

Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha are the three sources of spiritual nourishment and shelter for a Thai Buddhist. They are a trinity called the “Triple Gem.” The Buddha was the historic founder of the faith, but in this fuller context the meaning expands to include “The One Who Knows” within each of us. It is the wisdom which comes forth through the practice of meditation. Dhamma is the name given to the teachings of the Buddha which were recorded in the Pali scriptures. Yet it also means truth itself, even if that truth is not found within the Pali canon. Sangha is the community of monks. But the human forms which wear the robes do not complete the meaning of the Sangha. The Sangha are those who tread the spiritual path together, supporting and being supported by one another as they practise diligently the Dhamma of the Buddha.

Jim had memorized the ordination ritual before he came to Pah Nanachat. He explained to me that his original intention while in Chiang Mai was to be ordained as a monk. He had been rehearsing for this much longer ceremony for over a month.

“I knew a Thai man and his wife who wanted to sponsor me. It’s a big deal for a farang to be ordained as a monk. They would get a lot of spiritual merit for their role in it. The Thais believe that a son who ordains as a monk, even if only for a week, brings great spiritual credit to his parents in their next incarnation. My sponsors didn’t have any children, so my ordination was very exciting for them. They organized a feast, robes and gifts for the monks at the wat in the city where I was to be ordained. They even arranged a head shaving ceremony. I’d heard about Pah Nanachat and planned to come here. But I wanted to spend ten days in Chiang Mai first to help me get comfortable in the robes. I figured that way I could come to the jungle fully prepared to meditate.

“My sponsors took me to meet the abbot of the wat I was going to live in. He was the most disgustingly fat monk I have ever seen. He reminded me of Jabba the Hutt from Star Wars. All the time we talked he chain-smoked. He had beady red eyes. For the first time I stopped and asked myself just what I was doing. I’m an outsider in Thailand. I’m not even a Buddhist. I like the meditation part of the philosophy, but some things are really repulsive to me, like that abbot. I realized I didn’t have the right to take on the role of a religious actor. I wouldn’t be true to the expectations placed on me by the culture. I had to ask myself what my reasons were for wanting to be a monk. They seemed pretty shallow. It was all a big ego trip. I had written my friends back in America, telling them I was becoming a Buddhist monk. I was going to wear robes, shave my head and beg for my food. If I backed out they would think I had lost my nerve. I had been telling myself my motivation was for the sake of meditation. But it was just a kick to be different.

“I looked around at the fuss everyone was making over me. My sponsors and other Thai friends had spent about five thousand baht on the ceremony. That’s over two hundred American dollars, a lot of money here, and these people aren’t rich. I’m an atheist, but I hate it when religion becomes a business. Stores selling religious articles make a lot of profit from Thais who want to buy merit. It made me sick to be in the middle of it. My only reason left for not cancelling everything was that I didn’t know how to explain why I had changed my mind. They wouldn’t understand. And they had spent the money. Can you believe it? I was going to be a monk so I wouldn’t waste two hundred dollars worth of merit.

“At that time I met a Thai monk who had spent several years in Pah Nanachat. I told him my problem. He suggested I become a pakhao. I didn’t know men could be pakhaos. I knew right away it would be a better role for me. Maybe a Thai can justify jumping straight into ochre robes. He grows up with the religion all around him. I guess it’s in their blood. For me, I knew it wouldn’t work. It was hard to swallow all my pride and tell my sponsors I was backing out. I tried to explain why I had decided to be a pakhao instead, but they didn’t listen. They said they were sorry I had lost interest in their religion. I think they took it well. It must have been a loss of face for them, but they had no bad feelings.”

“Did anybody understand?” I asked.

“Maybe one of my professors. Everyone else just wrote me off. That’s probably a good thing. Now I’m here without anybody else’s expectations of me. I’m glad. Can you imagine me waltzing in here pretending I’m a monk just because of the robes? Could I sit further up the line in the hierarchy then Nimalo who’s been a novice for three years? The right place to start was at the bottom, as a guest. From layman to pakhao is as high as I ever want to go.”

“I agree,” I said. “I thought about monkhood, but it isn’t right for me either. I don’t know if in your position I would have had the guts to cancel the show.”

