Introduction

All these talks were given to the Monks at the Forest monastery of Baan Taad. Than Acharn Maha Bua called these kinds of talks the tiny pot of curry. For these talks were aimed only at Monks who had one aim: to end dukkha. So in these talks he really goes in the depth of Dhamma. That's why he called this kind of talks, the tiny spicy one, only suitable for a few practitioners. The other kind of talks Than Acharn Maha Bua called them the small pot of curry, talks for general practitioners and the big pot, talks to the public, talks everyone can listen to.
When there was a meeting for the monks, laypeople were normally not allowed to listen in. He said, if laypeople would listen in, this would reduce the depth of his Dhamma talks. One time, he scolded the monk, who let some laypeople listen in to the Dhammatalk, saying: This is really a pity, that somebody invited laypeople to listen in, for I couldn't go to the depth of Dhamma, I would have liked to go!
Also until the year 2000, certain talks of his were not distributed freely to everyone, some of them were not being copied at all, some of them were only distributed to monks. He feared, that people would misunderstand and that this misunderstanding would block their path of practice. Only in the year 2000 he gave permission to make all of his talks public. He knew, he would not live much longer, and that there are only few Teaching masters left, who could truly explain the path of practice. So out of compassion for the few who were looking for guiding help along the path of magga phala and nibbana, he gave his permission to make everything public.
This means that the following talks would have fallen in the category to be distributed only to monks. So the reader is advised to be cautios. None of these talks are really suitable for a beginner of the practice of meditation. These translations of the talks have existed for more than 30 years, but only recently have appeared in printed form. But for 30 years they have existed and have been distributed mostly to western monks and interested western practitioners in forms of Audio tapes and only recently as MP3.
Sitting in samadhi and listen to the tapes or MP3 does make them easier to digest and leads to less speculation than reading. Listening, while sitting in samadhi also has the effect, that it enters the heart directly, where it will be understood by the heart in quite a different way. But this is only my humble opinion.
All these recorded Audio talks and a few more can be found in the audio section at www.luangta.com/english or www.luangta.eu. You also can there find any kind of information about Than Acharn Maha Bua in the Luangta section.
Bhikkhu Martin Piyadhammo
Wat Pa Baan Taad, 13 November 2013