-12- A Graveyard for Narcotics and Causes of Ruin

~ By Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu ~

This is actually the Sculpture Studio, where Venerable Sawai conducts his activities. Narcotics to be abandoned here include those drugs taken into the body through smoking, eating, or rubbing, and the ruin-causing habits. We consider liquors, cigarettes, and all instruments of gambling as narcotics. The studio is a department of Suan Mokkh; it is a graveyard for the narcotics. We do have some success, with no less than eighty percent of those habitual users of narcotics who come to Ven. Sawai. There are some renegades, of course, but there really are many winners who drop the habit and go straight. Some consider the Studio as a sacred place. They tried in vain elsewhere to abandon drinking, smoking, or the like but got success here. This is because of Ven. Sawai’s ability to explain to them until they clearly see the harm of narcotics. At the ‘graveyard,’ you will see a mountain of cigarette packets, a collection of liquor bottles, some betel-nut trays, betel-nut pulverizers, decks of cards, dice, and other instruments of gambling.

(From "Benefits You Should Get from Coming to Suan Mokkh," a talk given by Tan Ajahn in December 1988 at the request of Tan Dusadee Bhikkhu, as translated from the Thai by Aj. Mongkol Dejnakarintra.)

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“24 Benefits of Suan Mokkh,” is a series of weekly posts published to commemorate the 88th anniversary of the foundation of Suan Mokkh in May 1932 in Chaiya, southern Thailand.

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For other Dhamma teachings by Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu (audios, free ebooks, interviews, poems), please visit Suan Mokkh – The Garden of Liberation.

Buddhadāsa Indapañño Archives collection (Ref. W-91)