“You didn’t come face to face with a Thai version of Jabba the Hutt.”

Tan Casipo gave me a small tape recorder and a cassette of the ordination ceremony. He was a helpful monk, shy and slender. I think he was in his mid-twenties. Age means nothing here, I was told. It was not a question to ask. His eyes were tranquil. In his smile there was a subtle sense of the ridiculous. He had dropped out of his final year of a degree in applied physics.

The tape was only fifteen minutes long. Almost everything the initiate says is simple repetition of the Ajahn’s words. The Pali pronunciation was difficult for me to master. Short and long vowel sounds had to be spoken with absolute precision. I practised for hours in my kuti. Jim came over occasionally to help. We sat either on my porch or under the shelter of my mosquito net and rehearsed. He knew it backwards, giving a Thai inflection to his syllables. We were also able to support each other through the preparation. We both had doubts about what we were doing, but we were determined not to back out. Vowing to follow the eight precepts was not a problem. Although the precepts are similar to the Ten Commandments in content, they are not imperatives handed down from heaven. The Buddha taught his followers to practise sila, moral purity, as an essential preliminary to meditation. He said wrongful actions produce guilt and fear. When the mind is agitated it is incapable of tranquillity. Right actions produce a natural calm. This calm is necessary if meditation is to arise. The precepts are simply a means to meditation. Jim and I could make these vows sincerely. However we were both uneasy about taking refuge in the Triple Gem. Neither of us were Buddhists. I was a Christian. Jim was an atheist. From these opposite extremes, we were reluctant to declare Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha as our sole refuge. Our Ajahn told us not to worry about the meaning of taking refuge. Just go through the ritual, he advised. Understanding will come gradually. Faith takes time to grow. We weren’t sure just what kind of faith would grow in either of us. Perhaps we could accept it under the more esoteric interpretation of Buddha as the “One Who Knows” and Dhamma as truth in general but neither of us felt ready to submit to the community of monks as if they were divine. The Buddha had challenged people to test his words against their experience. For us the test now involved submission to the monks. This called for a faith neither one of us possessed. But for the sake of the test we decided to follow through with the ritual together and join the ordained hierarchy of Wat Pah Nanachat.

The rehearsals filled all my mornings, all my quietness, all my stillness. They soaked up my calm. Meditation fled. Apparently I couldn’t meditate and do anything else in the same day. If this was true, then what was the value of meditation, unless I was going to spend my whole life in a wat? If I came here to meditate, then what was the point of this irritating chanting which clogged my brain like an advertising jingle?

This mind is like a monkey, say the Buddhists. It hops from place to place, restless and wild. We have no control over it. Our sensations, perceptions, memories, wills and thought chatter erratically in our heads. There is no peace. The aim of meditation is to learn first how to control the monkey mind; then to be free of it. This is not how the West views the mind. The scientific and artistic traditions of the human race are not erratic chatter to us. We exalt our minds. We raise our consciousness. Our sense of self is our most important possession. We cannot comprehend what the Buddha taught.

But the goal of meditation can also be considered in terms of science, according to right brain/left brain psychology. The two hemispheres of the cerebrum control different activities. The left hemisphere generates linear thought. It is conceptual, abstract, verbal. It gives us our words and ideas. The right hemisphere generates non-linear thought. It is intuitive, creative, imaginative. The left hemisphere is the dominant partner in most human activities; it seldom relinquishes control. It thrives on complex tasks and if not fully taxed, will wander distractedly. The right brain is easily absorbed with just the sort of simple activities the left side find tedious. For example, if required to concentrate on the mundane simplicity of breathing, the left brain will rebel. It will want to think of something more interesting. But if attention is continually returned to breathing, the left may eventually give control to the right brain. When this happens, a distinct mental shift will be experienced. Restlessness will cease as the right brain takes over. A person in this condition will relax into peaceful contemplation. Viewed in this way, meditation is a therapy for lessening left brain dominance. As the passive right brain learns how to be in control, enabling us to lead more creative and intuitive lives, this restores a balance in our own human nature.

