Teaching Yourself Cleanliness and Discipline : หน้า 25/135

6. TEACH YOURSELF We must learn how to teach ourselves. I never had to be taught by anyone, yet I know how to do everything on my own. I didn’t know how to read or write, but I observed and I learned how to teach myself. Take cleaning, for example. No one had to teach me. My father didn’t teach me. My mother didn’t teach me. I taught myself. Since I was a little girl living in Nakorn Chaisi, after each meal I would collect all the pots and pans and dishes and clean them. I would clean them until they were completely spotless, inside and out. When cleaning the stairs of the house, I would scrub the top surface as well as underneath the stairs. My older siblings would ask me why I had to clean underneath as well. I would say, “I don’t know, I like doing it this way. I just feel like making everything clean.” I taught myself to make everything clean, inside and out. Even as a grown up, if I saw a dirty spot I would clean it as soon as I could. It is a habit I keep till this day. It was the same way when I was living with Madiam Liab. When I cleaned the tables and chairs, I would clean both the top surface and the bottom surface. I didn’t want even a speck of dust to remain on them. I’m a stickler for cleanliness. I won’t anything escape me without making it clean. When I see something dirty, I make a note of it in my mind to come back and clean it. Once, I saw mildew at a corner of the staircase. I marked it in my mind and came back to clean it along with everything else until the whole area was sparkling clean. I did this in its entirety until there was nothing left to be cleaned. To others, this is a reflection of my character and makes everyone trust me. The same thing happened when I lived with Tongsuk at Wat Paknam. I organized everything and cleaned every object in sight until the whole house was spotless. When I was permitted into the super-advanced meditation elite class (known as the “meditation factory”), I was given the oldest bed that was infested with bedbugs. The mosquito net was old, dirty and worn out. I did not complain. To be given an opportunity to meditate here was good enough for me. War is the Thai word for a Buddhist temple.