Insights on Modern Technology : หน้า 55/163

Newly arrived monks in the temple had to take responsibility for building their own kutis. As the number of monks joining the temple increased, a sort of shanty town grew up in every available empty space in the temple. All the monks knew that without accommodation Luang Phaw wouldn’t allow them to stay, so they took the only available building material, scraps of wood from the broken coffins in the neighbouring undertakers and built macabre kutis which looked more like rabbit hutches or bird-houses than accommodation fit for a monk! The huts were built on stilts over stagnant, putrid water. None of the huts had even so much as a bench or a chair. Most bhikkhus had nothing more than a Thermos flask of drinking water. There was training for monks, novices, laymen and laywomen every day in the evening. Luang Phaw trained the monks to deliver sermons, sometimes alone, sometimes in debate with two or three monks. Luang Phaw would organize sermons throughout the vassa. Proper monastic conduct in the temple started to become the norm. The radiance of goodness started to shine in the temple, but at the same time some shadows of suffering still lurked. Truant children still ran wild in the temple compound and greatly disturbed the life of the monks. The monks were left with almost no spare time to attend to their proper duties. The gangs of children would congregate in the temple and shoot sparrows — an outrage in a Buddhist temple. The children wouldn’t listen to reason and would refuse even forceable means to remove them from the compound. The monks had to be wary of the conflict escalating because the children’s parents were those selfsame neighbours