I sit on my porch and concentrate on the trembling sensation of breath in my nostrils. The ease of absorption begins to come at last. “Hey, now I’m getting somewhere! This is meditation!” Concepts spring into awareness, shattering the calm. One word, one thought leads to the next. The chattering left brain takes over like a bully. “Yes, I’m finally meditating. Well, almost there for a second. Sure is hot now. When’s coffee break? Remember coffee break back on the rigs? Fudge brownies. Damn mosquitoes.”

One tool for restraining the monkey mind when it breaks unbidden into meditation is the use of a mantra, such as the “Bud-dho” suggested by Ajahn. The right brain may be too weak at first to sustain control of so subtle an object as the breath. The left can easily intrude when it has not been tamed to be silent. Repeating a mantra forces the flow of thought back to a single sequence. The left brain can tolerate this for a short while, because a mantra is at least verbal. But it is boring. Repeating “Buddho, Buddho, Buddho” a hundred thousand times is not its idea of fun. It will struggle to break the sequence. But like links of a chain, the words are firmly connected to one another. Many Buddhists repeat their mantras while counting the repetitions on a rosary. The rhythm of the words and the beads in the hands help to still the left brain and activate the right.

“Bud-dho, Bud-dho, Bud-dho, Bud . . . what time is it now? I must have been sitting near to an hour. Where’s the coffee bell? The Ajahn—I’m not meditating, Bud-dho, Bud-dho. Cof-fee. Thoughts keep creeping back in. I have to concentrate hard, keep repeating Bud—dho, Bud-dho, and perhaps there will be cocoa. Does Coffeemate violate Vinaya? Argh, Argh, Bud-dho. Why not Buddha? Buddha, Bud-dha, Bud-dho, Bud-dha. Perhaps—Stop it, stop it! Out damned thought.”

The effort to silence a thought is itself a thought. Yell “Stop!” and it only shatters your calm. As soon as one says “Oh dear, I’m thinking now,” the left brain is back in control. An act of judgement is a left brain function. A meditator must refuse to judge even the quality of his meditation. Ajahn Chah told his disciples not to be absorbed by thoughts that arise in meditation. Note their arising, but do not become attached to them, he said. Observe a thought which intrudes, but don’t question it, don’t deny, evaluate or dwell on it. It’s just there, the same as breathing is there. No one judges breathing. Accept all states of mind as they arise. This diffuses the left brain activity of labelling everything good or bad. To accept what is, is a right brain activity. It has a way of comprehending in a flash of insight that comes before the words. In meditation that insight can be turned to the intruding thoughts and they will wither to their roots.

Bud-dho. These thoughts and concepts whirl though my mind as I pace on the runway in front of my kuti, perspiring in the afternoon heat. I conceptualize my failure to meditate, and devise theories to overcome my theorizing. Words to tear a curtain of words.

Tan Casipo led Jim and I to a large wooden cupboard at the rear of the sala. We were to be fitted for our new role in the hierarchy.

“We have some used pakhao robes in here,” said the helpful monk, “but I don’t think there will be enough sabongs for both of you. You need three sets each. There’s lots of linen. We’ll just have to make up some more. I sent Meow to get Yenaviro. He’s the Malaysian monk in charge of supplies.”

Tan Yenaviro arrived. I had noticed him before. His Chinese-Malay features marked him out from the other monks. He sat next to the novices in the morning meal line, which indicated he was the junior bhikkhu. He was the only non-Thai Asian in the international wat. He took a set of keys from the front of his ochre sash and opened the cupboard. He pulled down a pile of white linen which looked like bed sheets.

