“My first residence at Suan Mokkh then was just a small earth-floored hut with a thatched roof, attap-strip walls, and a floor area of three or four stretchers. It was built next to a galvanized iron-sheet covered shack which was built to house a big Buddha statue. Formerly, the shack was wall-less; it was built over an old ruined uposatha to shelter the Buddha statue. Because the temple had been neglected for no less than eighty years, big trees with widely shading branches had encroached upon the temple’s boundary. Aside from my hut and the shack, there was nothing except the surrounding dense jungle. At the time of my arrival, the place was a feared no-man’s land; many men did not dare go alone to the uposatha even in broad daylight, for they were afraid of ghosts and supernatural beings. Therefore, trees and climbers were growing densely all over the place. Except for an old, dilapidated water well about five hundred meters from the uposatha, there was nothing that could be considered unnaturally existing.”