Ajahn Chah

Ajahn Chah was born in 1918 in a small village in North-East Thailand. In 1939 he received bhikkhu ordination. In his fifth year his father fell seriously ill and died… It caused him to think deeply about life’s real purpose, for although he had studied extensively, he seemed no nearer to a personal understanding of the end of suffering… Feelings of disenchantment set in, and in 1946 he set off on mendicant pilgrimage.

He walked some 250 miles to Central Thailand, sleeping in forests and gathering almsfood in the villages on the way. He took up residence in a monastery where the monastic discipline was carefully studied and practised. While there he was told about Venerable Ajahn Mun, a most highly accomplished meditation master. Keen to meet him, Ajahn Chah set off on foot. Ajahn Mun told him that the teachings are at their heart very simple. If it is seen that everything arises in the heart-mind, right there is the true path of practice. This was a revelation for Ajahn Chah, and transformed his approach to practice…

For the next seven years Ajahn Chah wandering through the countryside in quest of quiet and secluded places for developing meditation. He lived in tiger and cobra infested jungles, using reflections on death to penetrate to the true meaning of life.

In 1954, after years of wandering, he was invited back to his home village. He settled close by, in a fever ridden, haunted forest called ‘Pah Pong’. Disciples gathered around him in increasing numbers. This was the beginning of the first monastery in the Ajahn Chah tradition, Wat Pah Pong.

In 1967 an American monk came to stay at Wat Pah Pong. The newly ordained Venerable Sumedho had just spent his first Vassa (‘Rains’ retreat) practicing intensive meditation at a monastery near the Laotian border. Although his efforts had borne some fruit, Venerable Sumedho realized that he needed a teacher who could train him in all aspects of monastic life. By chance, one of Ajahn Chah’s monks, one who happened to speak a little English, visited the monastery where Venerable Sumedho was staying. Upon hearing about Ajahn Chah, he asked to take leave of his preceptor, and went back to Wat Pah Pong with the monk.

Ajahn Chah willingly accepted the new disciple, but insisted that he receive no special allowances for being a Westerner. He would have to eat the same simple almsfood and practice in the same way as any other monk at Wat Pah Pong. The training there was quite harsh and forbidding. Ajahn Chah often pushed his monks to their limits, to test their powers of endurance so that they would develop patience and resolution. He sometimes initiated long and seemingly pointless work projects, in order to frustrate their attachment to tranquility. The emphasis was always on surrendering to the way things are, and great stress was placed upon strict observance of the vinaya.

“…We had to wear three robes on our morning alms, and I used to complain as we were hot and clammy by the time we returned to the monastery, The robes were dyed with a natural jackfruit dye, and the mixture of sweat and jackfruit dye smelt terrible. Life seemed to centre on robes, washing and mending them. I protested as I wanted to meditate. I also refused to wash the feet of senior monks. As an American, I was raised on egalitarian ideals, and washing another man’s feet seemed outrageous. When I left Nongkhai to join Ajahn Chah, 30 monks would rush to wash his feet after he returned from trudging barefoot through paddy fields and dirt tracks. Not me. I thought it was stupid and boosting Ajahn Chah’s ego.

Monks, then as now, have to eat whatever the villagers offer. The villagers brought chicken curry, fish curry and frog curry, but in those days Ajahn Chah would dump them all into one big basin and mix them up. It tasted horrible! The nuns would bring roots and stems from jungles for us to eat. I remember writing to my mother, I am living on tree leaves, and got her worried for nothing. I was frustrated by the strict monastic codes of Vinaya based on the hierarchical structure of seniority. There was a selfish side in me that wanted to live a monastic life but on my own terms. My complaints were gnawing me from inside, all the whining, whinging, blaming, thinking I was right, getting fed-up, being un-cooperative, wanting to leave.

I realised that even when I led a comfortable life, I already had the habit of complaining and looking at life critically. Ajahn Chah showed me a different, positive outlook. Instead of being self-centred with the get rid of this and get more of that attitude, I began to see life as it is, filled with ups and downs. I learned to welcome the chance to eat food I didn’t like, welcome wearing three robes on a hot day and welcome discomfort. Life is like this. Sometimes it is nice, sometimes horrible and most of the time, it is neither one way or the other!

I remained under Ajahn Chah’s tutelage for 10 years. It was tough going. Ajahn Chah spoke only Thai all his life, and I only English! It was years before I learned Thai. Ajahn Chah would give long dharma talks in the evening, sometimes four to five hours, and I couldn’t understand a word! I was bored, cramped and upset. But at the end of one sermon, he looked at me, smiled and asked, through an interpreter, how I was doing. To my surprise, I said, Fine and suddenly all my frustration disappeared! That was the beginning. He pushed me to the edge to make me see reality and what I was doing. I trusted him absolutely, and soon my aversion to washing his feet fell away and there were 31 monks rushing to wash his feet when he returned from alms! 

We could not hold a proper, in-depth conversation in the beginning but he always said ‘Sumedho learns through the language of dharma’, and people would ask ‘What language is that?’ He said, ‘That is the language of living and observing, learning through awakening and being conscious, of having a human body and experiencing feelings that include greed, hatred and delusions, all normal human conditions.’ …I am grateful to Ajahn Chah because of his compassion... I was a Christian but became disillusioned as I could not understand its teachings nor find someone to guide me. Buddhism does not force you to accept blindly but to find the truth through your own experiences, and it was such a joyous discovery…”

~ Ajahn Sumedho was born as Robert Jackman in Seattle in 1934. He served as a medic in the US Navy in the Korean War, during which visits to Japan awakened an interest in Asian studies, an interest that he pursued after leaving the Navy and enrolling at the University of California in Berkeley. This was succeeded by voluntary service in the Peace Corps in Sabah, Malaysia, 1964-66. However, still searching for inner peace, he visited monasteries in Bangkok but ended up travelling on impulse to North East Thailand where at Wat Saket in Nong Khai he became a novice monk (samanera), in 1966, and a bhikkhu in 1967.