A sabong is a simple wide strip of cloth. Wrapped once around the waist, it covers one to the ankles. It’s the common dress of rural people throughout Southeast Asia and India. Usually it’s made from bright patterned cottons. As a religious uniform, it is ochre for monks and novices, white for pakhaos. There is a special way those who have taken vows must secure them. Tan Casipo and Tan Yenaviro showed us how. The wearer wraps the cloth around his backside, holding the ends together at arms length in front of him. He rolls the two ends together until the sabong is tight around his waist, with the rolled cloth against his stomach. A thick cotton belt is then worn so that the string ends are tied over the top end of the linen roll. Fastened like this, it won’t slip or unwrap. The result is a midi-skirt with a spring roller like a furled sail in front. It allows for maximum modesty and mobility. The only dangerous position is a full squat. Spreading the knees and bending can unroll the bottom of the sabong’s roller enough to permit full view of all that a pakhao wears underneath; in the tropical heat, that’s not much. To tie the belt on properly, the roll must protrude about four inches above the waist, forming a large knob which comes up to the navel. It looks like a great white phallus. While Yenaviro searched for a belt, I was left gripping this knob in my hand, holding the roll in place. Jim and Casipo suddenly started to giggle. Yenaviro turned around from the cupboard, puzzled, then he too started to laugh. Perhaps the outfit was meant to be a constant reminder of the third precept.

Above the waist, ordained members of the community wear a cotton or linen sash draped over the left shoulder, fastened beneath the right armpit. It falls across the chest, discreetly covering both nipples and the protruding white reminder. Pakhao Michael, however, wore his sash in a roll, just looping it over his shoulder to stay cool. I told Yenaviro I liked the style.

“It’s not appropriate in the sala. You must cover your chest,” said the Malaysian.

I pointed to the gleaming idols at the front of the temple. “But the Buddha shows a nipple,” I said.

“We don’t make the rules. We just follow them,” he told me.

Pakhaos do not share the burden of an outer robe, which the bhikkhus and novices must wear at rites and on alms round. Especially during the humid Thai summer before monsoons clear the air, the robes are hot and constricting. But monks must follow the rules. The only disadvantage of a pakhao’s outfit is the colour. When I grumbled about the large size of my new wardrobe—three sabongs, three sashes, two bathing clothes, two sitting clothes and a white carry bag—Yenaviro told me I’d need them all unless I wanted to wash my clothes every day.

“Those whites don’t stay white too long after a few mornings out walking through rice paddies on alms round,” he said. “You’ll spend a lot of time doing laundry meditation as it is.”

The monks are lucky. The ochre robes they wear are a good match for the reddish brown soil. Some bhikkhus even use mud to dye their bathing clothes the prescribed colour.

A tall farang monk in his late twenties entered the sala and joined the fitting session. He was the German monk who had calmly backed away from the sleeping cobra in the toilet. Recently he had returned from Bangkok, where both his knees had been operated on. Too much sitting meditation had damaged them. At the meal he sat on a cushion, easing the pressure off his joints. The day he returned he showed the others the tensor bandages wrapped around his legs for support. Despite his injury, his face was always a smile. Ajahn Chah had given him a Thai nickname which he preferred to the Pali name assigned him when he was ordained. He was called Ruk, a nickname meaning laughter.

Michael said Ruk was built like a tank. He was famous for having eaten fifteen mangos at a single meal. He was tall and had broad shoulders. Yet like most Westerners who spend years in a monastery, he seemed below a normal weight. His frame was big, but he was a lean looking tank. Still, he worked like a bulldozer. He was always active. The day he returned to Pah Nanachat with bandaged knees he began collecting deadwood in the jungle. I watched him cut and stack it under the roof of the robe-dyeing shed for the rains retreat. He sweated like a horse. His robes were always wet. Perspiration often ran down from his bald head, over his bald eyebrows and onto his gold-rimmed spectacles. He went about his self-motivated tasks cheerfully. If his vows did not prohibit singing, the air around him would have been filled with music.

When he wasn’t dragging dead branches out of the jungle, Ruk was invariably in a small side room of the sala, sweating over the sewing machine. Meow had told Ruk the two new laymen were going to need pakhao sabongs, so he had come to volunteer his talents.

“I love to sew,” he told us. The German accent was still noticeable in his voice. “In fact, I have to be careful, because sewing can easily become an attachment for me. I used to spend a full week every month in the sewing room. I’d make robes for anybody who asked me. Of course the others would sooner get them from me then let me teach them.” He laughed. “Even when I tried to explain, if they couldn’t do it right I would just take the job over anyway.”

Ruk led us to the front of the sala, near the sewing room. He got a measuring tape and began to measure us for new sabongs. We stood beside the skeleton of Dukita’s mother. While Ruk worked, I asked him about the woman and how her bones ended up on display in our temple.

