Maechee Training: Part 1 INTRODUCTION Some five years after his enlightenment, the Buddha established an order of female monastics known as bhikkhunīs. The Theravada branch of this order flourished in India and Sri Lanka before falling into a period of decline and finally becoming extinct around 1000 CE, after an illustrious 1,500-year history. In light of the Buddha’s stipulation that Ordination required induction into a pre-existing community of bhikkhunīs, revival of the defunct order was dee...
Jan 15, 2021•5 min
Maechee Training: Part 2 FOREST NUNS Not long after the founding of Wat Pah Pong, Luang Por Chah gave permission for the establishment of a maechee community. By doing so, he sought to provide a training within existing norms for women with a monastic vocation which would provide them as much support as possible for their progress along the path to liberation. …
Jan 15, 2021•29 min
Maechee Training: Part 3 VENERABLE FATHER Maechee Boonyu recalled how Luang Por could be especially gruff when maechees asked permission to visit their family: “He would say, ‘What for? Are you homesick? How long have you been here now? The Buddha never visited his home the whole time he was searching for enlightenment; you’ve only just ordained and you want to go there already.’ If he gave permission, he’d say, 'Go empty-handed, come back empty-handed. Don’t carry a basket-full there and a bask...
Jan 15, 2021•35 min
Luang Por and the Lay Community: Part 1 INTRODUCTION Appreciating the kindness and assistance that one has received in one’s life and making efforts to express that appreciation in appropriate ways (Pali: kataññū-katavedi) are, together with generosity, probably the Buddhist virtues most deeply embedded in Thai society. They are clearly apparent in relationships between sons and daughters with their parents and guardians, and in the respect paid to teachers and benefactors of any description. In...
Jan 15, 2021•10 min
Luang Por and the Lay Community: Part 2 TO THE MONASTERY A monastery is to be found at the heart of almost every Thai village. Its entrance is usually through an open archway rather than a lockable gate. Lay Buddhists go in and out of the monastery every day: offering food in the morning, visiting the abbot, making merit, or perhaps just taking a short cut to the other side of the village. During Luang Por’s lifetime, the village headman, the head teacher at the local school and the abbot of the...
Jan 15, 2021•25 min
Luang Por and the Lay Community: Part 3 SAMMĀDIṬṬHI ‘Sammādiṭṭhi’ is usually translated into English as ‘Right View’. The prefix ‘right’ means ‘in harmony with the way things are’; ‘view’ includes opinions, beliefs, values, theories and philosophies. A right view is thus one that corresponds to reality; the conviction, for example, that acts of generosity lead to happiness – would be considered a ‘right view’. Right View is the first constituent of the Noble Eightfold Path and is indispensable f...
Jan 15, 2021•2 hr 1 min
Luang Por and the Lay Community: Part 4 FIRST MEETINGS One way of understanding Buddhist practice is to conceive of it as a long series of awakenings: some mundane, easily overlooked and only appreciated in retrospect, others more dramatic and memorable. Meeting Luang Por for the first time was the occasion for many awakenings of both kinds. Some people found the experience electric; for others, it signalled the beginning of gradual but inexorable changes in their values and way of life. Listeni...
Jan 15, 2021•23 min
Luang Por and the Lay Community: Part 5 THE MANYFOLK The majority of Luang Por’s lay disciples and daily visitors were peasant farmers. Speaking to a group of local people, he turned to a favourite theme: ‘knowing what’s what’, not living blindly from day to day, but bearing in mind the guiding principles laid down by the Buddha: So many Buddhists are still deluded and superstitious. From my reflections, I’d say that it’s through not having grasped the main principles of Dhamma that they’ve gain...
Jan 15, 2021•49 min
Luang Por and the Lay Community: Part 6 FAMILY LIFE The first time householders listened to Luang Por give a Dhamma talk or went to ask him for advice, they were usually surprised at the accuracy and penetration of his insights into family life. It seemed common sense to most people that the causes and conditions underlying family conflicts were specific to householders, and impenetrable to a monk who had never married or had the experience of raising a family himself. But leading a large commun...
Jan 15, 2021•26 min
Luang Por and the Lay Community: Part 7 DHAMMA PRACTICE We’re like a chicken, that’s all. The chicken’s born, has chicks and spends its day scratching around in the dirt. And then in the evening, it goes to sleep. In the morning, it jumps down to the ground and starts scratching around again, ‘guk, guk, guk’. And then in the evening, it goes to sleep again. Is there any point to it? No. …
Jan 15, 2021•45 min
Luang Por’s Waning Years: Part 1 BODY SICK, MIND WELL One day, as the illnesses that would go on to render him bedridden for the last years of his life were starting to take their toll, Luang Por Chah spoke to some lay supporters: It’s like you’ve got a horse – a wild fiery horse that’s difficult to train. When it tries to run off, keep hold of the reins. Don’t lose your grip on them. But if the horse is really galloping away full pelt, let the reins go. If you don’t – then the next thing you kn...
Jan 15, 2021•54 min
Luang Por’s Waning Years: Part 2 MORE TO IT In February 1941, the 82-year-old arahant Luang Pu Sao, teacher and companion of Luang Pu Mun, arrived by boat at a small riverside temple in Champasak, southwest Laos. He had fallen ill some time before leaving Thailand. Now on his way back to Thailand from an exhausting trip, he had spent the long journey upstream lying down with his eyes closed, apparently unconscious and clearly close to death. As the boat tied up at the jetty, he opened his eyes a...
Jan 15, 2021•14 min
Luang Por in the West – 1977 & 1979: Part 1 INNER LAND – OUTER LAND In 1976, Ajahn Sumedho returned to California in order to visit his parents. On his flight back to Thailand, he stopped over in London for a few days as a guest of the English Sangha Trust (E.S.T.), a body set up to establish a Theravada Sangha in England. For the duration of his visit, Ajahn Sumedho stayed at Hampstead Vihāra, a four-storeyed terraced house belonging to the trust on the busy Haverstock Hill road, a mile or ...
Jan 15, 2021•56 min
Luang Por in the West – 1977 & 1979: Part 2 DUTIYAMPI: AND FOR A SECOND TIME Two years later on the thirtieth of April, 1979, accompanied by his American attendant, Ajahn Pabhakaro, Luang Por set off to the West for a second and final time. On this trip, he was to visit America as well as Europe. But his first destination was England where the E.S.T had invited him to give encouragement to Ajahn Sumedho’s community, and to see for himself the latest developments in their efforts to establish...
Jan 15, 2021•1 hr 16 min
Luang Por in the West – 1977 & 1979: Part 3 THE LAST NIGHT On the evening of the twenty-seventh of June, his last night at Chithurst before returning to Thailand, Luang Por met with the Sangha for an evening of conversation and exhortation. The tape recording made that night captures wonderfully the warmth and informality of the occasion. ‘Monks’ and ‘zestful’ are two words not commonly linked in one sentence, but the conviviality, punctuated by gales of laughter, is tangible. It was the old...
Jan 15, 2021•9 min
Luang Por by Ajahn Jayasaro You were a fountain of cool stream water in the square of a dusty town, and you were the source of that stream, on a high, unseen peak. You were, Luang Por, that mountain itself, unmoved, but variously seen. Luang Por, you were never one person, you were always the same. You were the child laughing at the Emperor’s new clothes, and ours. You were a demand to be awake, the mirror of our faults, ruthlessly kind. Luang Por, you were the essence of our texts, the leader o...
Jan 15, 2021•2 min
