About This Teaching
Ajahn Dtun looks back on his first years as a monk. Treating each day as his last, he found the mind settled easily, and whenever an orchid's beauty or a flowering tree's scent on almsround caught him, he watched the blooms wither over the following days until the attraction faded.
When a villager was cremated near his hut and fear arose that night, he took a lantern and stood beside the pyre until the fear passed, even pushing the fallen head back into the fire with a bamboo pole. Later, out of curiosity, he turned to look at a young woman who had offered food and saw her break down into a corpse, bringing strong disenchantment.
Such perceptions grew: lay people in the meditation hall appeared as corpses, a fellow monk carrying water became a skeleton, and on one almsround every person and animal, the village and even the monastery wall appeared to decay. Throughout, he says, his mindfulness and concentration remained steady and in the present.