| Ajahn Sucitto |
Question: What single thing most impressed you about Luang Por Chah? With examples according to your experiences. Answer: The first time I saw Luang Por Chah was when he landed in Britain, when he came through the arrivals at Heathrow Airport. There was a group of us monks, Ajahn Viradhammo, Ajahn Sumedho, and myself. Ajahn Pabhakaro was with Luang Por Chah. The first thing that I noticed about him was that he was quite small, particularly compared with Ajahn Pabhakaro, but he looked like a very very big man. He carried himself like a big man. Not aggressive, but completely confident. And here he was in a foreign country, he’d come from a long plane ride, couldn’t speak the language and looked completely in charge. And he knew exactly where he wanted to be. He was not hurried. He was not anxious. He was completely in charge, completely balanced, and he looked warm, friendly. He wasn’t in charge in a hard way, he was balanced in himself. Completely at ease within his environment, even though it was a foreign country, strange place, didn’t know the language. And so that whenever we came to see him, he was just so gentle. He knew how to immediately receive people. He was like your favourite uncle, as if you’d just been talking to him and you’d known him all your life. Very easy and very warm. So that you immediately felt very relaxed. Normally when you meet somebody who’s strange you think “better make sure everything’s alright...”. But you felt relaxed, because somebody loves you, immediately, with so much metta. So this is very very overwhelming in some ways, because almost everybody takes a little bit of time before they relax. Then he stayed at the Hampstead Vihara, in London. The Hampstead Vihara is just a small town house. So compared with the big space of Wat Pah Pong, it had really narrow corridors, small rooms, and it was very crowded. He was very comfortable. He had women sitting quite close by to him, and it was no problem. People not doing things properly according to the Thai way of doing things, not deliberately, just not dong things in the proper way. And you could see some of the other monks were quite anxious, to make sure it was alright, but he was just very relaxed. And then when people asked him questions, he couldn’t understand the words - he always had Ajahn Sumedho or Ajahn Pabhakaro translate, he was just looking at them. Just feeling. You could just see he was just checking you along. Then somebody would ask some very complicated question about Abhidhamma or something, then it would be translated, and would say something like, “thinking too much is not good for you”. Or “sometimes it’s like this and sometimes it’s like that.” Very simple answer that went underneath the question. It went straight to the heart, underneath the head. He never got fooled by any question. he always went straight to the heart. He could feel where people were coming from. He was very kind, not trying to put people down. Very gentle. Just very patient.
People would be affected by that. People could feel that immediate heart contact, and so immediately that’s quite overwhelming. So the place would be crowded with people who’d sit there so they could just be there. They didn’t have any questions, they just wanted to be there, just to feel that, because people were normally so nervous, tense and anxious. To be in a place where somebody is just so relaxed, with metta, you couldn’t understand what he was saying, and you didn’t even have anything to ask, you just wanted to be there. It would go on for hours. He never seemed to change his pace. He never hurried, he never hung back, always just flowing along. Everything just flowing. Never hurry, never stopping, and never moving back. Always flowing along. Just like the book “Living Dhamma”, still flowing water. That image. That was like him, still flowing water.
| |
