Stillness Flowing (audiobook)

Monk’s Training: Part 3 THE MARVEL OF INSTRUCTION The body of Luang Por Chah’s teachings is generally considered to consist of the material recorded on reel-to-reel tapes and audio cassettes and then transcribed and printed in books, originally in Thai and subsequently translated into many other languages. But for his monastic disciples, the formal discourses captured by those audio recordings and reproduced in books were only one part, and perhaps not the most important part, of what they received from him. …

Luang Por and the Western Sangha: Part 1 INTRODUCTION From the mid-fourteenth century until its sack by the Burmese in 1767, Ayutthaya was the capital of the Thai nation. Established on an island in the Chao Phraya River, it was ideally situated to act as an entrepôt port at a time when land routes were safer than sea, and merchants in the Orient sought to avoid sending their goods through the Straits of Malacca. Within two hundred years, Ayutthaya had become one of the most cosmopolitan cities in Asia. Its population of approximately a million people exceeded that of London. Some five hundred temples, many with pagodas covered in gold leaf, lent the city a magical, heaven-like aura that dazzled visitors from other lands. By the mid-seventeenth century, with communities of traders from France, Holland, Portugal and England housed outside the city wall, the inhabitants of Ayutthaya had become accustomed to Westerners or ‘farangs’. The kings of Ayutthaya often employed foreign mercenaries as bodyguards. To the Thais, these strange white beings seemed to resemble a species of ogre: hairy, ill-smelling, quarrelsome and coarse, lovers of meat and strong spirits, but possessors of admirable technical skills, particularly in the arts of war. …

Luang Por and the Western Sangha: Part 3 THROUGH WESTERN EYES The question which every Western monk would get asked sooner or later (and usually sooner), was why he chose to become a monk. It was often a more difficult question to answer than might be expected. It wasn’t so easy to distinguish causes from triggers, or to be sure that an uplifting narrative was not being patched together with hindsight. Monks usually settled on recounting the events leading up to their decision and their departure to Thailand. There was, for instance, Pabhakaro, an American helicopter pilot, who first came to the country on ‘R&R’ during the Vietnam War. There were the Peace Corps volunteers, and the young travellers backpacking through Asia like the Canadians, Tiradhammo and Viradhammo. There were also those like the British Brahmavamso and the Australian Nyanadhammo who came with the express intention of becoming monks. …

Luang Por and the Western Sangha: Part 5 KNOWER OF THE WORLDS Although the overwhelming majority of Westerners who entered the monastic life at Wat Pah Pong were male, there were also a small number of Western women who came to train as maechees. Chief amongst these, was an American known by her adopted name Khamfah, who arrived with her husband Paul, after fleeing their home in Laos ahead of the Communist takeover in late 1975. The couple decided to try to stay for five years, with the proviso that, if at any time, both of them wanted to leave, then they would do so; however, in the case that one wanted to go and the other wanted to stay, then they would both carry on and endure through their difficulties. It was challenging for both of them, but they survived the five years. …

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 deemed impossible. …

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 basket-full back.’ On the nun’s return he would ask her, ‘How was it? The same way you left it? Did you bring a basket-full back with you?’ He was talking Dhamma language. He meant memories and attachments. If the nun didn’t understand, she’d say, ‘Just a few onions and some garlic, Luang Por.' …

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 monastery were the acknowledged leaders of the community, with the abbot as the senior member of the triumvirate. …

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. Listening to Luang Por teach for the first time, a common perception was that his words seemed to articulate truths – far better than they could themselves – that on one level their hearts already sensed, but which they had never been able to make conscious. …

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 community over a period of many years allowed Luang Por to accumulate a great deal of understanding of the problems that can arise in human relationships. The kind of conflicts that arose in a monastery were not as far removed from those in a family as might be expected. Moreover, the wisdom that arises from cultivation of the Eightfold Path had given Luang Por a comprehensive knowledge of causality in its many modes, including an understanding of the relationships between mental states and behaviour – both destructive and constructive. On one occasion, a visitor was bemoaning her lot and told Luang Por how lucky he was not to have a family, with all of the tangled problems that it entailed. He replied: I do have a family here in the monastery, and it’s a big one. …

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 know, your hand will be torn off. Let the horse and the reins go their way. Don’t let yourself be hurt by it. Let it go. But if the horse is just straining on the rope a bit, then try to restrain it, master it. This is the way to relate to everything. …

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 so south of Hampstead Heath. The E.S.T. had suffered years of frustration and disappointment in their efforts to promote a home-grown Sangha. In Ajahn Sumedho, they saw someone who might finally turn their dreams into reality. …

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 magic of Luang Por, making people feel by his presence that they’d never in their lives been so happy and contented. He also took the opportunity to show off his only English phrase. Just a few sentences into a more formal Dhamma talk, a layperson entered the room with a new tray of hot drinks. …