Ajahn Amaro

Question: Did you ever see him use psychic powers?

Answer: I saw him take his false teeth out. (laughter) That had a very powerful effect.
Well, not so much psychic power, but some things really impressed me. Some years ago I was doing a three months solitary retreat in the forest at Cittaviveka, Chithurst Monastery. And during the last month of the retreat there were several people who were close to the monastery who were quite ill: two of the lay supporters, one of the monks living there and also Luang Por Chah. This was in 1988. During that last month, each day for about an hour I would do some chanting, particularly for these four people. My mind doesn’t visualise things very easily. I can’t conjure up images very easily at all in my mind, but I found that when I would think of these people, first the two lay people, then the monk and then Luang Por at the end. When I brought to mind the two lay people, an image that was quite clear and distinct would come up. Then when I would bring up the image of my monk friend to dedicate the puñña (merit) to him, it was still there, but slightly less distinct. When I tried to think of Luang Por—sharing puñña or sending metta (loving-kindness) to him—I could never get an image at all. My mind would not make him into a person. As soon as I thought of Luang Por, my mind would get extremely bright, but there was no image of a face, just this huge space and great brightness. Every day I did this—for three weeks or a month—and every time it was the same. 

I used to do a lot of acting when I was a kid and the last role that I ever played was Jesus. It was in a radio play called ‘The Man Born To Be King.’ And there was this passage in the play where Jesus is going, with the cross on his shoulder, to get executed, and all of his disciples are weeping, seeing him being whipped, with a big heavy weight on his back. This passage is in the Bible and also I had to say it in the play, so it was in my memory. As Jesus spoke, he turns to the people in the crowd and says, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, weep for yourselves.’ And so Luang Por’s face kept coming into my mind, saying, ‘Look, O.K., this body is sick. It’s all very well to be thinking of that, but don’t weep for me. You’re the one who’s in trouble. Do not weep for me, weep for yourself.’ This kept coming in to my mind like a teaching.

This other story is one that I heard. I didn’t experience it myself. One year after Luang Por Chah had his stroke and was paralysed, Luang Por Sumedho and Ajahn Anando were visiting him. At that time, Anando was very keen on faith healing, laying on hands and this sort of thing. The monks used to keep a 24 hour rota of looking after Luang Por while he was sick, sharing the duties of taking care of him. So while they were there, Anando asked permission to help out with the nursing and so he was on the shift between midnight and three in the morning. During these early morning hours, he was there in Luang Por’s room and the other monk was dozing and I guess Luang Por was lying flat on the bed. Now at this time, Luang Por was completely paralysed.  He might still have had a little movement in one hand, but he hadn’t been able to move his body at all for some years.

In the middle of the night, Anando thought maybe he should do some faith healing on Luang Por. Maybe this would help him. So he sat down next to the bed and put his hands over Luang Por’s chest and started to concentrate his mind, gathering healing energy and putting it out through his hands to Luang Por. As he was sitting there, Luang Por sat up in bed—and this is after he hadn’t moved for months, if not years—he sat up in bed, looked Anando straight in the eyes, fixed him with a stare for a long time, and then he closed his eyes and sat back down again. As if to say, ‘Thank you very much, but this is not necessary. Do not weep for me. It’s not me that needs the healing—take care of yourselves.’ So, I don’t know if you’d call that psychic power or what…

Lastly, I had a dream of him at the end of 1998. I wouldn’t call this psychic power but another kind of teaching. I had been editing a children’s fairy tale, a Buddhist story called ‘The Pilgrim Kamanita’. I had been working like crazy for about four years, editing it and making a large compendium of footnotes and references. I decided I wanted to get it finished before the winter retreat began. That December I spent many late nights working at it. Finally, at the end of the year, I got it all finished.

That night I had a dream. Me and a couple of other monks are coming to a building and there’s Luang Por Chah standing by the doorway; under my arm I’ve got my manuscript, this book. Then (I’m not quite sure why) I leaned forward, Luang Por took the book out of my hands and looked through it. There was an expression on his face which indicated something like: ‘Oh, this is obviously something you are very interested in and excited about.’ He had a critical attitude, that clearly this was a frivolous thing that really had no great consequence. And as he was looking at it with this sort of half-amused and not very impressed expression on his face, the book turned into a cuddly toy, like a little teddy bear or a soft rabbit. But even though it was being demonstrated as being this worthless bit of froth, the way he handled it was with great gentleness and respect. He sat the little soft toy down on a sofa, patted it, and arranged it nicely. Even though it was a little fluffy thing of no great consequence, it still had its place and could be treated respectfully. 

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