Moginlin was a low teenager when his father died. Before his father’s death, he lived his life like his mother. He was on a strict Buddhist vegetarian diet. He observed ahimsa. He chanted Buddhist sutras, worshipped the Buddha and prayed just as his mother did. He could not understand why she abandoned Buddhism after the death of her husband. So the boy asked his mother why she became an apostate. She refused to answer. “Don’t ask me any such question,” she admonished her son. Then she urged and even ordered him to enjoy meat and fish. He refused to obey, of course. And she had to let him live his religious life as he wished.

The family of Moginlin’s used to be a well-to-do one. But his mother’s indulgence in a very non-Buddhist-like epicurean living ruined the family in a couple of years. Soon the widow and her son had to beg for loans from friends and relatives to keep body and soul together.

When he turned 18 years old, Moginlin’s mother became ill. Her disease worsened and she was about to die. She called him to her deathbed, telling him: “My dear son, I have sinned and I am now being punished for what I did. Please take refuge in the Buddha. Believe in the Buddha. Perhaps, someday you will be able to rescue me from the Sea of Duhkha (suffering.)” On saying her last words, the mother died. (Buddhists believe in transmigration or reincarnation; they think anybody who dies will be reborn as a sentient being. He may be reborn as an insect, an animal or a human being, depending on how much merit he loses or earns. The rebirth will continue eternally until after he attains nirvana.)

As soon as Moginlin had completed a simple funeral for his mother, their debtors came knocking at his door. He could not repay the loans. So he had to let them take away from his home whatever they thought were valuable. All he had was a change of clothes and he had to leave his home village to beg for a living elsewhere.

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