The Death of Luangpor Chah: Part 1 A Death The twentieth of January, 1983. At the small provincial airport of Ubon Ratchathani in Northeast Thailand, a group of Buddhist monks and lay supporters look up to the sky. Nearby, a white ambulance is parked on the runway. A loud droning sound can be heard, its source soon traced to a Thai Air Force plane lumbering in to land. After the plane taxies and comes to a halt, its door opens and reveals an unusual and moving sight. An imposingly large Western monk starts to descend from the plane, cradling in his arms a much older and smaller Thai monk. This frail and helpless-looking figure is the revered master, Luang Por Chah. After five long months of tests and consultations in a Bangkok hospital, he has returned to Ubon in order to spend the last days of his life at home in his monastery, Wat Nong Pah Pong, surrounded by his disciples. …

The Death of Luangpor Chah: Part 2 A CREMATION A winter afternoon in Ubon Province, Northeast Thailand, Saturday the sixteenth of January, 1993. A forest monastery, like a dark green patch upon a pale fabric of rice fields that stretch out fallow and dry. Tonight, it will be cold and windy, but in mid-afternoon the temperature in the shade of the gently swaying trees is 33 degrees. The calm and order of the scene belies a barely credible fact. Today, in an area usually inhabited by a hundred monastics, some four hundred thousand people are gathering – a number exceeding the population of any Thai city other than Bangkok. A year after the death of Luang Por Chah, it is the day of his cremation. …

1918-1954: Part 1 A SUITABLE LOCALITY The Buddha declared that all avoidable human suffering is caused by mental defilements, and that these defilements can be completely eliminated by a systematic education of body, speech and mind. Supreme among the virtuous qualities that ‘burn up’ the defilements, he revealed, is forbearance. It is perhaps no coincidence then that the unwelcoming environment of Northeast Thailand – known to its inhabitants as Isan – nurtured a great flowering of Buddhist monasticism in the twentieth century. The vast majority of monastics recognized in Thailand as enlightened masters over the past hundred years have come from this region. …

1918-1954: Part 2 GROWING UP Luang Por Chah was born on the seventh waning day of the seventh moon of the Year of the Horse, 1918. He was the fifth of eleven children born to Mah and Pim Chuangchot, who, like the vast majority of their generation, were subsistence rice farmers. The name ‘Chah’ means ‘clever, capable, resourceful’. …

1918-1954: Part 3 THE PATH OF PRACTICE ‘Tudong’ is a Thai word derived from the Pali ‘dhutaṅga’, which means ‘to wear away’ and is the name given to the thirteen ascetic practices the Buddha permitted monks to undertake in order to intensify their efforts to wear away their defilements. In Thailand, the word has expanded in meaning. Monks who have left their monastery and are wandering through the countryside sleeping rough (usually practising a number of the dhutaṅga observances), are called ‘tudong monks’ and are said to be ‘on tudong’. …

1918-1954: Part 4 NEW DIRECTIONS In the hot season of 1952, Luang Por made his way to Ubon once more. He had been away for two years and his arrival in Bahn Kor caused a stir in the small village. In the evenings, he gave Dhamma talks of a power and persuasion that had never been heard before. This was a fresh, vital Buddhism, relevant to the villagers’ daily lives, expressed in language they could all understand. And yet it would be going too far to suggest his visit provoked revolutionary changes in the community’s spiritual life. The number of people that did not go to listen to him was probably larger than that of those that did. Indeed, some members of his own family were completely indifferent and remained so for many years afterwards. Everywhere in the world, it seems, old perceptions die hard. A common response, and one against which Luang Por would, in the future, wage a long struggle, was that what he said was true but beyond the capacity of ordinary people to live by. Be that as it may, Luang Por had already sowed a number of seeds in his home village. There was now a group of people, led by his mother, who hoped that, before too long, Luang Por would come back for good and establish a monastery in a forest not too far from Bahn Kor. …

Wat Nong Pah Pong: Part 1 SETTLERS It was on the eighth of March, 1954 that Luang Por Chah and his disciples made their way along the cart track running westwards from Bahn Kor on the last leg of their journey to Pong Forest. Afternoon temperatures at that time of year regularly exceed 35 degrees, but the oppressive heat would have cooled slightly as they approached the dense forest and the path become increasingly stippled and striped by the shade. In the late afternoon, as the gorged red sun was starting its descent ahead of them, the monks strung up their glots at the edge of the forest, amid the hum of mosquitos and the deafening shrill of cicadas. …