“It’s common in Thailand to have a skeleton next to an altar. It reminds us of what we are. She used to come to the monastery often. She liked to be here. When she died, since she could not be burned, she was buried in the jungle nearby. Her husband gave permission for her body to be exhumed a year later when it was suggested the bones could be used in the sala. One of the monks was a good friend of hers. Her death made him very sad. He took it upon himself to prepare the skeleton for display. When the body was dug up, they left it out for a while, to completely dry. Then the monk spent a few hours every day cleaning the remaining flesh from the bones. He did it as his meditation on death. He worked alone in the jungle. He was devoted to his task and he used only one tool: his food knife. At the end of every day, he would clean it, then use it for the morning meal.”

Jim and I examined the skeleton while Ruk wound up the measuring tape. It was exquisite, a giant dangling sculpture in perfect balance. From the slender spinal column delicate ribs curved out into space. From the pelvis and clavicle arms and legs hung motionless, yet free to move. Her fingers and toes were all precisely tooled. Covered with living flesh, these bones were the miracle in each of us. We stood in awe of her beauty.

“What about the other reminders of mortality, Ruk?” I asked, walking over to the altar. I touched a clear plastic box about half a metre high, filled to the top with formaldehyde. Inside it sat a small pink figure with its eyes closed. The skin had a rubbery tone, but it was real. A dead human baby, less than a year old.

“Did the parents donate this?” I asked. Ruk shook his head.

“What about this?” I pointed to a photograph, framed in black wood, which was sitting on top of the baby’s case. It was a black and white picture of a naked meditator sitting crosslegged in the lotus position, grinning. It seemed at first glance that he must have been sitting that way for a long time. The ascetic was emaciated. I looked more closely and noticed that the skin had come away between his ribs. The pelvic cavity was just a gaping black hole. Each toe bone could be seen clearly. So could the joints where his elbows joined his forearms. The head was a skull wrapped in leather. The blissful but insane smile on his face was there because his lips had pulled back and withered away.

“They think he was a monk,” said Ruk. “They found his body alone in a cave a few hundred kilometres north of here. He died in samadhi. His posture was so perfect, his body did not fall.”

“Sure looks like he died happy,” I said.

“It’s hard not to smile when you don’t have any lips,” said Jim.

“Ruk,” I said, “what I want to know is why is his photo here in front of the sala? Is he supposed to be a warning to us, or a good example?”

“A good example, of course,” said Ruk, a little surprised at the question.

“He’s not my example,” Jim muttered as the two of us left the sala.

Did the monk die a natural death, I wondered, or did his meditation kill him? Ajahn Chah warned his disciples of the danger of addiction to samadhi:

That which can be most harmful to the meditator is absorption samadhi, the samadhi with deep sustained calm. This samadhi brings great peace. Where there is peace, there is happiness. Where there is happiness, attachment and clinging to that happiness arise. The meditator doesn’t want to contemplate anything else, he just wants to indulge in that pleasant feeling. When we have been practising for a long time we may become adept at entering the samadhi very quickly. As soon as we start to note our meditation object, the mind enters calm, and we don’t want to come out to investigate anything. We just get stuck on that happiness. This is a danger to one who is practising meditation.*

Perhaps this cave monk became addicted to absorption samadhi and never came back. I imagined him in perfect bliss, perfect contemplation, while his body stiffened in the lotus position and began to dehydrate. As an aware meditator he would have noted these events as they arose but they would not have disturbed him. There would have come an instant when he knew his limbs were about to lock in place, that there would be no more help for him, lone hermit, if he did not move at once. He would have watched that instant come and pass without abandoning his calm. As the days passed he may have noted the gradual deadening of sensation as the life dried from his extremities. Circulation would begin to clog. Toxins would slowly poison his body. Some masters of meditation can greatly reduce their rate of metabolism. Perhaps the hermit lived like this for many months, well past the time of natural death. He may not have been emaciated when he first took his seat and entered this fatal samadhi, observing the whole process of death and decay from the beginning. Was he still aware as his skin began to crack and rot, as his bowels hardened and the veins closed in his folded legs? His body continued to sit erect and balanced while his spine fused to a petrified rod. He watched his breath, inbreathing, outbreathing, until there was no more moisture left to wet his lips or tongue and the passing of air turned to a dry rasping over dead flesh. After his lungs collapsed, after his heart sagged in his chest, ceased pulsing and finally fell loosely from its place into the decaying mess below, perhaps even then there were a few flashing electrical impulses inside his skull observing pure bliss until the day some rude photographer took his picture and his bones were carried out to the cremation grounds and burned. It could have been the monk’s intention, when he first took his seat, to meditate on death by living through the event. This knowledge he would carry into his next rebirth. Surely there would be a few lives left before his final release from the wheel of samsara.

