WHEN TRAINING IN the path to enlightenment, even if you lived in total seclusion in the jungle thicket, you wouldn’t feel a fear, desolation or a panic. Because, as Bhikkhu sees no self in himself, he sees no being or person to get frightened or be alarmed. You wouldn’t seek to make others’ things yours. Even if you met a man, a hunter or an animal in the middle of the forest, since it isn’t yours, you’d just let go of their gestures and behaviours. Wouldn’t take it upon yourself.

Never seek out a second person or the help of a second person when you’re practising the path to enlightenment. There’s no point in staying in the forest with the aid of another. If you did seek the help of another person, you’d be doing so for your own protection. That means there is a being in you to protect.

Overcome subtle situations like this where the mind deceives you. However much there are dangerous creatures [in the forest], enter the forest all by yourself, never thinking of a second person. Going in search of the kuṭi, take the footpath on your own. If you feel a fear or dread, behold that mind as impermanent. Then the fear will flee. In this journey you make letting go of the body and mind, not a soul can obstruct you. That’s a reward you reap in letting go.

Once Bhikkhu, taking a forest route, went all alone in search of a particular kuṭi. At the time, no monk had been in that little kuṭi for about three months. A remote, sequestered kuṭi. ― Bhikkhu stayed in it only for seven days though. Departed, because a foreign monk arrived. ― When Bhikkhu had turned up at the kuṭi though, about foot-high anthill hummocks had been built across roughly a quarter of the area inside the kuṭi. There was a bed made of wooden slats. Two of its legs had also been caught in the anthill. While the anthill remained there, Bhikkhu spent the night nonchalantly.[i] The next day, three of the village youth came and removed the anthill. Challenges like these are seen as ingredients for the path to enlightenment. For a bhikkhu training in letting go of the body, these are immensely useful. But upon seeing the anthill if you had resented, your mind would have conjured up the serpent and the fear both. Since Bhikkhu had let go of the mind that saw the anthill, the serpent and the fear both had been let go of as well. If, however, you took the mind that saw the anthill as permanent, your imagination would conjure up serpents that just aren’t there.

When you’re training in the path for the purpose of extinguishment, don’t proceed along plans or pre-preparations. It’s a Māra force. An evil deceptive force that beguiles you, is what it is. It is to build something that a plan would be drawn up. But you are thus on your way to see the emptiness of the world. Let go of the plans! Face the ensuing nature or circumstance as it comes.

In a sequestered forest hermitage, Bhikkhu made the acquaintance of an aged monk with lofty moral qualities, about 80 years old. This venerable monk had spent a full 40 years of his ordained life wandering from place to place. Only during the annual rains retreat period had he stayed in one place. Because of this ascetic practice he had followed, Bhikkhu thought he must be a monk well advanced in insight knowledge. Bhikkhu asked him why he chose to wander from place to place like this rather than holding on to one place.

“I wanted to, I aspired to, look around the land I was born in,” replied that venerable. “That’s why I went wandering from place to place.”

As those few words were leaving his mouth, what Bhikkhu saw in him was a little novice monk. Alas! What a crime he has committed upon himself―has turned himself into a tourist, a wayfarer!

Our mind is forever deceiving us. You must keep a firm resolution to affiliate yourself with one secluded place best suited for the mind to develop, until such time the objective is accomplished. The mind will offer advice to make you a tourist. Will make you rove about from one forest hermitage to another. You be careful! Don’t go to plan the next place you should visit. That’s none of your concern. Your job is to stay put in a place where your mind develops so that the path to enlightenment develops well. Let go of everything else. Don’t be in a great big hurry or make an undue effort. If there was a better place you need go to, in a way you didn’t even expect, it would dawn on you by means of perceptions. All you have to do is let go. [Then] wisdom will have you meet with the path, until extinguishment; will convey you there. Otherwise, craving, tanhā, would [simply] make you a tourist.

Don’t go looking for places well suited. In all places, you abide well. Don’t go looking for people good to associate with. Learn to coexist well with everyone. See that it is good and bad both that exist in the world, not just good. You can’t find only good. Were you to seek only good, you wouldn’t have anything else to do in life other than keep searching, for you’re searching for something that doesn’t exist.

If you were someone training in the path to enlightenment practising ‘letting go’ to the utmost degree, wherever you went, whether it was a forest hermitage or a village monastery, it could well be a chaotic place. Māra forces―evil forces―are terrified of the monk that trains in the path. And therefore, will create an environment to drive away the force of Dhamma that arrived at their stronghold. The strength of forces opposed to the Dhamma is greater in the world. The journey you are making to realize the Dhamma would be a journey fraught with acts of spite, accusations, callous disregard, pressures, hindrances, or instances of testing you. You should make them a blessing for your journey, for they are all phenomena that exist in the world. Be skilful to ‘abide well’ in any environment.

[i] Dangerous serpents such as cobras are known to inhabit anthills, using them as their den.