Wat Nong Pah Pong: Part 2 GOLDEN DAYS The Luang Por Chah that left such an indelible impression on those who met him during his trips to the West in the mid-1970s is for many, the Luang Por Chah. Most of the surviving recorded talks, the well-known photographs, and the priceless seconds of footage in the BBC documentaries, were all from that period of his life. It is a wise, chuckling grandfather figure with a potbelly and walking stick that has embedded itself in the Western Buddhist pantheon. People who met him at that time recall a warmth and wisdom emanating from him that seemed timeless – so much so that it was hard for anyone to imagine that he could ever have been any other way. But, of course, he had. Looking back twenty years, a somewhat different Luang Por Chah emerges. At that time in his life, although he appears a powerful and impressive figure, he is also, perhaps, a less engaging one. If, in his later years, he might have been compared to an absolute monarch at ease in a peaceful kingdom, then in the 1950s, the comparison that would have come to mind was that of the warrior king of a troubled land. …

Luang Por the Good Friend: Part 1 INTRODUCTION From 1954 onwards, Luang Por Chah’s life was focused on his monastery, training the steadily growing number of monks, novices and nuns who were resident there, and teaching its lay supporters. By the late 1970s, he had become one of the most revered monks in Thailand. After travelling to England in 1977, however, Luang Por’s health started to decline. In early 1983, paralyzed and unable to express himself coherently, he stopped speaking. And in January 1992, after over nine years of stillness and silence, Luang Por’s life came to an end. …

Luang Por the Good Friend: Part 2 IMPONDERABLES ANYWAY What exactly is meant by the ‘unshakeable deliverance of mind’? The Buddha taught that four stages of inner liberation may be discerned. Once attained, they cannot be weakened or lost, and hence they may all be deemed ‘unshakeable’. In fact, the word ‘attainment’ here has to be used with some caution. The Buddha defined each stage of liberation in terms of the irrevocable abandonment of specific mental defilements: a ‘deliverance’ from them. The changes that take place at each stage are thus experienced primarily in terms of endings rather than gains. In the central Buddhist metaphor, embodied in the word ‘Buddha’ itself, the experience is referred to as ‘awakening’. …

Luang Por the Good Friend: Part 3 SKETCHES A number of the qualities that came to define Luang Por in the eyes of his disciples were virtues held in universal regard. Perhaps the most prominent of these was that of patience. Although some accomplishments are necessarily private, the extent of a forest monk’s capacity to endure through physical discomfort and the rigours of monastic life can never be so. As the leader of a monastic community, Luang Por’s patience was visible to all. He earned the particular devotion of the monks of Wat Pah Pong by leading them from the front and by never asking them to do anything that he would not do himself. He also became renowned for his forbearance when dealing with the problems attendant on running a large monastery: listening to and advising on the difficulties and doubts of the monks and novices and maechees and lay supporters. When Luang Por spoke about patience – and he spoke about it often – his words carried great weight. …

Luang Por the Good Friend: Part 4 FROM HEART TO HEART Today, Luang Por’s wider reputation rests, above all, on his ability to communicate the Dhamma. His Dhamma talks circle the world in print, on screens, and as audible files on a variety of modern devices. Throughout his life of teaching, he modelled two qualities of the kalyāṇamitta specifically concerned with communication skills: firstly, the ability to speak effectively, to get through to people, to counsel and admonish; and secondly, the ability to explain profound matters with clarity and accuracy. …

Luang Por and the Vinaya: Part 1 INTRODUCTION Whereas ‘Dhamma’ (Sanskrit: ‘Dharma’) is a word familiar to Buddhists of all traditions, ‘Vinaya’ is much less so. That this should be the case is worthy of remark given the central importance attached to Vinaya by the Buddha himself, as clearly demonstrated by his frequent references to the body of his teachings by the compound term ‘Dhamma-Vinaya’. At the end of his life, refusing requests to appoint a successor, the Buddha instructed his disciples: After my passing, the Dhamma-Vinaya which I have taught and explained to you shall be your teacher. – DN 16 …

Luang Por and the Vinaya: Part 2 PĀṬIMOKKHA: THE CORE OF THE VINAYA The significance given by the Buddha to this formalization of Vinaya may be judged by the vital link he revealed between the Pāṭimokkha and the longevity of the teachings. Speaking as the latest of a lineage of Buddhas stretching back into the incalculable past, he said that a pattern could be discerned in the relative length of time the teachings of previous Buddhas had survived. While those of Vipassī, Sikhī and Vessabhū were relatively short-lived, he said, those of Kakusandha, Konāgamana and Kassapa lasted for a long time. The reasons for the disparity were not only that those of the second group were ‘untiring in giving abundant Dhamma teaching to disciples’ but also because ‘the training rules for disciples were indicated and the Pāṭimokkha was appointed.’ The Buddha summarized this observation with a simile: the teachings were preserved by these measures in the same way that flower petals threaded onto a length of cotton twine could be prevented from blowing away in the wind. …

