Ajahn Chah - Stay Alert

Excerpts taken from the book “Living Dharma” by Jack Kornfield, and speeches by Ajahn Chah.

Ajahn Chah (1918 - 1992) was a great master of the “Thai Forest Tradition” lineage of Theravada Buddhism.

Ajahn Chah (or Chah Subhaddo) was born in a rural village near the city of Ubon Rajathani, Thailand. Following tradition, after completing his basic education, he was ordained as a novice monk at the local village monastery, where he spent the first years of his monastic life studying the foundations of Dharma, the Pali language, and the scriptures.

After a serious illness and the death of his father, Ajahn Chah recognized that despite his exhaustive studies, he no longer felt close to having a personal understanding of the end of suffering. So, in 1946, he abandoned his studies and went on a pilgrimage. He walked for several years, sleeping in forests and receiving food in the villages he passed through, spending time in monasteries, assimilating the teachings and practicing meditation.
It was during his stay at the Wat Kow Wongkot monastery that he met Ajahn Mun, a highly revered meditation master, who taught him that, although the teachings are indeed extensive, in their essence they are very simple:
“With awareness, if we see that everything arises in the ‘heart-mind’. There lies the true path!”
This succinct and direct teaching was a revelation for Ajahn Chah, transforming his way of practicing. The path was clear!

Beloved and respected in his country as a man of great wisdom, Ajahn Chah became an influential teacher and founder of great monasteries of his tradition.
His teachings contain what can be called the “heart of Buddhist meditation” – the simple and direct practices of calming the heart and opening the mind to the true understanding of truth. This form of constant vigilance rapidly expanded as a Buddhist practice in the West, teaching us to deal with denser mental states, such as fear, greed, or feelings of loss, and to learn the path of patience, wisdom, and selfless compassion. According to Ajahn Chah, training the mind is not just about sitting with our eyes closed or perfecting a meditation technique. It is about a great renunciation.


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