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Originally Posted by janielee
These (certain) monks lived very sparsely, and endured much hardships. You may find the link interesting.
106. APPROACHING DEATH
On October 29, 1983, Luang Pu's condition was no better than stable after 1:00 p.m., but his complexion was abnormally bright. His followers — lay people, town monks, and forest monks — came in large numbers for the celebration.
At 3:00 p.m., a large contingent of forest monks came to pay respect to Luang Pu, who sat up and discussed the Dhamma with them. Speaking in a clear voice, he advised them on the entire path of practice as if he were resolving all their doubts and questions, summarizing all the meditation instructions he had ever taught.
Later that night, near 10:00 p.m., Luang Pu had us take him out of his hut in a wheelchair. He looked gently around the whole area of the monastery, with no one realizing that that would be his last look at things outside.
107. ONE LAST RECOLLECTION OF THE DHAMMA
After 10:00 p.m., Luang Pu had us take him back into his room. He lay on his back, supported by a large pillow. He asked the eight or nine monks in the room to chant the Seven Blessing Chants for him to hear. Then he told them to chant the Sati-sambojjhanga Sutta three times, and Dependent Co-arising three times. Then he asked us to chant the Great Frames of Reference (Mahasatipatthana) Discourse, but none of us had memorized it. So he said, "Open your chanting books and chant from the book," but there were no chanting books around. Fortunately, Ajaan Phuunsak, who had been looking after Luang Pu all along, had brought his copy of the Royal Chanting Book, so he picked it up and searched through the book to find the right page, leafing back and forth until Luang Pu said, "Hand it here." He then opened the book to the right page without even looking at it and said, "Chant from right here." This amazed every monk in the room, for Luang Pu had opened the book right to the Mahasatipatthana Discourse, on page 172. The discourse was long, and it took us more than two hours to finish it. He listened quietly throughout.
108. FINAL WORDS
A few moments after we had finished chanting the Mahasatipatthana Discourse, Luang Pu began speaking about the Lord Buddha's total nibbana, from the beginning to the end. Here, I'll ask just to quote his concluding remarks:
"The Lord Buddha didn't attain nibbana in any of his jhanic attainments. When he left the fourth jhana, his mental aggregates all ceased at once, with nothing remaining. In other words, he allowed his feeling aggregate to cease in an awake state of mind, the normal human mental series, complete with mindfulness and alertness, with no other mental states coming to blind or delude the mind at all. This was the mind fully in its own state. You could call that state great emptiness, or the original cosmos, or nibbana, whichever you like. That's the state I've been practicing all along to reach."
Those were Luang Pu's last words.
109. A MOMENT OF WILDERNESS IN THE CITY
Let's go back in time for a moment to some events nearly 100 years ago. Luang Pu's group of four wandering monks and novices had split off from Ajaan Mun's group and were wandering through Thaa Khantho district in Kalasin province. As they went through the dense forest, they encountered all sorts of dangers and difficulties: every kind of wild animal and, in particular, malaria. Finally, one of the monks, unable to fight off the disease, died in a pitiful way right in front of his fellow monks. Worse than that, when Luang Pu split off from the group accompanied by just one small novice into another forest wilderness near Kut Kawm village, malaria came and took the life of the novice right before his eyes. Luang Pu could do nothing but look on in utter dismay, simply because he lacked the medicine to treat the disease.
Now come back to the events just after 4:00 a.m. on October 30, 1983. That same condition of wilderness returned for a moment in Luang Pu's room, for although he was seriously ill there wasn't a single nurse, not a single drop of saline solution anywhere around. There were simply Luang Pu's monastic students circled around him, as if protecting his total freedom to put down his body in a death that left no traces — completely pure, quiet, and calm.
Namaste
JL
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