Buddha Series-4: Acharya Mun, the Great Spiritual Warrior !

January 25, 2023

Houston, Texas

After finishing the Life of Buddha, I read Anu Gita Commentary by Yogi Madhvacharya and went to Acharya Mun's spiritual biography. I throttled the penetration of buddhism with other books, but still unstoppable force made me to take the Acharya Mun's book and drunk the energy in it.

When the life of Buddha book was finished, the energy from the book specific to Mahākāśyapa, the principle disciple of Buddha pointed me to Acharya Mun. Both are strong forest ascetics and Acharya Mun's book does resonate with Mahākāśyapa's energy and the lineage energy. Mahākāśyapa is my favorite, there were certain resonance of my energy to his energy, it is like small stone (myself) broke from a huge boulder (Mahākāśyapa). 

Here is the link to the book: http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/acariya-mun.pdf

The greatest reviver of Thai Forest Thai Tradition, it looked like he started from where Mahākāśyapa and his descendants left. What a force he is and still is!

My learnings from Acharya Mun's book:

By the mid of the book, the energy in the book has already taken over the psyche and several changes started happening in the subtle and physical body.

1. Buddho Energy was given to start the walking, sitting and lying meditation (potent)
   1. After months, I recently realized first jhana (still learning to categorize the accurately the mental states based on jhanas) during walking meditation (05/18/23) where my knee and feet collapsed while walking for 30-40 seconds and held on to wall.
      1. The mind seized and thoughts stopped. Rapture and very mild tingling electric shock all over the body, it takes several minutes to come to back to physical plane.
      2. When the mind stops, the body limbs could not be controlled and they fall apart, it is better to sit than to stand by holding the wall.
2. Taught to keep the meditation and mindfulness within the body
3. Taught to face the fear head on like how faced the tigers (I had some of it, but he mandated it to strengthen)
4. Body contemplation → Samadhi (In the suttas samadhi is defined as mental one pointedness (cittass'ekaggata)
5. The Buddho energy taught me the nuances of body contemplation
   1. It is an art and science.
   2. I found blue crystal of valuable blue crystal like energy stored in my thigh along with sexual energy which can used for self upliftment but it is located in thigh along with sexual energy and it can be mix with sensual energy and get wasted for trivial pursuits

Interesting aspects of the book:

1. The personality of both Acharya Sao (aspired Prateykha Buddha, i.e. who will not teach) and Acharya Mun (aspired Buddha i.e. who will teach), both stopped their previous life vows to attain buddhahood and shortened it to attain arahants as it will take eons to get to that state.
   1. Acharya Sao and Acharya Mun personality gives a good contrast and richness
2. Listening to Savaka Arahants
3. Sarika Cave (this is the best, felt like hearing from the arahants itself while reading)
4. Tigers are the best teachers (what a life he had)
5. Hypercritical Naga
6. How he changed an entire village from the fear of forest
7. Spiritual warrior
8. Old ascetic lady meeting Acharya Mun
9. Life stories of Students of Acharya Mun
10. The moment when all 6 Buddhas come to visit him with their arahants after he reached Arahantship (Haha, I was standing and clapping when I read those pages, haha!!)

I was sweating physically at places where the way he treated his student by exposing them in front of everyone, that was quite hard. The true compassionate side is displayed with the village people, that's the true compassion and good will which drove out superstitions and gave truth and wisdom to all.

The book is an delight to any true spiritual seeker. The author was panicking on how western readers would take several of the astral incidences and was repeatedly apologetic, that did throttle the energy flow of the books at place but otherwise, it flooded my psyche. It is still resonating in my psyche.

This is another book after Life of Buddha by Bhikku Nyanamoli where I thought maybe I took this birth only to read these kind of books. I was thinking "What more is there in life after reading these books? How much grace was bestowed from several lives to lay even my hands on these books".

All cravings and goals were dropped dead and I went into sublime peace. The fire in heart was quenched again. Then after few hours, everything came back as usual, haha. This book is an masterpiece and his energy donation to the world is one of the top spiritual charities and contributions in Modern Buddhism. 

A interesting perspective at a Yogic method:

Certain point that raised my interest of many things was the criticism on a set of yogic practice. I enjoyed and benefited from his criticism, it had lot of substance and nurture to it. It was not an ill intended, it had a rich substance and value in his advice.

A nuanced subtlety of sharp aiming (anu-sandhana) at single point done by Yogi in certain practise, when the attention is not magnetically attracted to a point, yogis tend to brutally target and aim at a single point, to develop focus. (Tratak and other practices have this nature). A different system but good to hear his perspective. Look at what Acharya Mun say on this subject as shown below:

Excerpt take from Acariya Mun Bhuridatta- A Spiritual Biography by âcariya Mahà Boowa & Bhikkhu Dick Sãlaratano (Translator)

One morning, a disciple of Ãcariya Mun, who was running a veryhigh fever due to malarial infection, decided to forgo alms round andfast for the day. He used his investigative skills to battle the intensepain from early morning until three in the afternoon, when the feverbegan to abate.

Feeling completely exhausted in the middle of the day,he drew his attention to and concentrated solely on those points wherethe pain was most intense, but without making an effort to probe andanalyze the pain with wisdom. At midday, Ãcariya Mun momentarilysent out the flow of his citta to check how the monk was coping withthe pain. Later in the afternoon, while visiting Ãcariya Mun, he wassurprised to hear Ãcariya Mun immediately question his mode ofpractice.

“Why were you investigating like that? How can you expect tounderstand the truth about the body, the pain, and the citta, if youmerely concentrate your mind on a single point? Instead, use yourintuitive wisdom to analyze all three of them. In that way, you discoverthe true nature of each.

Yours is the kind of concentration one expectsfrom a yogi: it has all the single-minded intensity of a dogfight!

It is not the right practice for a monk wanting to discover the truth aboutpain. Don’t do it again. It’s the wrong way to go about realizing themany truths to be found within the body, the pain, and the citta.

During the middle of the day I examined your practice to see how you were coping with the pain caused by your fever. I noticed you were just focusing your attention exclusively on the pain. You were not usingmindfulness and wisdom to ease the problem by looking at all threeaspects of it: body, pain, and citta. This is the only effective way to quellpain, and neutralize the symptoms, so that the fever subsides as well.”

Flow of Buddho Energy:

After Life of Buddha-Bhikku Nyanamoli, the energy of Mahakashyapa took me to Acharya Mun's Biography book and that continuation energy took me to Vishuddi-Magga by BuddhaGhosa.

Vishuddhi Magga (Path of Purification) is one of the highest and finest compendiums of Theravada Buddhist practices (a very advanced book) composed by Buddha Ghosa (name Buddha Ghosa means Voice of Buddha) is another fiery ascetic, the energy resonates very similar to frequency of Mahakashyapa and Acharya Mun. I will write a post on it.

The energy in the book mandated me to perform certain techniques to evict vulgar sexual cravings and impressions especially from my past lives stored in my psyche. The results were impressive but watching it for some time now to see if it strikes back after temporary withdrawal.