Manifest dreams with a guided visualization: Healing crystal caves
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Sane Ascetic Abodes
"The wandering ascetic who has retired to a solitary abode and has calmed the mind and who comprehends the Dharma with insight — in that person there arises a delight that transcends all human delight" (Dhammapada 373).
A thudong monastic will live anywhere that is conducive to the practice of meditation and to winning insight, but certain types of abodes are generally more suitable than others.
From ancient times a favorite dwelling-place has been a cave. Indeed, this is really the best environment, providing that a suitable one can be found.
Not all are good for meditation, and on arriving at a cave, one would inspect it with the following points in mind:
Lay Buddhists are very fond of turning caves into shrines — and some of these are very beautiful with hundreds or thousands of Buddha-figures of different sizes arranged about the cave, sitting on blocks of stone and stalagmites near the floor, gazing down compassionately from apparently inaccessible niches near the lofty roof.
Such caves and others more rustic acquire fame as pilgrimage sites in proportion to their beauty and ease of approach. Now, if one were to make a sitting place in some such cave, one would surely be disturbed by people visiting the shrine.
Apart from the noise they would make, some would certainly approach, perhaps trying to engage in ordinary friendly conversation, or coming to ask for chanted blessings or amulet charms, since popular ideas of "holiness" are rather less exacting or vaguer than the freedom from the fetters (samyojana) that mark the noble ones (ariyas) according to the Pali language Buddhist canon.
Therefore, if one wishes to give instructions in the Dharma, much less to engage in worldly matters, one will avoid all such caves.
Apart from people, bats are also fond of caves in the dark depths of which they live in their thousands. They also make their noises, cheeping and swishing about. Moreover, their noises are much less objectionable than is the odor of their dung. This guano is very good for growing plants but less agreeable to a meditator's nose.
Usually, bats will not live near a cave entrance, particularly if the sun comes in. So, other conditions being favorable, one may live there.
Other conditions include sound and heat. In this noisy age, rackety iron boxes of various shapes travel over land, water, and through the air, and their sound is surprisingly hard to escape in modern times. It is understandable therefore that caves adjacent to airfields, roads, or railways will also be avoided.
The great advantage of a cave in a tropical country (like Thailand, Sri Lanka, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, or Vietnam) is its equable temperature. Cool even on the hottest days of the hot season, warm in the coldest nights of the cold weather, it is very favorable for meditating. Caves that have wide openings to the south or west are therefore less suitable for the hot weather.
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| Who are these devas, these light-being fairies? |
Indeed, there are stories of wandering ascetics being evicted by spirits, but there is at least one instance of an experienced meditator (lately a famous meditation teacher in Thailand) who sat night after night in a cave, defeating all the efforts of earthbound devas to oust him.
If one were wise one would seek the protection of any devas abiding there, when one first arrives at a cave. With devas giving their blessing to one's efforts, meditation certainly becomes easier. Whereas, if the opposite should occur, meditation may be impossible.
Finally, a consideration of great importance is its distance from the nearest village. As most sane ascetics [thudong bhikkhus practicing the dhutangas] walk to collect alms every day and as the Monastic Disciplinary Code rule is that one is not allowed to store food, a village must be within walking distance.
How far this is depends on the vigor and age of the practitioner. Half a mile or a mile's distance is desirable in any case, being thus beyond the village noise, but it does happen that a cave otherwise ideal may be too far from the village for one to walk there and back. In this case the villagers may be glad to help a monastic by taking alms food out half-way.
One may find that living in a cave is a little eerie at first. Should any "fear, trembling, or hair-raising" take place, no doubt one will at least remember the Metta Sutta (the Buddha's discourse on boundless loving-kindness).
Also well-suited for recitation at such a time is the "Discourse on the Flags" (Dhajagga Sutta), where the medicines recommended for fear are the recollections of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha [Community of Enlightened Beings].
If one looks more deeply into the Pali canon, one will remember the "Discourse on Fear and Dread" (Bhayabherava Sutta in the Middle-Length Discourses of the Buddha), where the Buddha describes the way in which he trained himself to be mindful of fear while he was yet a Bodhisatta (someone "bent on enlightenment" or a "Wisdom-being striving for Buddhahood").
What sort of picture do we get of one in a forest or cave? If one is staying long, one will probably have built a bamboo or wooden pallet above which will hang a mosquito net (crot).
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| A Buddhist trainee (anagarika) meditating under a crot or mosquito net umbrella. |
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To one side somewhere will hang one's bag and candle lamp. Nearby will be a water flask and, if it is dark, possibly a flashlight. One's alms bowl will be placed securely on a flat rock, while any robes which one is not using will be folded up neatly upon a pallet.
One is sitting quietly facing the direction of the head when laying down [12]. If one were to watch intently, it would be difficult to detect even breath movements in the body, swathed as it is in rather shabby patched robes of folded saffron or ochre.
Above, the roof vaults in great arches and mysterious hollows half lit by the dim light. Steady and distant is the dripping of water, which makes through long ages great mineral columns slowly joining roof and floor.
Sunlight filters through a leafy screen for a few minutes and is gone. Perhaps a bee drones in but finding little of interest soon finds its way out. All is very still, very silent.
"One who sits alone, sleeps alone, walks alone,
who is strenuous and subdues oneself alone will find delight in the solitude of the forest [13]
(Dhammapada 305).
Caves are by far the best abode but they, especially ideal ones, are rare. So it is better to describe something of the more common abode of a wandering ascetic practicing the sane austerities (dhutangas) — the forest. More
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