When Ãcariya Mun accepted a group of monks as his students, he held regular meetings where he instructed them in the way of practice. If he noticed that a monk’s attitude was unbecoming, or his behavior offensive, he took the opportunity to openly rebuke him. While in meditation, knowledge about the unseemly behavior of his students might arise in his mind as visual images, or else he might psychically read their errant thoughts. He then devised some cunning method to bring this to the culprit’s attention, assuring that greater care and restraint was exercised in the future.

The visual nimittas that arose in Ãcariya Mun’s citta during meditation varied according to the overall situation of the person who was the principal cause of that vision. To give you an idea of the nature and the scope of his nimittas, there is the story of the monk who was a rather famous boxer as a layman. Giving up his profession to ordain as a monk, he developed a strong faith and decided to practice kammaååhãna. Aware of Ãcariya Mun’s excellent reputation as a revered meditation master, he set out to find the place where Ãcariya Mun was staying. But as he set off, he unwittingly carried in his bag ten pictures of boxers in various boxing poses. With these photos, he traveled from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, searching for Ãcariya Mun in that mountainous region. Finally arriving at Ãcariya Mun’s wilderness retreat, he paid his respects and explained his reasons for coming. Ãcariya Mun accepted him without offering any comments.

During the night Ãcariya Mun must have thoroughly investigated this monk; for, the following morning, when all the monks gathered to eat, he came in and immediately began speaking about the new arrival.

“This monk came here for the express purpose of learning about Dhamma. Looking at his behavior, I can find nothing offensive – it’s commendable. Why then did he exhibit such dreadful conduct last night? As I sat in meditation, he approached and stood right in front of me, just a few feet away. He then proceeded at some length to assume various boxing poses, before gradually backing away. As he slowly faded from my view, he continued to shadow box, kicking first right and then left as he went.3 What’s the story with this monk? Was he a boxer before he ordained as a monk? Is that the reason he gave me a lengthy boxing exhibition?”

While he spoke, all the monks, including the former boxer, sat motionless in bewildered silence. Ãcariya Mun turned to the former boxer, whose face had gone pale.

“What do you have to say for yourself? What did you have in mind, behaving in such a manner? At least you didn’t take a punch at me!”

As it was time to go on almsround, Ãcariya Mun said nothing more that morning. Nor did he bring the matter up later, when instructing the monks at the evening meeting. But during the night he was again confronted with the same problem. So, he brought it up again the following morning.

“What’s your real purpose for coming to me? Last night, there you were again, displaying your boxing skills, jumping and kicking all over the place. It lasted nearly all night. Such behavior is not normal for someone whose intentions are noble. What did you have in mind before you came to see me? And what are your thoughts now that you are here? Please tell me the truth, or else I won’t be able to let you stay on here. I’ve never experienced anything quite like the events of the last two nights.”

The monk sat trembling, his face ashen, as though he was ready to faint. One of the other monks, noticing his worsening condition, requested an opportunity to speak privately with him.

“Please be forthcoming and tell Ãcariya Mun your true feelings about this matter. He’s asking you about it only because he wants to ascertain the truth, not because he has any intention to hurt you. None of us, who are living here with him, are saints, free of kilesas. We are bound to make mistakes and so must accept his admonitions. All of us live here as his disciples. Being our teacher, he’s like a father and a mother to us. As a teacher, he has an obligation to reprimand anyone who does something noticeably wrong. A teacher must keep an eye on his students – for their own sake, educating them by questioning and criticizing them as circumstances require. I myself have been subjected to many such castigations; some even more severe than the one you received. Ãcariya Mun has even ordered some monks to leave the premises immediately, only to relent and allow them to stay on when they realized their faults and accepted the blame. Please think carefully about what he just said to you. My own feeling is that you shouldn’t be unreasonably afraid. If you have anything on your mind, just express it truthfully. If you feel you have done nothing wrong, or you cannot recall where you made a mistake, tell him straight out that you cannot seem to recollect your past errors. Then put your fate in his hands, letting him take what action he sees fit, and accept the consequences. The matter will then resolve itself.”

When the other monk finished speaking Ãcariya Mun continued: “So what do you have to say for yourself? It’s not that I want to find fault with you for no good reason. But as soon as I close my eyes I have to watch your antics blocking my view for the rest of the night. Why would a monk behave like that? It dismays me to see it every night. I want to know what kind of sinister motives you may have for persisting in such conduct. Or do you think that my own intuition, which has always been reliable in the past, is now playing tricks on me, and contaminating you in the process? I want you to tell me the truth. If it turns out that you’re innocent, my intuition being at fault, then that means I’m just a crazy old monk who doesn’t deserve to live with a group of students like this – I will only lead them astray. I’ll have to run off and hide myself away like some lunatic, and immediately stop teaching others. Should I persist in teaching such crazy knowledge to the world, the consequences would be disastrous.”

The other monk again encouraged his friend to speak up. Finally, the former boxer moved to answer Ãcariya Mun. In a ghostly, trembling voice, he blurted out, “I’m a boxer”, and then fell silent.

Ãcariya Mun sought confirmation: “You’re a boxer, is that right?”

“Yes.” And that was all he said.

“Right now you’re a monk; so, how can you also be a boxer? Do you mean you traveled here boxing for money along the way, or what?”

By this time, the monk’s mind was in a daze. He could offer no coherent response to Ãcariya Mun’s inquiries. The other monk took up the questioning in an effort to help him regain his mental focus: “Don’t you mean that you were a boxer in lay life, but now that you are a monk you no longer do that?”

“Yes. As a layman I was a boxer, but after ordaining as a monk I stopped boxing.”

