Ghosts of the Mountain - Mae Chee Kaew
All realms of consciousness, and all living beings
originate from the mind. Because of that, it’s far
better that you focus exclusively on your own
mind. There you will find the whole universe.
Under Ajaan Khamphan’s leadership, the monastery at Phu Gao
Mountain developed into a vibrant spiritual environment where
monks and nuns focused diligently on their meditation practice.
Ajaan Khamphan had lived under Ajaan Sao’s tutelage for several
years, and he directed monastic affairs in the same spirit that his
famous mentor had. At Phu Gao Mountain, a harmonious sense of
fraternity prevailed, everyone living together in unity. The sight of
the monks peacefully walking to the village for alms each morning
was impressive. The nuns would remain at the monastery, gathered in
the open-air kitchen to cook rice and prepare simple dishes to augment
the food from the monks’ daily alms gathering. The villagers
had constructed a long bench at the monastery’s entrance. Here the
nuns stood and placed the food they had prepared into the monks’
bowls on their return from the village. Back in the monastery, at
the main sala, the monks ate together in silence, seated according to
seniority. Having received a blessing, the nuns retired to their quarters
to have their meal — also in silence and according to seniority.
When the monks finished eating, each monk washed his bowl, dried
it thoroughly, replaced its cloth covering, and put it neatly away. The
women washed the dishes and the cooking utensils, put everything
neatly away and swept the kitchen area clean.
Once the morning duties were complete, all the monastics returned
to the secluded environment of their small huts, where they
concentrated on meditation, either walking or sitting. The monks and
nuns remained in the forest until four p.m. when the afternoon chores
began. Upon returning from the forest, they first swept the monastery
grounds.When sweeping was finished, they worked together to carry
water from the nearby pools to fill the various water vessels: water for
drinking, water for washing feet, and water for washing alms bowls
and cooking pots. After a quick bath, they resumed their meditation.
On nights when no meeting was scheduled, they continued to practice
late into the night before retiring.
Normally, Ajaan Khamphan called a general meeting of the
monks and nuns once a week, on lunar observance days. Convening at
dusk, the whole assembly chanted in unison, intoning sacred verses in
praise of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. After the soft resonance
of their voices receded, Ajaan Khamphan delivered an inspiring
discourse on meditation practice. When he finished speaking, he
addressed any questions or doubts expressed by his disciples, and
advised them about how they could move their meditation forward.
If pressing questions arose on other days, they could seek his personal
advice at any convenient time.
Ajaan Khamphan maintained an exemplary mode of practice that
inspired reverence in his disciples. He was gentle and gracious, possessing
an unassuming manner that was always simple and down-toearth.
His spiritual practice and virtuous conduct reflected a truly
calm and peaceful frame of mind. He was highly skilled at attaining
states of deep meditative calm, and very knowledgeable about the diversity
of phenomena that could be experienced in samādhi. Because
of this, his meditative skills were compatible with Mae Chee Kaew’s
own innate abilities. His mind converged into states of deep samādhi
with consummate ease, resulting in extensive contact with beings of
the spirit realm. Mae Chee Kaew was able to take advantage of his
expertise to further her own skills in the many unusual aspects of
samādhi, and was grateful for Ajaan Khamphan’s guidance.
The years Mae Chee Kaew spent living at Phu Gao Mountain were
a fruitful time for her meditation practice. With each new foray into
the invisible world of sentient spirits, she gained increased expertise
in the realms of nonphysical existence. With Ajaan Khamphan’s assistance,
she strengthened her ability to explore varieties of phenomena
within the many lowly but subtle nonhuman states of existence that
lay beyond the range of normal human perception. These experiences
were so many, and varied, that she never tired of exploring the spiritual
universe. To her surprise, she discovered that some types of ghosts
live in organized communities just as humans do. Contrasting sharply
with the vagrant variety, these communities are governed by a leader,
who supervises social activities and endeavors to keep peace. Due to
the untimely fruition of previous bad kamma, some beings, having
accumulated a wealth of virtue, are nonetheless reborn into the realm
of ghosts. Because their virtuous characters remain, they are able to
exercise great moral authority, garnering respect from their peers,
who because of their own spiritual poverty, stand in awe of those
possessing moral power and authority. In the ghost communities,
Mae Chee Kaew found proof that the fruits of goodness were always
more powerful than the effects of evil. By the power of virtue alone,
one individual is capable of governing a large community.
Mae Chee Kaew also found that the ghost communities were not
segregated into groups or castes. Instead, their social hierarchy adhered
strictly to the order dictated by the specific consequences of
each ghost’s kamma, making it impossible for them to hold the kind
of prejudices that people do. The nature of their ghostly existence,
and their social status relative to one another, was always the appropriate
retribution for their past misdeeds.
