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Venerable Ajahn Jayasaro -
The Founding of Wat Pah Pong
On the
8th March 1954 the gorged red sun was already dropping below the forest
ahead of them. As Ajahn Chah and his disciples walked westwards from
Bahn Gor village, the cracked earth of the paddy fields on either side
of them soon gave way to trees - at first scattered, spindly and forlorn
in the heat, and then increasingly luxuriant - patterning the cart track
with welcome pools of shade. Pong Forest, their destination, loomed
ahead of them, dense and cool. Despite the deafening shrill of cicadas
as they put up their glots at the edge of the forest, the bhikkhus found
Pah Pong’s presence calm and benign.
It was a place that held strong associations for Ajahn Chah. During his
early childhood, Luang Boo Sow had passed through the area and, for a
few days, put up his glot in Pong Forest. Ajahn Chah’s father had gone
out one morning with some friends to offer alms to the great monk and in
the evening Ajahn Chah had listened with fascination to his account of
it. This was the first time he had heard about wandering monks living
austere lives in the jungle. He always remembered how impressed his
father had been that Ajahn Sow ate all his food from his bowl, rather
than from plates as the village monks did. And also he recalled his
father’s slight puzzlement at Ajahn Sow’s teaching style, “It wasn’t
like a proper sermon at all,” he had complained. “It was just like
normal talking.”
Many years later Ajahn Chah related: “When I set off and started
practising myself, the memory of my father’s words was constantly with
me. Whenever I visited home my mind would always turn to this forest.
Ajahn Dee from Pibun and Luang Por Put once passed through and the
villagers invited them to stay in Pong Forest. They said they couldn’t.
Ajahn Dee said “It isn’t our place. We can’t stay. It won’t be long till
the owner arrives.” Luang Por Put still speaks of that to this day.
The following morning the group of monks entered the seemingly
impenetrable forest for the first time with villagers from Bahn Gor in
front of them expertly hacking a way through the stubborn vines and
tangled undergrowth with their machetes. Eventually, at the cool heart
of the forest, they halted. The wiry villagers, sweat running down the
protective spells tattooed on their chests, squatted in a circle and
rolled cigarettes. The monks sat down some distance apart, with Ajahn
Chah at the foot of an ancient and imposing mango tree, drinking water
from their bamboo flasks, and tranquillity from the air around them.
A group of women had been following in the monks’ wake. After a short
rest they joined their men-folk in methodically removing all the vines,
stumps and thorns in the neighbourhood of the old mango tree. Clearing
land was work at which the villagers were adept, and a central open area
soon started to take shape amongst the larger shade-bearing trees,
creating a neat, stately, almost park-like atmosphere in the midst of
the thick and tangled jungle that surrounded them. At the foot of some
of the larger trees beyond the edge of this area, small squares of land
were cleared for the monks to set up their glots. The monks themselves,
forbidden by the Vinaya to dig the earth or destroy plant life, helped
by dragging off cut branches into the forest and sweeping the cleared
areas. There was a break at midday for the villagers to eat their lunch
- sticky rice and fermented fish brought from home and fresh forest
leaves gathered along the way - and then with the sun overhead filtering
down between the large patches of shade in bright, hot pools, it was
back to the steady rhythm of the work. By late afternoon a rudimentary
path had been cut to the edge of the forest, and after taking their
leave of Ajahn Chah, the laypeople made their way along it for the first
time hurrying a little in order to reach their homes before dark. In the
heart of the forest, as darkness set in, the monks sat in meditation in
their glots.
Early one morning a few days later, a group of volunteers from the
villages of Bahn Gor and Bahn Glang arrived to build kutis for the monks
and expand the open area. They brought with them sections of thin yaka
thatch for the roofs and cut the main posts and beams from the trees
around them. Deftly the men split bamboo into long strips to weave into
flooring , while the women attached large dry chat leaves to bamboo
frames for the walls. Four huts were completed by the evening - simple
dwellings but sufficient for the monks’ needs. The flimsiness of these
shelters could not conceal their significance. Their creation, in the
space of a day, had transformed the monks’ presence in the forest from
that of respectful guests of its peace and shade, to gentle settlers.
Pong Forest, the monks’ new home, possessed a certain notoriety amongst
local people. In former days the now-dry, fresh-water pool towards its
northern end had attracted many wild animals, including tigers and
elephants. Adding to the forest’s daunting nature was the general belief
that a harsh and vengeful guardian spirit had determined to protect it
from human intrusions. Unusually, Ajahn Chah, generally very forthright
in his opposition to superstitions, did not counter this belief. He once
explained to some guests:
“When I first came to stay here it was a tough place to live: there were
none of these buildings you see now, nothing but forest. There’s no need
to tell you there were no roads; coming in and out was very difficult.
The local farmers lived a long way away. They didn’t dare to come into
the forest because the guardian spirit here was so fierce. This spirit
was once an elephant herder who would often pass through the forest on
his expeditions to capture elephants and would water them at the pond on
the way back. In the end he settled down here to look after the forest,
and it’s thanks to him that by the time I came to live here there was
still some of it left, otherwise it would probably all have been cut
down long ago. One time some villagers from Bahn Bok and Bahn Peung did
manage to clear a patch of land and plant some rice and vegetables, but
all of them came to an unfortunate end. People who have come in and cut
down trees have tended to die from mysterious causes. Wild potatoes grow
abundantly in the forest but nobody has dared to touch them. It was only
after I’d come to live here that people started to farm more closely to
the forest edge.”
On the full moon day of March marking the first uposatha (Observance
Day) since the monks’ arrival in the forest, about a dozen laypeople
came to spend the day and night practising with the Sangha. At seven
o’clock, the evening chanting completed and the last light of the day
fading away, Ajahn Chah began to expound Dhamma, his voice energetic and
compelling. As the words flowed more and more surely he became
illuminated by the rays of the newly-risen moon. Then quite without
warning, in the full spate of his exposition, Ajahn Chah suddenly fell
silent. Many of his listeners found their eyes jerked open in surprise
to be greeted with the view of their teacher sitting in the moonlight as
still and composed as a Buddha image. After a few moments he spoke to
them,
“Everyone just sit calmly. If anything strange occurs, there is no need
to be alarmed.” And then, without further explanation, he resumed his
discourse.
A few minutes later a bright light, like a comet, appeared in the sky to
the northwest of the small cleared area in which they sat, passed very
low above their heads and dropped earth-wards to the southeast of them.
The whole forest grove was bathed in a dazzling light. Despite the
forewarning, monks and laypeople were profoundly thrilled at what they
considered to be quite obviously an auspicious portent for the new
monastery. Ajahn Chah, however, paid no attention to the light
whatsoever and carried on with his Dhamma talk as if nothing had
happened. Gradually the spell and power of his exposition re-asserted
its hold over the audience.
Ajahn Chah was never to refer to this matter again. Nevertheless, the
following morning when he led a small group of laypeople to mark with
stakes the limits of the new monastery, it did not pass unnoticed that
the boundaries he chose, enclosing an area of some sixty-seven acres,
were governed by the points at which the strange light had risen and
fallen.
Forest Sangha Newsletter, July 2006, Number76
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