Ajahn Sumedho

Question: What most impressed you about Ajahn Chah?

Answer: Luang Por Chah had a great deal of metta (loving-kindness), so I felt very welcomed by the way he received me at Wat Pah Pong. When I first met him, I felt he was very interested and I felt intuitively that he was a very wise man. Although at the time I couldn’t understand Thai very well, still what I saw of how he lived his life and his general way of being was very pleasing to me. As a teacher, he seemed to pick up very quickly where I was at. His teaching was very direct.

He never wanted me to spend much time reading or studying, just to practise. He emphasised with everybody ‘patibat’ (practice). He told me when I first came to him to put my books away and just read my ‘citta’, my mind.  I was quite happy to do that because I was quite weary of studying Buddhism and I much more wanted to practise it instead of just read about it. This is what he was encouraging me to do.

Even though he was giving a lot of talks - which I couldn’t understand for the first two years - he very much emphasised ‘kor wat’ (monastic duties), the way you live in the monastery: paying attention, being mindful with the food and the robes, with the kuti and the monastery. I found him very much like a mirror that would reflect my state of mind. He always seemed to be completely present. If I’d get carried away with my thoughts and emotions, I found that just being around him I suddenly could let go. I could drop what I was holding on to without even telling him. His presence helped me to see what I was doing and what I was holding on to. So I decided that I would live with him as long as I could since such monks are hard to find. So I stayed with him for ten years at Wat Pah Pong and he would send me to various branch monasteries.

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