Remembering Tan Ajahn Buddhadāsa

~ By Ajahn Sumedho ~

I’ve always regarded Ajahn Buddhadāsa, along with Luang Por Chah, as one of my primary teachers. I could relate to their way of teaching because it was so direct and simple. Ajahn Chah wasn’t intellectual at all – he hardly ever wrote anything – he always emphasized paṭipadā, practice. He said, “In Thailand monks read too much. They learn Pāli and Abhidhamma, but they don’t ever practice.” So he was trying to fill in a gap there by emphasizing paṭipadā.

In the 1960s Tan Buddhadāsa was very controversial in Thailand. He wrote a book called Tua Goo Khong Goo, which translated into English as Me and Mine, but everybody was shocked by this because it’s a coarse way of saying “me and mine.” I was teaching English for a while at Thammasat University in Bangkok before I ordained, and there they were talking about this monk and his book. I was trying to learn Thai and thought, “What’s wrong with that?” Of course Americans don’t have that structure, so it was quite unique to me. But then I realized Buddhadāsa was trying to shock Thais into trying to appreciate their own religion, kind of shake them up, because in those days, in the ‘60s, every Thai considered themselves a Buddhist, but it was a very ceremonial tamboon taam prapenee (traditional merit-making) kind of thing, and they didn’t know very much beyond it.

Before ordaining I studied with Tan Chao Khun Chodok, who led a meditation movement at Wat Mahathat in the Yup-Nor Pong-Nor style (focusing the mind on the surface of one’s abdomen as it rises and falls in time with one’s breath). In the morning I’d teach at Thammasat University, then I’d cross the street to Wat Mahathat and sit samādhi (meditation). So that was starting to take place, he was teaching even laypeople to meditate.

I became a bhikkhu in 1967 and went to Wat Pah Pong in Ubon for my first phansa, the rains retreat. I didn’t speak any Thai nor the Isaan dialect they use there, so I didn’t know what was happening most of the time. Luang Por Chah didn’t know any English at all, but there were two Thai bhikkhus who could speak English. So the first month these two monks would help translate and I would talk with Ajahn Chah, and he would instruct me through their translations. Then after a month these two bhikkhus left and I was there without any English-speaking people around me.

Luang Por Chah was always very good at saying things like, “to observe yourself, observe what arises in your mind.” Of course, when you’re thrown into a situation so extreme from what you’re used to – suddenly you’re in northeast Thailand in a very strict monastery with a discipline – it brought up all kinds of emotions. Because I’m from the United States, from California, I was used to a totally different expectation and lifestyle, and I felt a lot of negativity, just critical mind, and being confused and misinterpreting things. But Ajahn Chah’s genius was to get me to look at what I was thinking. Not to believe it but just to observe it in this anicca (impermanence) practice, the conditions of arising and ceasing. And so I could actually do that.

Luang Por Chah never physically met Ajahn Buddhadāsa, but he liked his teachings, so we had a lot of the literature from Suan Mokkh. They were publishing some of Buddhadāsa’s teachings in little thin pamphlets, and Ajahn Chah always encouraged us to read those. I learned to read Thai by reading, kind of translating or understanding Buddhadāsa. After three years at Wat Pah Pong in Ubon, you’re allowed to go on tudong, a wandering practice, so I went with a Thai monk from there to Suan Mokkh and met Tan Buddhadāsa..

(Reflections offered by Ajahn in 2015 at BIA. To read the full text of the article, please visit Suan Mokkh - A Garden of Liberation.)

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For other teachings by Luang Por Sumedho, please visit the Amaravati Monastery website (Books) (Talks)

Photograph: 'Ajahn Sumedho and Tan Ajahn Buddhadāsa at Suan Mokkh in 1991' (Ref. Buddhadasa Indapanno Archives S-246)