Ajahn Chah: Life, Wat Nong Pah Pong and Forest Monasteries

Ajahn Chah (Thai: อาจารย์ชา, also called Luang Por Chah, หลวงพ่อชา) was a Thai Buddhist monk of the Thai Forest Tradition, born on 17 June 1918 near Ubon Ratchathani and died on 16 January 1992 [2]. His monastic title was Phra Bodhinyanathera (พระโพธิญาณเถร) [1], [2]. In 1954 he established Wat Nong Pah Pong in Warin Chamrap, Ubon Ratchathani, and English Wikipedia describes him as a founder of two major monasteries in the tradition [2], [4]. Forest Sangha and Abhayagiri publications count more than 300 branch monasteries in his lineage across Thailand and the West [15], [22].

Key facts

Who was Ajahn Chah? Early life in Ubon Ratchathani

Thai Wikipedia gives his birthplace as Ban Chik Ko, Tambon That, and his parents as Ma and Phim Chuangchot [1]. English Wikipedia calls the family subsistence farmers [2], while Abhayagiri describes a large, comfortable rural family [22]. Sources also differ on his first monastic step. The introduction to his collected talks says he went to live in the local monastery at nine [15], whereas Thai Wikipedia and Komchadluek date his novice ordination to March BE 2474 (1931), at 13 [1], [18]. After three years as a novice he returned to lay life to help his parents on the farm [1], [14].

At twenty he resumed monastic life, and he was ordained a bhikkhu on 26 April 1939 (BE 2482) at Wat Ko Nai with Phra Khru Inthasarakun as preceptor, receiving the Dhamma name Subhaddo [1], [2], [14].

How did Ajahn Chah become a forest monk?

The Forest Sangha biography links the turning point to his father's death. It says that in his fifth year as a monk his father fell ill and died, and that although he had studied widely he seemed no nearer to a personal understanding of the end of suffering [14]. Komchadluek places the father's death in BE 2483 (1940), so the sources do not agree on the year [18]. All agree on the outcome: in 1946 he gave up his studies and set off on a mendicant pilgrimage [2], [14].

According to the Forest Sangha biography he walked about 400 km to central Thailand, stayed at a monastery where the Vinaya (monastic discipline) was carefully studied, heard of the meditation master Ajahn Mun Bhuridatta, and walked to the Northeast to find him [14]. Dhammathai places the visit in early BE 2489 (1946) at Wat Nong Phue Na Nai in Phannanikhom District, Sakon Nakhon, and reports that Ajahn Mun told him there was no need to join the Dhammayuttika order if he kept the Vinaya [19]. He stayed in the Maha Nikaya [1], [19]. The Forest Sangha biography summarises Ajahn Mun's advice this way: the teachings are extensive but at heart very simple, and with mindfulness established one sees that everything arises in the heart-mind [14].

He then spent seven years in the austere style of the forest tradition, wandering to secluded places and living in forests, caves and cremation grounds, using reflection on death in his practice [2], [14].

How was Wat Nong Pah Pong founded?

In 1954, after years of wandering, Ajahn Chah was invited back to his home district [14]. Thai Wikipedia and Komchadluek say his mother and elder brother, with other relatives, invited him, and that he reached the edge of the Pong forest on 8 March BE 2497 (1954) [1], [3], [18].

The land was dense forest. Thai Wikipedia describes it as thick and abandoned, with forest fever and wildlife, and says the villagers called it "Nong Pah Pong" after a large pond ringed with clumps of reeds, and that he named the monastery after it [3]. The Forest Sangha biography calls it a "fever ridden, haunted forest" [14], and the introduction to his collected talks says it was known for cobras, tigers and ghosts [15].

The beginnings were modest: three or four small huts roofed with thatch grass, built with help from villagers, and, in his recollection, four monks at first [3]. The land was later estimated at 187 rai, and the monastery received wisungkhamasima status (an official grant of land) on 5 April BE 2517 (1974) [3]. The address is Ban Pong Sawang, Tambon Non Phueng, Warin Chamrap [3].

What is daily life like in the monasteries?

The introduction to his collected talks describes a simple, strict routine that continues in the branch monasteries. Monastics do manual work and eat once a day from the alms bowl, with group meditation usually twice a day and huts scattered through the forest for solitary practice [15]. The Forest Sangha biography says he pushed his monks to their limits to develop patience and sometimes set long, seemingly pointless work projects to frustrate attachment to tranquillity [14].

What is Wat Pah Nanachat, and who was Ajahn Chah's first Western disciple?