Occasionally, the chief ghost guided Mae Chee Kaew on a tour
of his domain, and described the living conditions of different types
of ghosts. She was informed that the ghost world has its share of
hooligans, too. Bad characters, who cause caused disturbances, were
rounded up and imprisoned in an enclosure that humans would call a
“jail”. He emphasized that the imprisoned ghosts were mean-hearted
types, who had unduly disturbed the peace of others, and were sentenced
and jailed according to the severity of their offenses. Those
who behaved well, lived normal lives as far as their kamma allowed.
The chief ghost reminded her that the word “ghost” is a designation
given by humans. Ghosts were actually just one type of conscious life
form among many others in the universe that exists according to its
own karmic conditions.
Deva consciousness is another form of sentient existence governed
by the laws of kamma. Mae Chee Kaew’s samādhi meditation intro-
duced her to a rich spectrum of otherworldly experience. Sometimes
her consciousness separated from her body and wandered to explore
the heavenly realms, or the different levels of the brahma world. She
visited the various types of subtly formed beings, called devas, who
exist in a divine hierarchy of increasing subtlety and refinement —
beings who have arrived at a fortunate and happy condition as a result
of their good kamma. She met terrestrial devas — luminous deities
dwelling in forests, groves and trees — who are born there because
of their strong natural affinity to the earthly plane. Although their
visible presence existed beyond the range of human senses, they were
clearly visible to Mae Chee Kaew’s divine eye. She viewed them as
beings of contentment whose blissful lives were often preoccupied
by sensory pleasures. These enjoyments were the rightful rewards of
accumulated virtue. As human beings, they had amassed a store of
merit by practicing generous giving, moral restraint and meditation.
It propelled them to rebirth in a spiritual heaven, where they lived
a blissful existence, enjoying a variety of pleasurable sensory experiences.
Despite the devas’ virtue, their passive nature gave little chance to
actively generate additional good kamma to extend their celestial stay.
Therefore, once the devas exhausted their virtuous capital they could
expect to be reborn into the human world, where hopefully their
virtuous tendencies would allow them to replenish their supply of
merit. In contrast to the ghostly spirits, who are trapped in a cycle
of evil and wretched rewards, the devas enjoyed an upswing in their
karmic fortunes. However, the devas do share one thing in common
with all sentient beings: the burden of emotional attachments that
cause them to be reborn over and over again — without any end in
sight.
It’s important to understand that these realms exist as dimensions
of consciousness and not as physical planes. By characterizing the celestial
realms as being progressively “higher” and more refined levels
of existence, and the ghostly realms as being correspondingly “lower”,
the purely spiritual nature of consciousness is erroneously given a
material standard. The terms “going up” and “going down” are conventional
figures of speech, referring to the movement of physical
bodies. These terms have very little in common with the flow of
consciousness, whose subtle motion is beyond temporal comparisons.
Physically moving up and down requires a deliberate exertion of
effort. But when the mind gravitates to higher or lower realms of
consciousness, direction is merely a metaphor and involves no effort.
When saying that the heavens and the brahma worlds are arranged
vertically in a series of realms, this should not be understood in the
literal sense — such as, a house with many stories. These realms exist
as dimensions of consciousness, and ascent is accomplished spiritually,
by attuning the mind’s conscious flow to a subtler vibration
of consciousness. They are ascended in the figurative sense, by a
spiritual means: that is, by the heart which has developed this sort
of capability through the practices of generosity, moral virtue and
meditation. By saying that hell is “down below”, one does not mean
going down, physically, into an abyss. Rather, it refers to descent by
spiritual means to a spiritual destination. And those who are able to
observe the heavens and the realms of hell do so by virtue of their
own internal spiritual faculties.
For those skilled in the mysteries of the samādhi, psychic communication
is as normal as any other aspect of human experience.
Arising from the flow of consciousness, the essential message is
transmitted in the language of the heart as fully-formed ideas,
which the inquiring individual understands as clearly as if they were
words in conventional language. Each thought current emanates directly
from the heart, and so conveys the mind’s true feelings, and
precise meaning, eliminating the need for further clarification. Verbal
conversation is also a medium of the heart; but its nature is such
that spoken words often fail to reflect the heart’s true feelings, so
mistakes are easily made in communicating its precise intent. This
incongruity is eliminated by using direct heart-to-heart communication.
Source: http://www.forestdhamma.org/ebooks/english/pdf/Mae_Chee_Kaew.pdf