Ãcariya Mun saw that his condition didn’t look very good, so he changed the subject, saying it was time to go on almsround. Later, he told the other monk to go and question him privately, since his fear of Ãcariya Mun prevented him from being coherent. After the meal this monk found an opportunity to put his questions in private. He discovered that the new monk had previously been a well-known boxer in the Suan Kulap boxing camp. Becoming disillusioned with lay life, he ordained as a monk and set off to find Ãcariya Mun.

Once he had the whole story, the monk related it to Ãcariya Mun, who made no further comment. It was assumed that this would be the end of the matter, especially since Ãcariya Mun spoke directly to the former boxer during the evening meeting. But that wasn’t to be the case. That night, Ãcariya Mun again investigated the matter for himself. In the morning, he confronted the former boxer once more in front of everyone.

“It’s not merely that you were once a boxer – something else is hidden there as well. You should go and carefully reconsider this whole affair. If it was simply a matter of being a boxer in lay life, the matter should have been settled by now. It should not keep recurring in this way.”

That was all he said.

Later, the monk who had become familiar with the former boxer went to see him. After further questioning he discovered that the new monk had the ten pictures of boxers in his possession. After looking at them, his friend became convinced that they were the cause of all the trouble. He advised him to either throw them away, or burn them. The boxer monk agreed, and together they burned the whole lot. After that, everything returned to normal and this matter never surfaced again.

The former boxer was diligent in his practice, always conducting himself admirably. He lived contentedly with Ãcariya Mun from then on. Ãcariya Mun was always especially kind to him – never again did he allude to his past. Afterwards, when the opportunity arose, his fellow monks teased him about that incident. Referring to his scolding from Ãcariya Mun, he said, “I was half-dead and in such a daze I didn’t know what was what, so I answered him like a half-dead idiot.” Addressing the monk who helped him, he continued, “If you hadn’t been so kind, I’d probably have gone hopelessly mad. But Ãcariya Mun was remarkably clever – as soon as he saw I was losing my wits, he quickly put a stop to the whole affair, acting as though nothing had ever happened.”

This is an example of the type of visual nimitta that might arise in Ãcariya Mun’s meditation. He regularly used the knowledge he gained from such visions to teach his students – a means no less significant than his ability to read the thoughts of others.4

ÃCARIYA MUN HAD MORE sensational experiences while living in Chiang Mai than during any other period of his life. Some of these phenomena appeared exclusively within his citta; others surfaced in the world around him. They included many amazing, stimulating insights – knowledge of a kind never occurring to him before. Living alone in particular, he encountered a myriad of mysterious phenomena far too numerous to mention. The citta in its natural state of knowing is like that: knowledge and understanding arise continuously, both during meditation and in engagement with normal daily activities. It’s strange, and truly wondrous, considering that the citta had previously been blind and ignorant, never imagining it possessed the ability to perceive the phenomena that arise each moment. It was as if such phenomena just came into being, even though they have actually existed since time immemorial.

Only when the citta enters into a state of total calm do these functions cease. All manner of phenomena are excluded from the samãdhi state, so nothing arises to affect the citta in any way. As the citta rests with Dhamma, Dhamma and the citta merge. The citta is Dhamma, Dhamma is the citta. This is a state of complete unity where the citta and Dhamma are one and the same, without any trace of duality. Conceptual reality does not exist: all concepts of time and space are transcended. There is no awareness of the body, or the mind, and concepts of pain and pleasure do not arise. As long as the citta remains there and doesn’t withdraw from that state – whether it’s for a period of days, months, years, or eons – then conventional realities such as anicca, dukkha, and anattã will not disturb it, for it is a state in which all duality ceases – entirely. If, for instance, the mundane physical body were to break up and disintegrate while the citta remained quiescent in nirodhadhamma – meaning the cessation of conventional reality – the citta in that state would be completely unaware of what was happening. 5

In truth, the state of nirodha is one in which the cessation of conceptual reality is only temporary – not lasting for years, as that is highly unlikely. It may be compared to a deep, dreamless sleep. During that time, the sleeper is completely unaware of body and mind. No matter how long he remains in deep, dreamless sleep, that condition stays the same. Only after waking up does one become aware of normal physical and mental sensations.

Deep states of samãdhi, including nirodhasamãpatti, all exist within the realm of relative, conventional reality, however. Only the vimutticitta has gone completely beyond it. And if the citta entering into these samãdhi states is already liberated from every aspect of relative, conventional reality, then that pure visuddhi-citta is in no way affected by such conventional levels of attainment. It remains vimutticitta, free from all constraints of time and space – akãliko. It’s absolutely impossible to conceptualize the nature of vimutti-citta, so any attempt to speculate about its qualities is only a waste of time and effort. The citta that enters into a state of total quiescence, free from all conceptual reality, simply ceases to function, as those conditioned phenomena – that would ordinarily be involved with the citta – temporarily disappear. Later when the citta has withdrawn from deep samãdhi into upacãra samãdhi, or back into the normal state of visuddhi-citta, it functions normally, receiving and processing sense data as it sees fit.6

Whether in upacãra samãdhi, or in its normal waking state, Ãcariya Mun’s citta was always receptive to a multitude of phenomena. The difference was in the depth, scope, and quality of the experience. If wishing to investigate something thoroughly, he would enter into upacãra samãdhi to get a more extensive view. Clairvoyance and clairaudience, for example, require a state of upacãra samãdhi. In this calm state one can perceive whatever one wishes to know about the forms and sounds of people and animals – and much, much more. Fundamentally, it’s no different from seeing with the physical eyes and hearing with the physical ears.