English Wikipedia says that in 1966 his disciples included the first Westerner, Ajahn Sumedho [2]. The Forest Sangha biography and Sumedho's English Wikipedia page place his arrival in 1967, so the year differs by source [6], [14]. Sumedho was born Robert Karr Jackman in Seattle in 1934 and took bhikkhu ordination at Wat Sri Saket, Nong Khai, on 8 July 1967 [6]. The Forest Sangha biography says Ajahn Chah accepted the newly ordained American on condition of no special allowances: he ate the same almsfood and followed the same practice as any other monk [14].

In the hot season of 1975, Sumedho and a handful of Western monks lived in a forest not far from Wat Pah Pong. Local villagers asked them to stay, Ajahn Chah consented, and Wat Pah Nanachat (วัดป่านานาชาติ, the International Forest Monastery) began [14]; the villagers of Bung Wai are named as those who asked [15].

Wat Pah Nanachat is about 15 kilometres from the city of Ubon. It was established in 1975 as a training community for non-Thais following the norms of the Thai Forest Tradition, and English is the main language of instruction [5]. English Wikipedia calls it the first monastery in Thailand geared to training English-speaking Westerners in the Vinaya, and the first run by a Westerner [2]. Sumedho was its first abbot, from 1975 to 1977 [5], [6]. Ajahn Pasanno and Ajahn Jayasaro later served as abbots [8], [9].

How did Ajahn Chah's lineage spread abroad?

In 1977 the English Sangha Trust invited Ajahn Chah to Britain. He took Ajahn Sumedho and Ajahn Khemadhammo and left them at the Hampstead Buddhist Vihara in London [2], [14]. He returned in 1979, as the monks were leaving London to begin Chithurst Buddhist Monastery in Sussex, and went on to America and Canada [14]. Cittaviveka (Chithurst) was established in 1979 by Sumedho under Ajahn Chah's auspices, and Ajahn Chah visited at its inception as the first branch monastery of Wat Pah Pong outside Thailand [11]. Sumedho was abbot of Cittaviveka from 1979 to 1984 and of Amaravati from 1984 to 2010 [6]. Amaravati, near Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, was established in 1984 as an extension of Chithurst and formally opened in 1985 in buildings that had been a school [2], [10].

Which disciples are best known?

• Ajahn Brahm, born Peter Betts in London in 1951, studied theoretical physics at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and spent nine years training under Ajahn Chah. In 1983 Ajahn Chah sent him to Perth, where land bought that year became Bodhinyana Monastery, named after his teacher [7].
• Ajahn Jayasaro, born Shaun Michael Chiverton on 7 January 1958 on the Isle of Wight, became a bhikkhu on 3 June 1980 with Ajahn Chah as preceptor and was abbot of Wat Pah Nanachat from 1997 to 2002 [8]. His biography Stillness Flowing was published in 2017 [8]; Abhayagiri says the English edition appeared in 2018 [22].
• Ajahn Pasanno, born 26 July 1949 in The Pas, Manitoba, ordained in Bangkok in 1974, later abbot of Wat Pah Nanachat, and in the late 1990s moved to California [9]. Abhayagiri, a monastery in Redwood Valley, says Ajahn Amaro settled it and Pasanno arrived six months later as co-abbot [12].
• Ajahn Amaro received higher ordination from Ajahn Chah in 1979, was co-abbot of Abhayagiri from 1996 to 2010, and has been abbot of Amaravati since 2010 [13].

How many branch monasteries are there?

Counts vary. English Wikipedia says Wat Nong Pah Pong includes over 250 branches in Thailand plus over 15 associated monasteries and ten lay practice centres abroad [2], while its page on the monastery says around 240 branches [4]. The 2011 collected talks and Abhayagiri both say more than 300, and the 2011 introduction adds that there were about 75 branches when Ajahn Chah fell ill and over 100 when he died [15], [22].

What did Ajahn Chah teach?

Abhayagiri describes him as humorous and straightforward, emphasising practice in everyday life [22]. The editors of his collected talks say he never planned a talk in advance, and that much of his teaching came through the monastic routine, community work and wandering rather than lecture [15]. They note that he often used the Thai word for "uncertainty" in place of the usual rendering of anicca (impermanence), and that he regarded virtue (sila) as the great protector of the heart; the second point is the editors' summary, not his own words [15]. In the talk "Monastery of Confusion" he compared a practitioner's mind to flowing water that is still [15], and in "Why Are We Here?" he said the heart is the true refuge and nothing else [16].