I wanted to ask Jim what he thought of this cave monk on the way back to our kuties. It had begun to rain, cooling the air. The red mud of the trails was sticky on our rubber sandals. In the shelter of the jungle, little rain penetrated at first. We walked carefully and slowly, aware of the pattering on the treetops. My twin walked ahead of me.

“Jim, what do you think of suicide?”

He stopped, turned and looked at me strangely.

“I don’t mean like Dukita’s mother, out of pain or despair. I mean like that monk in the photo. I think he committed samadhi suicide.” I stopped beside him on the path.

“I don’t think you can separate a suicide out of despair from a philosophical suicide,” said Jim. He spoke slowly, carefully articulating each word, staring through me rather than at me. “Despair is only an excuse. I think we all have curiosity about death. It can be very attractive sometimes. When living becomes difficult there is less you think you will be leaving behind.” We started to walk again. The rain began coming through in large drops. We heard thunder.

“Sounds like you’ve thought a lot about it,” I said.

“You’re the philosopher. Have you ever read Camus’ essay, The Myth of Sisyphus? He said suicide is the most important philosophical question. Why not do it?”

“But Camus did come up with an answer. My memory of it is hazy. Maybe the answer was too. He said life is absurd, but that you should accept that absurdity, even rejoice in it. Like Sisyphus you roll the rock up the mountain again and again even though you know it will roll back down. You accept futility.”

“That’s not it, Tim. You don’t rejoice despite absurdity, but because of it. Life is absurd so nothing compels you at all. There is no logic and no necessity. You do what you do out of freedom. You are always free to choose. Life’s absurdity means you are never compelled to commit suicide.”

“What about Kirby, Dostoyevsky’s character in the novel The Possessed?” I said. “He tells everyone he must commit suicide in order to prove there is no God. If God existed according to Kirby, it would be against His law to kill yourself. But Kirby knows God does not exist, so there is no law. As a free, sane man, he can perfectly well choose to kill himself. There is nothing stopping him. He chooses to do it deliberately as a necessary proof of his freedom.”

“So freedom compelled him to commit suicide? I understand that. Nice philosophy.”

“But Jim, how much of your interest is strictly philosophical?”

“I’m trying to tell you, it can’t be strictly philosophical. It never is for anyone. What could be more personal than your own death?”

“Personal counts more than philosophy, I admit. For me that’s a confession.” I looked at him silently, waiting. We had arrived at the fork in the in the trail leading to Jim’s kuti. Huge raindrops slid down from the drenched leaves onto our naked heads.

“I know what you’re asking.” Jim looked into the jungle. “Twice. First time the gun misfired, of all the cartridges in America. Second time, the train was late. That was a year ago. It seems to come around in cycles.”

“So when are you due next?”

Jim grinned at me and laughed. “Any time in the next six months. It’s getting faster.”

“If you ever need somebody to talk to, out here in the jungle, I’m just a hoot away in the next kuti. I don’t have much to say, advice or anything . . .”

“God! Advice is the last thing anybody needs then. Just someone to be there and be human. I’ll tell you about a dream of mine sometime. We’re getting soaked.”

“All right. See you at coffee.”

“Thanks,” said Jim. He turned and began sliding along the path to his hut.

“Careful not to slip too deep in samadhi,” I warned.

*Ajahn Chah, Taste of Freedom, Wat Pah Pong, 1980, Ubon Rajathani, Thailand. (pp. 18-19)