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if father were able to rejoice [anumodāna] in the merit she had made, she would be halfway forgiven. Nevertheless, Chandra was dissatisfied with the advice. Though years passed by, the strength of the wish to find her father never diminished. She wanted to apologise ‘in person’ and felt the urgent need to find out where he had been reborn so she might speak to him there. She knew that good people go to heaven when they die and bad people to hell. “But where are heaven and hell? Where is he? And how can I find him?” — she had only questions but no answers. These were the thoughts that haunted her throughout her teenage years — so much so, that she had very little time to think of anything else. In 1927 when Chandra was eighteen, she was overjoyed to hear news of the Great Abbot of Wat Paknam’s discovery of the Dhammakāya meditation technique. She heard that the Wisdom of Dhammakāya arising from meditation includes knowledge of heaven and hell, such that the meditator can visit these realms for themselves. She felt like dropping everything and leaving for Wat Paknam that day — especially having seen the unsatisfactoryness of the household life from such an early age. However, leaving her home and her family was not as simple as that. Mother would stand in her way if she were to leave home to practise Dhamma. No-one would be able to understand why a young girl of her age should have such a strong vocation. Chandra therefore waited another eight years until 1935 — when she was considered old enough to go and stay with her aunt in Bangkok and look for work. She turned over her share of the family land to her (ordained) younger brother and younger