Stillness Flowing (audiobook) – Details, episodes & analysis

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 of our practice,
the proof of its results.
You were a blazing bonfire
on a windy, bone-chilled night:
How we miss you!
Luang Por, you were the sturdy stone bridge,
we had dreamed of.
You were at ease
in the present
as if it were your own ancestral land.
Luang Por,
you were the bright full moon
that we sometimes obscured with clouds.
You were ironwood, you were banyan, and you were bodhi:
‘Pormae – khroobaajahn’.
Luang Por, you were a freshly dripping lotus
in a world of plastic flowers.
Not once did you lead us astray.
You were a lighthouse for our flimsy rafts
on the heaving sea.
Luang Por,
you are beyond my words of praise and all description.
Humbly, I place my head
beneath your feet.

พระช้อน
June, 1995

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 Thailand, ‘boonkhun’ – the ties and obligations perceived to have been created between people by beneficial actions – underlies most meaningful social intercourse, including that between members of the Sangha and the laity.

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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.

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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 a forest monastery.

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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.

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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.'

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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.

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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.

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Luang Por and the Western Sangha: Part 6 THE TWAIN SHALL MEET

By 1975, there were almost twenty Western monks at Wat Pah Pong – about a quarter of the resident Sangha. This rapid and significant influx brought with it inevitable tensions. Although the organization of the monastery and a common faith and confidence in Luang Por kept the situation workable, minor but niggling conflicts between the Thais and the ‘farangs’ became increasingly common. The first generation of Western monks was predominantly North American. These were young men used to an informal, unregimented life, to expressing their feelings about things freely, using their initiative. Many of them had robust personalities. In an era when travel to Southeast Asia was a lot more daunting than it is today, the path to a forest in Northeast Thailand was not an easy or straightforward one to take. Having to conform to the Vinaya, to many rules and regulations that they could not always see the reason for, could easily provoke the rebellious side of their nature.

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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.

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