Luang Por and the Vinaya: Part 3 OBSERVANCES: ADDING LAYERS It is perhaps surprising that the majority of the conventions that inform a monk’s daily life are found in the protocols, allowances and injunctions of the Khandhakas rather than in the rules of the Pāṭimokkha proper. For example, the highly detailed procedures for formal meetings of the Sangha – including the Ordination and Uposatha ceremonies – appear in the Khandhakas, as do the steps to be taken in dealing with disputes. The Khandhakas contain most of the instructions regarding a monk’s relationship to the four requisites: robes, alms-food, dwelling place and medicines. Most of the fine points of monastic etiquette are also to be found here. …

Luang Por and the Vinaya: Part 4 THE ASCETIC PRACTICES: ADDING INTENSITY Mention has been made above of the thirteen dhutaṅga practices. These are the ascetic practices which the Buddha allowed his monks to adopt, if they wished, in order to intensify their practice. The dhutaṅgas were practices aimed at ‘abrading’ or ‘wearing away’ the defilements by creating situations in which they were provoked and directly opposed. By the standards of the day, they were mild in nature. Certainly, they paled beside the physical challenges that the Buddha undertook prior to finding the right way of practice that led to his enlightenment. Wearing only tree bark or owl wings, for example, he had practised standing continuously in the open for long periods, using a mattress of spikes, making his bed in charnel grounds with the bones of the dead for a pillow. In one of the most vivid passages in the Suttas, the Buddha described the extent to which he took the practice of fasting: Because of eating so little, my limbs became like the jointed segments of vine stems or bamboo stems. Because of eating so little, my backside became like a camel’s hoof. Because of eating so little, the projections on my spine stood forth like corded beads. Because of eating so little, my ribs jutted out as gaunt as the crazy rafters of an old roofless barn. Because of eating so little, the gleam of my eyes sank far down into their sockets, looking like a gleam of water that has sunk far down in a deep well. Because of eating so little, my scalp shrivelled and withered as a green bitter gourd shrivels and withers in the wind and sun. – MN 36 …

Meditation Teachings: Part 1 NUTS AND BOLTS The Buddha declared that all of his teachings could be resolved into two categories: those revealing the nature of human suffering and those that deal with the cessation of that suffering. He taught that true liberation can only be brought about by cultivation of the Noble Eightfold Path, a comprehensive and integrated training or education of body, speech and mind. The ultimate freedom from suffering, realized through a clear vision of the true nature of things, occurs when all eight factors of that path are brought in unison to maturity. …

Meditation Teachings: Part 2 THORNS AND PRICKLES The immediate obstacles to the development of samādhi and wisdom are a group of defilements that the Buddha called the nīvaraṇa or hindrances. He described them as ‘overgrowths of the mind that stultify insight’. They are five in number: 1. Kāmacchanda – sensual thoughts. 2. Vyāpāda – ill-will. 3. Thīnamiddha – sloth and torpor. 4. Uddhaccakukkucca – agitation, guilt, remorse. 5. Vicikicchā – Doubt and indecision. The Buddha made clear the vital importance of dealing with the hindrances as follows: Without having overcome these five, it is impossible for a monk whose insight thus lacks strength and power, to know his own true weal, the weal of others, and the weal of both; or that he will be capable of realizing that superior human state of distinctive achievement, a truly noble distinction in knowledge and vision. – AN 5.51 …

Meditation Teachings: Part 3 WAYS AND MEANS The hindrances do not appear in the mind as the result of meditation; rather, it is that meditation reveals hindrances that are already latent within the mind but which are difficult to isolate and deal with effectively in daily life. Meditation might be compared to putting the mind under a microscope in order to see the harmful viruses, invisible to the naked eye, that are threatening its health. Luang Por reminded his disciples that encountering the hindrances in meditation should not be a source of discouragement. In dealing with hindrances, meditators were getting to know how the mind worked and how to deal with it most effectively. …

Meditation Teachings: Part 4 CALM AND INSIGHT In his expositions of the practice of samādhi, Luang Por usually preferred to avoid speaking in terms of jhānas. Instead he would refer to the various mental states – known as jhāna factors – that constitute these jhānas. His reasoning was that the jhāna factors such as bliss (sukha) or equanimity were directly experienceable by the meditator, whereas ‘jhānas’ were simply names for different constellations of these factors. They were, in other words, conventions; and as such, they could lead the mind away from, rather than towards, awareness of the present reality. …