Chapter 20 - Venerable Ajaan Mun's Practice & His Methods of Teaching

We are getting near the end of this book, so it is appropriate that we should discuss the methods of practising citta bhāvanā that Venerable Ajaan Mun used, as well as the methods which he used in teaching those followers of his who went into training under him. This may act as sort of a guide to the way, in the form of a brief summary. But in particular, the way that he himself practised will first be considered, after which, the way he taught his close followers will be described. In this section, the names of the places where he practised and gained results will not be given, because they have already been detailed in his biography. So the following account will only deal with his methods of practising citta bhāvanā and all external phenomena such as contact with Pretas, ghosts, Devaputta, Devatā, Nāgas, Garuḍas, etc., will be omitted as they have already been described.
The nature of Venerable Ajaan Mun’s citta was unusually dynamic, venturesome, quick and sensitive to whatever events he came into contact with. To begin with, in doing the practice of bhāvanā, he used the preparatory repetition (parikamma) “BUDDHO...” As soon as his citta dropped into a concentrated, calm state, he saw a “nimitta”, sometimes of himself, dead in front of him, sometimes of a corpse in front of him - as has already been described in his biography. Then he took that nimitta which had appeared before him as an indicator of the way his meditation practice should go from then on by defining it as being loathsome (paṭikūla) in various ways, according to where his greatest skill in sati and paññā lay. He would sometimes define it as breaking down and decomposing until all that was left of it was a skeleton; then he would define the bones as separate from each other, scattered about right in front of him. Then sometimes he would also sweep them together in a heap, and set them up to be burnt by fire until they became ashes in front of him. Both the corpse and his own dead body were visual nimittas right there before him and he defined them in the same way, but at different times, just depending on whichever was suited to the contemplation he was doing.
After he had induced the fire to burn the bones down to fine ashes, his citta concentrated down to reach the basic level of samādhi in complete absorption and rested there for a long time, lasting for hours before withdrawing. As soon as his citta had withdrawn, he went on doing the same forms of practice as before. He said that from the day that his citta manifested these nimittas, and he could set them up to be as he wanted them, right through to cremating the remains of the corpse, he could go down and see them quite clearly in his heart at any time he wanted, regardless of whether he was standing, walking, sitting or lying down, for whatever his situation was, he would set up that corpse, which he had turned into a skeleton and see it as being attached intimately to his own body at all times. The only exception was at those special times when he contemplated that corpse in various ways after which the citta would then concentrate down into the state of samādhi and rest in itself alone for a while. At such times he had no interest or concern for anything.
He could see clearly how the strength of his citta began to develop and how he attained the foundation of samādhi firmly because of his having gained that nimitta, which acted like a grind-stone to sharpen up his sati and paññā all the time. He went on in this way until he was able to get the skeleton image of that nimitta to stay within his own body, so that his body and the skeleton became identified as one, and this went on until he had no doubt as to where this skeleton came from and who became this skeleton.