Fang Gang snorted: "What do you think, several Americans came here this time alone, and they paid dollars directly." "I was intrigued and offered to see it and asked where he was. Fang Gang said: "I am in Wangchin, south of Chiang Mai. ”

As soon as I heard that it was in Chiang Mai, I said I couldn't go. It takes eight or nine hours to get from Bangkok to Chiang Mai by bus, which is too tiring. Fang Gang smiled: "You've never seen an ascetic in Southeast Asia, right?" ”

I said no, and Fang Gang said, "Then let's take a look, I'm bored anyway!" An ascetic is not a monk in a temple, you can see it if you want. Either I want to follow them for penance, or I'm an agent. Those foreigners are also very interesting, spending money to buy sin, many of them are tortured to the point that they can't resist, and they have everything. ”

When he said this, I was intrigued, and I thought that maybe I could expand my business in the future and help people contact the business of suffering from the ascetics. Fang Gang said that he would return to Pattaya the day after tomorrow. If you want to come, as soon as possible. Anyway, I was idle, so I immediately left for the bus station to Bangkok, and then transferred to the bus and went straight to Chiang Mai. The route happened to pass by Wangchin, so I greeted the driver and dropped me off when I arrived in Wangchin.

This is the first time I have been to this place called Wangqin, and I can only look up the name on the map. It is not described in any of the tourist guides in Thailand. If Fang Gang hadn't come to pick me up, I wouldn't have been able to find my way at all. The scenery in northern Thailand is completely different from that of southern Thailand, with a little less touristy atmosphere, but full of trees and meadows. It was already past six o'clock in the evening, and I was so hungry that I asked Fang Gang to take me to eat first. Before the sun set, I saw a rudimentary temple here, which was actually a small rectangular square, gray and filthy.

Fang Gang said: "This temple is very famous in northern Thailand. There are only four dervishes, but hundreds of them come every year to do penance. In the night, I could see a few foreigners carrying large travel bags walking together, and when I saw Fang Gang, several foreigners saluted him. An old man with long hair and beard slowly walked out of the temple, followed by several foreign men. The old man was very thin, and his clothes were shabby, and his clothes were rags, and there were still some clothes.

The meals in the temple are very simple, just rice and two vegetarian dishes, I don't know if it is intentional or the chef's level is too poor. The taste is really rotten. If I hadn't been hungry, I wouldn't have eaten it. Fang Gang told me that the old man in shabby clothes just now was an ascetic, don't look shabby, in the eyes of believers, they are more important than any celebrities. Many wealthy devotees donate all the money they earn during the year to the temple every time they come to do penance, and then the ascetic disciples donate it to various charities in Thailand. I brought the Americans who followed, and they cost $200 each.

I shook my head: "Donate all the money you make throughout the year?" I can't compare to this realm. Suddenly, I remembered another question: "If there are many dervishes in Thailand, why don't these foreigners come to find them themselves, but go through you?" ”

Fang Gang said: "Everything is true and false, and so are ascetics. Many Thai monks dress cleanly, live in beautiful temples, and say they are penances, but in fact they only eat six minutes full at each meal, spend most of their time meditating, and dare to call themselves penances. The people who came to them were all guys who usually did all kinds of evil, took drugs and had promiscuity, and spent more than ten days a year to follow these monks and throw down some money, thinking that all the bad things they had done this year would be offset, but in fact they didn't get anything. That's why a lot of people will go to an agency like me to help them find real ascetics. "The name comes to death.

I am very emotional, it seems that where there is profit, there is deception, which is similar to in China.

After eating, Fang Gang took me out of the back door of the temple, and there was a small stone hole near the back door, and in it sat a dry old man, also with long hair and beard, and only skin and bones on his body. If he hadn't kept his eyes open, occasionally turning his head to look here and there, I would have thought it was a dried corpse.

There was a small grove behind the temple, and the sun had not yet completely set, and I saw several foreigners stripped naked, hanging upside down from the trees, hooking the branches with their hands and feet, and hanging like that. The two foreigners may have been moaning in pain because they couldn't resist a little. And the dervish was hanging from the tree, but in a different position, and he put his legs out of his arms that were clinging to the branches, and from a distance he looked as if he were sitting on his own arms.

I asked, "Is this called penance?" It's similar to performing acrobatics. ”

Fang Gang glared at me: "You know a fart, they have to use this posture to hang on the tree for more than ten days and can't let go!" ”

I was surprised: "Impossible, what do you do when you go to bed at night?" Tie your hands to a branch with a rope? ”

Fang Gang said: "This is the magic of penance, under the leadership of the ascetic master, you will enter a peculiar state of meditation, and you can sleep at night with your hands firmly grasping the branches, without worrying about falling down." ”

I asked again how to solve the problem of urine and urine when they eat? Fang Gang said: "Don't let you eat in the process of penance, otherwise it's called suffering!" I asked strangely if they wouldn't starve to death, Fang Gang smiled: "You can go and ask them tomorrow." I looked at his wicked smile and didn't speak.

Turning from the grove to another clearing, several foreign men and women sat cross-legged on the ground, stripped naked, and wrapped thorns around their bodies. It was so tight that it was all pierced into the flesh, and the blood was flowing down one by one, and I was tense when I saw it. The men were trembling in pain, and a sturdy lady was weeping bitterly as she pestered.

Fang Gang said: "I brought these people. ”

"Isn't this a living sin?" I don't understand.

Fang Gang nodded: "Even if you are right, penance is living and suffering." This is quite light, the withered old man just now can hang upside down on the top of a big tree for two or three months, and his hands have to be raised above his head. Because of the lack of blood circulation, both arms had shrunk after a few months. ”

I felt a chill on my body: "What the hell is going on......

Fang Gang smiled: "This is not the most thorough, I will take you to see a master." "Following Fang Gang to the distance of about 100 meters in the open space just now, I saw a person sitting cross-legged under a big tree, skinny as wood, with nothing on his body. His hair was messy and had hung down to his lower abdomen, and he couldn't even see his face clearly, only his eyes were closed and his lips were closed. Next to it is a small plastic jug with a spout leading out of a long, thin tube.

"Is this meditating?" I asked, because the light was a little dim, I wanted to take a closer look, but Fang Gang pulled me back: "Don't disturb him, he has been practicing the longest in this temple." Five years ago, he was a middle-level executive of a large Japanese company, with a villa and a luxury car, as well as a wife and children. One day I ate and drank too much with my friends, and the next day I suddenly announced that I didn't want to continue to waste my life like this, so I didn't care about my wife and children, donated all my family property, burned all the photos, and cut off all my relatives, and came to northern Thailand from Japan. Piercing the eyes and ears, sewing the mouth with a needle and thread, wearing no clothes all year round, eating only half a bowl of rice porridge every three days, and usually meditating and practicing here for several years. ”

I felt a chill in my back and a tight throat, and it took me a long time to say, "Even if you have to endure hardship, you don't have to break your eyes and ears, and you still have to sew your mouth shut, right?" ”

Fang Gang said: "The so-called penance is to experience suffering, and the more painful it is, the more likely it is to understand the true meaning of life and get one step closer to the realm of God." In the teachings of ancient Shakyamuni, enjoyment is the most shameful thing and the only way for the devil to make people fall. The eyes can see beautiful things, the mouth can speak, enjoy the pleasure of communication, and the ears can hear all kinds of wonderful sounds. For ascetics, these are pleasures, which is why the most determined ascetics do it. ”

"But how does he eat?" I asked.

Fang Gang pointed to the plastic pot: "The pot is rice porridge, every three days, someone will pour about half a small bowl of rice porridge into the pot, this person inserts the plastic tube into the nostrils, and uses the method of nasogastric feeding to send the porridge to the stomach." ”

Looking at this ascetic, I really can't understand this kind of behavior, not to mention abandoning all my property, and cutting off all my relatives, how can I give up my parents, wife and children? Fang Gang patted me on the shoulder, and I followed him back to the temple. At the side entrance of the temple, an old man with long hair dressed in tatters walked by, and his hair was simply a mess of grass, flowery and dirty. Fang just saluted him, and I hurriedly did the same. The old man looked at me and said a few words. My level of Thai is very average, and I can barely understand what he means that I have greed in my heart and should be penanced. Fang Gang said: "He has never done penance, and he definitely can't stand it." ”

The old man said, "Take your time, practice for one day first, and then add two more days every year." ”