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help row the barge. In such a way, he helped the old folks until the age of nine. One day, the barge passed a waterside spirit house of the sort common throughout the country. This particular shrine was widely rumoured to be sacred and anybody who passed by felt compelled to make an offering or at least pay their respects. Sodh thought to himself that the calvary had nothing to do with the Buddha, or the Dhamma or the Sangha. It had nothing to do with any part of the Triple Gem. "Why do people feel so compelled to pay respect to this shrine?" he thought. "Whatever the others may say, I will surely not be among those to pay respect at this shrine." Such discriminative thought is uncommon in most children — and in the case of Sodh Mikaewnoi it is interesting to note that he was so stalwart in his belief even before he came to know the real meaning of the 'Triple Gem'. When Sodh was nine he had the chance to start his formal education after his uncle became a bhikkhu. Sodh's mother sent him across the canal to study with his uncle at the village temple of Wat Songpinong. In those days, before the establishment of state schools, bhikkhus were the only teachers. It was customary for a bhikkhu not to take residence in one place for too long. Thus, after only a few months, his uncle moved to another temple, and he followed. The bhikkhu next moved to a temple in Thonburi, across the river from Bangkok. As this was quite a distance from his native village, the young boy did not follow him. Instead he was despatched to Bang Pla Temple, in Banglain, Nakorn Pathom (hometown of his father's side of the family) where he assiduously studied Thai and Khom,