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"Though I can't repay her in the manner of Nga Khon Sayadaw, I really am grateful to her. If she hadn't done something that made me want to kill her, I wouldn't have come to meditate and experience the Dhamma. The fact that I came to practice this meditation is due to her."
"When you were speaking about Nga Khon Sayadaw, I remembered the story of a young woman who was our Venerable Sayadaw (the Shwe Taung Gon Sâsana Yeiktha Sayadaw)'s benefactress."
"That's very interesting. What is the story?"
"It took place when our Sayadaw was a boy of fourteen. He was then known as Maung Mya Han. He lived in Kocheh Village in Pegu Township, Pegu Division. At that time, both his parents had died.
"During the rainy season, Maung Mya Han was helping his brother Ko Aung Kyi plant rice. He was walking along a paddy dyke, bringing his brother young seedlings. As he walked along, he was looking down. It happened that a young girl, one of a group of women who were working in the field, was walking along the paddy dyke carrying cigarettes. She too was looking down. Neither one saw the other. Not even when they drew near each other did they look up. So they had an unexpected, unintended collision.
"This girl didn't blame Maung Mya Han. There was no fault to find. He didn't say, do or even think anything wrong. They simply ran into each other by accident.
"When the girl returned to her friends in the field, they asked her what had happened. She replied quite honestly, "It was an accident. We just bumped into each other, that's all." But there was one woman in her group who was cunning. She said, "Hey, girl, don't say that. Say he grabbed your hand." The young girl who had actually been involved replied, "He didn't grab my hand. Don't make me lie."
"Despite the young girl's honesty, the cunning woman worked on her and in the end she went to the village headman and made a false report. Wanting to settle the matter, Maung Mya Han's brother Ko Aung Kyi paid a fine of fifty-five kyats. The cunning woman had guessed that Maung Mya Han had some money. When she saw the fifty-five kyats she became greedy and wanting more, she thought up a scheme. Having gotten what she did, she wasn't willing to give up. She was really quite frightening. As they say, she planned to soak him for all he had. One certainly would have wanted to strike back at her somehow. If it had happened to me, I would likely have gone after her with a knife."
"I certainly would have, if it were before I had practiced meditation."
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