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Mae Chee Kaew
Entering the house, her husband’s absence was the first thing she noticed. Mae Chee Kaew spent whole days cleaning, laundering and cooking for her daughter, but Bunmaa never appeared. During the last month of her retreat, Mae Chee Kaew went home once a week, but she never once caught sight of him. Rumors soon reached her that he was secretly having an affair with a woman from another village, a young widow with two children. She was told that he had started drinking and carousing in her absence. Mae Chee Kaew was repelled by her husband’s behavior. Now weary of her marriage and wishing to make the noble path her life, the thought of returning home was unbearable to her. While Mae Chee Kaew was morally obliged to keep her word, her husband’s failure to adhere to the fundamental rules of moral conduct jeopardized the future of their marriage. As the retreat approached its final days, Mae Chee Kaew agonized over her next course of action. She felt no desire to return to married life, but she was deeply concerned about the well-being of her daughter. She wanted to remain close to Kaew, to guide and comfort her; but at ten years of age, Kaew was still too young to live at the monastery with her mother. Besides, having renounced all worldly possessions, she had no means to support a child, but only the meager daily rations sufficient to sustain one person. Slowly, following several weeks of deliberation, the idea took shape in Mae Chee Kaew’s mind that she could combine both the household and the monastic worlds into her daily life. By spending her daylight hours at home being a mother and a wife, she could fulfill her worldly obligations; by passing her nights at the monastery, absorbed in meditation, she could pursue her spiritual goals. As un-