85. Not even the five precepts

Great senior monks tend to have lots of students, both lay and ordained. And among those students are people both good and bad. Especially among the monks: There are lots of good ones, with a few bad ones mixed in. One of the monks close to Luang Pu tended to be a little too casual about taking things without permission. People would report this to Luang Pu, but he tended not to say anything about it.

Once, when he wanted something that this monk had taken, he asked another monk to go ask after it, but the first monk denied having taken it. The second monk came back to inform Luang Pu of the first monk’s denial. Luang Pu didn’t complain, but simply said this: