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In a live series via the Zoom online meeting platform, Courtney will be interviewing a different monastic during each program. There will be an audience Q&A afterward.
For the first program of the series (April 3 at 7 pm), we'll be talking with Ajahn Sarayut Arnanta--the abbot of Wat Buddhametta in Tucson, AZ.
Please see the ‘Events’ page on the ABMT website for a complete list of dates, times, and interviewees.
To join a program, click this link at the time of the program:
We have begun offering daily morning and evening chanting and meditation programs via Facebook Live. The morning program begins around 8 am and the evening program begins around 4 pm. Please join our virtual community on Facebook at ‘Ajahn Khamjan Khrueasui’.
Although I spent many years as a practitioner within the framework of the Vietnamese Zen tradition—specifically, Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh’s ‘Order of Interbeing’—my knowledge of and experience in Vietnamese Zen monasteries has long been limited-to-nonexistent. It’s only in the last year (well after I left the simple beauty of Vietnamese Zen to enter the simple austerity of the Thai Forest Tradition) that I began to gather experience amongst the monastics of Vietnam. Indeed, in the last year I’ve had the excellent fortune to enjoy several meditation retreats at Vietnamese Zen monasteries, including Chua Linh Phong.
Very much under-the-radar, this small, single-monk monastery had apparently been in my hometown of Sarasota, Florida for maybe 20 years before I heard of it. I only found out about it during one of my recent annual visits to see my father from a longtime Vietnamese friend whose father was a member of the community until he died. I paid the little temple a visit shortly thereafter and soon began embarking upon semi-routine visits and short retreats whenever I was in town.
While seemingly somewhat limited in its amenities and supports, this quiet spot in a residential area of this southwest Florida beach town is a nice and suitable location for short meditation retreats.
A year ago, I spent a day on retreat at Chua Tam Bao, a Vietnamese Zen monastery in Baton Rouge. This year, I returned to the temple from December 5-8 to undertake another, more intensive silent and solitary retreat.
Venerable Thich Dao Quang, who is the abbot, welcomed me and kindly supported my intentions to enter seclusion and practice intensive meditation at his monastery. Indeed, under the supportive umbrella of Thay and his 13 monks, nuns and novices (one of whom is a westerner), this beautiful temple is an excellent venue for a meditation retreat.
The schedule went something like this:
-Thursday Schedule-
6-9 pm: sitting & walking
9 pm: bedtime
-Friday Schedule-
3 am: get up
3:30-6:30 am: sitting & walking
6:30-7:15 am: breakfast & rest
7:15-11:15 am: sitting & walking
11:15-12:15 pm: lunch & rest
12:15-5 pm: sitting & walking
5-6 pm: study & rest
6-7:30 pm: sitting & walking
7:30 pm-bedtime: personal time
-Saturday Schedule-
3:30 am: get up
4-7 am: sitting & walking
7-7:45 am: breakfast & rest
7:45-11:15 am: sitting & walking
11:15-12:45 pm: lunch & rest
12:45-5 pm: sitting & walking
5-6 pm: study & rest
6-7:30 pm: sitting & walking
7:30 pm-bedtime: personal time
-Sunday Schedule-
3:30 am: get up
4-7 am: sitting & walking
This Dhammayut temple sits in a neighborhood and has a quite large and beautiful Dhamma hall structure. My two visits to the temple over the years have revealed the monastery to be quiet and with few people around. The Dhamma hall has always been locked when I’ve come, thus making it difficult to fully appreciate the many stained glass windows it has.
Wat Buddharatanaram is a large (~20 acres) Dhammayut monastery on the outskirts of Dallas. Its centerpiece is an impressive Bodh Gaya-style chedi, inside of which is a memorial hall housing the viewable relics of nine Dhammayut monks said to have attained enlightenment in the last century. Among the relics are those of Luang Pu Sao, Luang Pu Mun, Luang Ta Mahā Bua, Luang Pu Lui, Luang Pu Khao, Luang Pu Juan, Luang Pu Tate, Luang Por Chob, and a last whose name escapes me. I believe that Wat Buddharatanaram is of the Luang Por Chob lineage.
A monk I know—borne of a Thai mother and an American father—took temporary ordination at Wat Buddharatanaram as a merit-making gesture for his mother. He never disrobed, and 16 years later he remains a monk in Texas.
This is a small monastery not far off of the famous historic route 66 on the edge of Amarillo. During my visit, I practiced a few minutes of chanting as I walked around the stupa then chatted briefly with a lay attendant in the Dhamma hall, which had a second stupa curiously made of hundreds of bottles of water.
Although I saw one monk on the property, due to a significant language barrier I was unable to learn much about the history of the monastery. As I sought to learn a bit more, I was later delighted to find an online photo of one of the senior monks from Chaiya Meditation Monastery at the Amarillo monastery. I suppose the fellowship of Burmese monks in the U.S. is a closeknit one.
Wat Phouttha Samakheetham is a quiet Lao monastery on the edge of Amarillo. It is one of two Lao monasteries in the town, which apparently has a largish and active Lao community. Currently, two monks live at the young (6-7 years old) temple. (The other temple is about 30 years old.) The property has a small residential area, a modest Dhamma hall, an unusual mesh-like stupa that serves as a natural aviary, and much open land surrounding it.
I was warmly welcomed by one of the resident monks, who chatted with me a bit in English about temples in California and Nevada, my brief time in Laos, and about our shared experiences in the Chiang Mai area of northern Thailand.
Upaya Zen Center is a small Zen Buddhist monastery on the outskirts of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The monastery was founded by Roshi Joan Halifax, who remains the abbot.
Although I no longer live or spend much time in Las Vegas, it is always a joy for me to return for a visit to my “home temple” and meditation teacher—Wat Chaiya Dhammavihara & Luang Por Chaiya.
I first came to Wat Chaiya Dhammavihara around January 2017 after an esteemed Thai monk in the U.S. told me I should meet the master—Luang Por Chaiya. And so I went there immediately upon my return to Las Vegas.
Luang Por Chaiya—or Sayadaw U Zeya—is a Burmese monk of more than 50 years. A highly revered meditation master, he was a direct disciple of Mahasi Sayadaw (1904-1982), who is regarded as the father of the modern day vipassana (insight) meditation movement. As such, Luang Por Chaiya is an inspiring example of a sincere and devoted meditation monk.
Raised in the Shan State of Myanmar, Luang Por took novice ordination in 1965 and bhikkhu ordination in 1967. After many years of formal study and practice, in 1988 he was invited to Thailand to teach the Abhidhamma to the monastics at a temple in Petchaburi Province. After traveling to Sri Lanka in 1989, the next year he was invited by the Thai monastic community in Las Vegas to travel to the U.S. The abbot of the Las Vegas monastery where Luang Por stayed passed away in 1992, and the Thai community asked him to become the new abbot. He accepted, and remained in that position until 1995.
In 1995, Luang Por Chaiya stepped down as abbot so that he could undertake an intensive 7-month silent meditation retreat. Afterward, Luang Por and the Thai community established a new monastery—Chaiya Meditation Monastery—which became his new home and remains so today. Each vassa, Luang Por Chaiya continues to undertake 3-month silent meditation retreats.
In the course of training as a lay student of Luang Por Chaiya, I eventually heard of an opportunity to take temporary bhikkhu ordination under him. And so in June 2019, I spent a brief but informative period in intensive monastic training under the great master. It was a profound and difficult experience that I continue to process and grow from.
Yesterday and today I had the good fortune to return to Wat Chaiya Dhammavihara for meditation practice and to speak with Luang Por Chaiya. It was an additional inspiration for me to practice with the many dedicated lay, maechee and monk practitioners that form the body of the monastery community there.
Situated in the busyness of urban Bangkok, Wat Dhammamongkol is the home of 99-year Dhammayut monk Luang Por Viriyang Sirintharo. In robes for 83 years, Luang Por Viriyang is the last living disciple of Luang Pu Mun—founder of the Thai Forest Tradition. He spent four years training with the famous meditation master.
Luang Por Viriyang has an interesting story, including a mysterious “white-robed ascetic” who healed him of childhood paralysis. The temple itself is interesting as well, as it is home to the Willpower Institute, the largest jade Buddha statue in the world, and the tallest stupa in Thailand. The stupa is said to contain relics of Lord Buddha.
Nearly a year ago I was on retreat at a Dhammayut monastery in western Texas when another lay person told me of a “99-year-old super-monk...a student of Luang Pu Mun” that I should seek out in Thailand. I never got the esteemed monk’s name or the location of his temple, and my later attempts to use Google and other resources to identify him were unsuccessful. But randomly, on my last couple of days in Bangkok recently, the hotel concierge suggested I visit Wat Dhammamongkol. I did. And the abbot was none other than Luang Por Viriyang.
On my last morning in Doi Saket recently, we were at Wat Nong Bua to say goodbye to Ajahn Saen and Ajahn Insorn. While sitting for tea with Ajahn Insorn, we shared some of our reflections from our recent experiences teaching at his school for novice monks. He expressed his appreciation and offered us some parting gifts, including two traditional cloth bags holding local honey harvested by one of our new Doi Saket friends—a man we affectionately call “The Beekeeper.”
Ajahn Insorn also gave me a curious amulet with a picture of a youngish monk clad in red robes. “Is he from Myanmar,” I asked, since Thai monks usually wear robes of varying shades of orange—not red. No, he’s Thai, was the reply. His name: Kruba Boonchum.
I was curious why Ajahn Insorn had chosen to give me an amulet of this monk I’d never heard of. After some inquiry, I learned much about the fascinating character of Kruba Boonchum.
As a boy raised in the far north of Thailand and quite near the border with Myanmar, he quickly gained a reputation for his keen interest in intensive meditation practice. Myanmar is famous for having many monks with meditation practices yielding profound results. By the time he took bhikkhu ordination at Wat Suan Dok in Chiang Mai, the young monk already received the title “Kruba,” which is the Lanna (northern Thai) equivalent of “Phra Ajahn”—an honorific suggesting depth of experience.
Kruba Boonchum undertakes solitary intensive 3-month meditation retreats in caves every year during the Rains Retreat, and I’m told that this forest monk once underwent an intensive solitary cave retreat that lasted more than three years, during which he emerged only to receive food offerings left by supporters at the cave entrance.
Kruba Boonchum currently resides in Myanmar but has gained a considerable following in Thailand, Laos, China, and Bhutan as well. He is also renowned for his virtue and for his generosity, giving away everything he’s given. He is a lifelong vegetarian, and eats only fruit and biscuits offered to him by supporters.
Kruba’s fame skyrocketed recently during the multi-week saga of the soccer team trapped in the flooded Chiang Rai cave when he not only correctly prophesied that the team was safe and would be rescued soon but also accurately predicted the day on which they’d be found by the rescuers.
Learning about this super-interesting monk I’d never heard of got me to thinking: how many masters are out there that we’ll never know existed?
This beautiful historical park is reminiscent in layout of the larger Civil War battlefield national parks in the eastern U.S. One can walk or ride a shuttle around the sprawling manicured grounds and admire the many beautiful temple remains scattered all over the place.
The old city of Sukhothai is a spectacle on a November evening during the more-than-a-week-long Loi Kratong Festival. Even during daylight hours, the many ancient temple remains are impressive.
I recently had an opportunity to chat with Ajahn Saen for a bit about the history of his temple—Wat Nong Bua.
Here’s what I came to understand:
The temple was founded in 1881 AD, in a forest where many of the local villagers were afraid to go for fear of ghosts. Traditionally, monks would often establish temples in places that people were afraid to go, in an effort to help them overcome their fears. When Wat Nong Bua was founded, other area temples (such as Wat Phra That Doi Saket) existed but had been abandoned. And so the few families living in Doi Saket would travel to Wat Nong Bua to make merit.
Before the temple was built, poachers would sometimes steal cows and water buffaloes, kill them, and leave their remains in the forest where the temple would eventually be built. Surrounding a big but largely stagnant pond, the forest was also prime habitat for mosquitoes. Perhaps for these reasons, the area was potentially diseased when the temple was founded. As such, in the early days of the temple’s existence, many people would get sick and die not long after visiting.
Ajahn Saen came to Wat Nong Bua in 1980 as a 13-year-old novice. Although he became a novice in Bangkok at Wat Benchamabophit (aka “Marble Temple”) and took bhikkhu ordination at Wat Phra That Doi Saket, Wat Nong Bua has been his home for the nearly 40 years he’s been in robes. Around 1995, the existing abbot of the temple moved away and so the lay community asked Ajahn Saen to be the new abbot. He’d been intending to travel to India for study but instead accepted leadership of Wat Nong Bua.
For many years, area novice monks would attend school at nearby Wat Phra That Doi Saket—many of them walking up the hill to school from their home monasteries—but since the temple was big and busy, and the abbot saw the need to address the inherent tourist element at the temple, it was decided that the school needed to be moved. After discussion between principal Ajahn Insorn and Ajahn Saen it was decided that Wat Nong Bua was a good location for the new school. And so, seven years ago Doi Saket Phadungsasana School was established at Wat Nong Bua. It now serves the needs of some 180 novices.
Never abandoned, today Wat Nong Bua is home to six monks and 14 novices—a typical population for much of the history of the monastery. As from the beginning, the temple has a lot of trees, including a large Bodhi tree more than 100 years old near the school cafeteria. It is a peaceful and warm place, made all the more welcoming by its happy and smiling leader—Ajahn Saen.
This tiny, under-development monastery is only two years old. At present, there appears to be only a small outdoor Dhamma hall, a single kuti, some restrooms, and a screened-in reception area with a charming large framed photo of the famous forest master Luang Por Chah. This simple monastery does not yet even have a sign at its entrance.
We spent a short but pleasant period having tea with the monastery’s only monk—Ajahn Somkiet, a very likable, mid-60-year-old man who happened to speak surprisingly good English.
He shared an inspiring story. Some of the details are unclear to me, but this is the spirit of it:
He first ordained as a monk some 30 years ago but disrobed shortly thereafter. Some time later, after surviving a major heart attack possibly stemming from a stressful career and the pitfalls that often accompany one, he decided to again ordain as a monk. This time, he learned to practice vipassana meditation in the forest.
One day while practicing walking meditation in an isolated area, he started to feel intense pain in his chest. He figured that he was having another heart attack, but realizing that he was far from a hospital he decided that his only hope of surviving would be to use “Dhamma medicine”—that is, to stay with his meditation and concentrate his mind on his present moment experience. As he did so, he had a curious vision in which the pain completely disappeared. It has never returned.
Ajahn Somkiet has since dedicated himself to teaching others. He now offers Sunday school to 30 area students, during which he teaches them vipassana meditation, math and English. The kids’ parents are so appreciative of him that he receives so much alms food that what he doesn’t eat he donates to a local school for novice monks. And he’s so well-liked that out of concern for his welfare, community teenagers will often stay overnight at the temple because they don’t want him to be alone.
Hearing that we had been teaching English in Doi Saket, Ajahn Somkiet encouraged us to return to his temple, to stay, and to help him teach his students. As a way of enticing us, he enthusiastically encouraged us to visit the monastery’s most recent addition—the restrooms. And it was worth it: I have probably not encountered cleaner or more inviting restrooms at a temple in Thailand. Simple but welcoming—just like the rest of the monastery.
This large and extremely elaborate tourism-oriented temple complex is just up the street from Ajahn Toon’s Wat Taachum. We visited the temple on a quiet day with few visitors. We found the architecture and overall motif of the monastery to be visually delightful.
Yesterday, we visited Wat Taachum and its abbot, Ajahn Toon—a resident monk at American Buddhist Meditation Temple from about 2002-2012. Ajahn Toon’s sense of humor, irony, and his solid use of the English language were apparent quickly. We enjoyed lunch and a short chat at this charming and beautiful little temple.
Tham Muang-On is a beautiful cave not far from Doi Saket diving steeply and deeply into the earth from its small entrance, which is sometimes guarded by lots of monkeys. Of the three caves I’ve visited in Thailand (the other two being Tham Dokkham and Tham Chiang Dao), I felt that this was the most beautiful.
Like other caves in mountainous northern Thailand, Tham Muang-On is rich in legend and history. According to one such legend, one year during the rainy season the Buddha and a procession of monks came to the cave at Muang-On and were greeted by a great naga, who offered them food. The Buddha then offered a blessing to the naga, who asked for one of the Buddha’s hairs. The hair, it is said, was subsequently enshrined in a chedi at the top of the mountain.
The famous meditation master Luang Por Lee spent time at Tham Muang-On, which was the piece of history that stoked my interest in seeing the cave. I was fortunate to visit the cave with Ajahn Saen, Phra Muenjan, and Naan Vii. It was an extremely good experience for me to explore the cave, see its many sacred images, and for our small group to collectively chant the Buddha’s first discourse—Dhamma-cakkappavattana Sutta—beneath the natural stalagmite chedi in one of the cave’s major rooms.
The four of us eventually exited the cave then followed the secondary path adjacent to its entrance to the top of the mountain. A number of structures were to be found amongst the trees and rocky outcroppings at the top, including the chedi said to house the sacred hair. I was glad to sit alone for a few minutes of meditation amongst the mountain’s very highest rocks, next to a beautiful Buddha image overlooking the mountains and valleys surrounding me.
The Chiang Dao mountains is an imposing and impressive presence in northern Thailand. Rising steeply above the nearby village of Chiang Dao, these rugged and jungly mountains are home to Chiang Dao Cave and the monastery at its entrance.
An area rich in folklore and history, just inside the entrance to the cave is a structure housing several Buddha images constructed by the Burmese in 1635 AD. In 1929, Luang Pu Mun (the founder of the Thai Forest Tradition) came to Tham Chiang Dao on tudong. This was about six years before he became an arahant in another cave, which is called Tham Dokkham.
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