Forest Dhamma Master Ajahn Chah

VENERABLE AJAHN CHAH (Phra Bodhiñana Thera) was born into a typical farming family in a rural village in the province of Ubon Rachathani, N.E. Thailand, in 1917. He lived the first part of his life as any other youngster in rural Thailand, and, following the custom, took ordination as a novice in the local village Wat for a number of years, where he learned to read and write, in addition to some basic Buddhist teachings. After a number of years he returned to the lay life to help his parents, but, feeling an attraction to the monastic life, at the age of twenty he again entered a Wat, this time for higher ordination as a bhikkhu, or Buddhist monk.

He spent the first few years of his bhikkhu life studying some basic Dhamma, discipline and scriptures, but the death of his father awakened him to the transience of life and instilled in him a desire to find the real essence of the Buddha's teaching. He began to travel to other monasteries, studying the monastic discipline in detail and spending a short but enlightening period with Venerable Ajahn Mun, the most outstanding Thai forest meditation master of this century. Following his time with Venerable Ajahn Mun, he wandered for a number of years in the style of an ascetic monk, spending his time in forests, caves and cremation grounds, ideal places for developing meditation practice.

After many years of travel and practice, he was invited to settle in a thick forest grove near the village of his birth. This grove was uninhabited, known as a place of cobras, tigers and ghosts, thus being as he said, the perfect location for a forest monk. Venerable Ajahn Chah's impeccable approach to meditation, or Dhamma practice, and his simple, direct style of teaching, with the emphasis on practical application and a balanced attitude, began to attract a large following of monks and lay people. Thus a large monastery formed around Ajahn Chah as more and more monks, nuns and lay-people came to hear his teachings and stay on to practice with him.

Ajahn Chah's simple yet profound style of teaching has a special appeal to Westerners, and many have come to study and practice with him, quite a few for many years. In 1966 the first westerner came to stay at Wat Pah Pong, Venerable Sumedho Bhikkhu. From that time on, the number of foreign people who came to Ajahn Chah began to steadily increase. In 1975 Wat Pah Nanachat, the first branch monastery for western and other non-Thai nationals interested in undertaking monastic training, was set up with Venerable Ajahn Sumedho as the abbot. Since then Ajahn Chah's large following of senior Western disciples has begun the work of spreading the Dhamma to the West. Ajahn Chah himself traveled twice to Europe and North America, and helped to establish the first branch monastery in Sussex, England. Since then other monasteries have grown up in England, France, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and the U.S.A.

In 1980 Venerable Ajahn Chah began to feel more accutely the symptoms of dizzi¬ness and memory lapse which had plagued him for some years. This led to an operation in 1981, which, however, failed to reverse the onset of the paralysis which eventually rendered him completely bedridden and unable to speak. This did not stop the growth of monks and lay people who came to practise at his monastery, however, for whom the teachings of Ajahn Chah were a constant guide and inspiration.

After remaining bedridden and silent for an amazing ten years, carefully tended by his monks and novices, Venerable Ajahn Chah passed away on the 16th of January, 1992, at the age of 74, leaving behind a thriving community of monasteries and lay suporters, both in Thailand and in England, Switzerland, Italy, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S.A, where the practise of the Buddha's teachings continues under the inspiration of this great meditation teacher.

Although Ajahn Chah passed away in 1992, the training which he established is still carried on at Wat Pah Pong and its branch monasteries, of which there are currently more than two hundred in Thailand. Discipline is strict, enabling one to lead a simple and pure life in a harmoniously regulated community where virtue, meditation and understanding may be skillfully and continuously cultivated. There is usually group meditation twice a day and sometimes a talk by the senior teacher, but the heart of the meditation is the way of life. The monastics do manual work, dye and sew their own robes, make most of their own requisites and keep the monastery buildings and grounds in immaculate shape. They live extremely simply following the ascetic precepts of eating once a day from the almsbowl and limiting their possessions and robes. Scattered throughout the forest are individual huts where monks and nuns live and meditate in solitude, and where they practice walking meditation on cleared paths under the trees.

Wisdom is a way of living and being, and Ajahn Chah has endeavored to preserve the simple monastic life-style in order that people may study and practice the Dhamma in the present day.

Ajahn Chah's wonderfully simple style of teaching can be deceptive. It is often only after we have heard something many times that suddenly our minds are ripe and some¬how the teaching takes on a much deeper meaning. His skillful means in tailoring his explanations of Dhamma to time and place, and to the understanding and sensitivity of his audience, was marvelous to see. Sometimes on paper though, it can make him seem inconsistent or even self-contradictory! At such times the reader should remember that these words are a record of a living experience. Similarly, if the teachings may seem to vary at times from tradition, it should be borne in mind that the Venerable Ajahn spoke always from the heart, from the depths of his own meditative experience.

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