What did Ajahn Chah say about amulets and holy water?

His students' summary. The introduction to The Collected Teachings, written by Ajahn Amaro, says Ajahn Chah was well known for trying to dispel superstition from Buddhist practice in Thailand and that he criticised the use of "magic" charms, amulets and fortune-telling. It adds that visitors who asked him for lottery numbers received short shrift [15]. This is the editor's description, not a quotation.

His own words, in the published talks.

• In "Toward the Unconditioned" (published in Living Dhamma) he told his listeners that good actions bear good results and bad actions bad results, and not to expect the gods, guardian deities or auspicious days to do things for them: "These things aren't true, don't believe in them." Waiting for the right day, he said, leads to suffering [16].
• In "No Abiding" he described people who came to be sprinkled with holy water. When he asked why they wanted it, they said they wanted to live happily and comfortably and not get sick. "They'll never transcend suffering that way," he commented, contrasting the worldly way of doing things to get some return with doing things without the idea of gaining anything [15].
• In "Unshakeable Peace" he remarked that ascetics and hermits have used the energy of deep concentration (samadhi) for making holy water, talismans or casting spells. Such things may be of some benefit in their own way, he said, "but it's like the benefit of alcohol. You drink it and then you get drunk." He called that level of concentration a rest stop and a foundation for contemplation and insight [15].

These published talks do not mention medals bearing his own image, so this article does not claim to know what he said about them, and it does not state whether any object works. It reports his teaching and what is documented about medals made in his name.

Were medals ever made of Ajahn Chah?

A feature in the Thai newspaper Post Today (12 April 2015) says the Wat Pah Pong network is known for practice rather than amulets, yet reports that amulets of Ajahn Chah exist: his name appears among the monks at the consecration of the Phra Kring at the Adisorn camp in Saraburi, and disciples had several editions made with his permission [17]. It quotes a preface by the editor of a book on the subject: the monastery once issued a public statement that it had never made or owned amulets, prompted by news of someone selling medals around the time of the funeral rites; the statement was unclear, and many concluded that none existed [17].

Post Today's account of the first portrait medal, quoting the same book, is this. Disciples made it in BE 2518 (1975), with permission he had given in BE 2516 (1973), to hand out at the cremation of his mother on 25 February 1975. Someone present said it did not look like him, and Ajahn Chah replied that in that case it should not be handed out. He sealed the medals in a jar in his hut for four years and in BE 2521 (1978) gave medals back to the makers in the quantities they asked for; of the 500 silver medals they took back 200 and offered 300 to him, and of the copper ones they offered him 2,504. Post Today calls this the first and only edition of his portrait medal; the front shows a half-length figure with "Phra Bodhinyanathera (Cha)" below [17]. This is a journalist quoting a disciple's book, not the monastery, and no valuation is given here.

Ajahn Chah's final illness, death and memorial

The introduction to the collected talks says his health had been shaky for several years, with dizzy spells and diabetic problems. During the 1981 rains retreat he became seriously ill with what was "apparently some form of stroke," and by the middle of 1982 he was paralysed apart from slight movement of one hand and had lost the power of speech [15]. The Forest Sangha biography says he was taken to Bangkok for an operation before the end of the 1981 rains, which did little to improve his condition, and that he used his body as a teaching, a living example of the impermanence of all things [14]. English Wikipedia attributes the decline to diabetes and says he stayed bedridden for ten years [2].

He died on 16 January 1992 at 5:20 am at Wat Nong Pah Pong [1], [18]. Wikipedia gives his age as 73 [2]; Dhammathai gives 74 and 53 vassa, while Thai Wikipedia gives 52 vassa [1], [19].

The funeral was held exactly a year later, in January 1993 [2], [15]. The introduction to the collected talks says the memorial stupa had 16 pillars, was 32 metres high and had foundations 16 metres deep. It reports that about 6,000 monks, 1,000 nuns and just over 10,000 laypeople camped in the forest for the ten days, that an estimated one million people passed through the monastery, and that 400,000, including the king, queen and prime minister, came on the day of the cremation. These are estimates [15].

Where is the memorial today?

Thai Wikipedia mentions a Phra Bodhinyanathera museum at the monastery [1], and Dhammathai says the chedi there houses his ashes (อัฐิ) [21]. A memorial observance (Acariya Bucha, อาจาริยบูชา) is held each year from 12 to 17 January [3]. Daily News reported that on 16 January, 33 years after his death, more than 10,000 followers in white and over 1,000 monks walked around the chedi, and that the monks paid respects to his ashes inside it [20].