INNER PEACEMAKER WORKING FOR WORLD PEACE
LOK3010
Luang Poh Jarun’s reputation reached my
ears many years ago, while I was living in Chiengmai. I had been lying there for almost two
years and had formed many good relationships with people native to Chiengmai. In fact, I became very close to one of
my fellow practioners while in the temple together and we became life-long
friends. A year or so before her
death, Pa Nu wanted to make a last pilgrimage to pay respect to and receive
instruction from some of the respected meditation monks throughout
Thailand. A group of Buddhist
practioners were organizing a
pilgrimage tour, but Pa Nu was short of funds to be able to go and so I
have her the funds she lacked.
Thus, she went on the pilgrimage to visit temples and meditation masters
“down south”, that is, anything south of the old northern kingdom. She returned a few weeks later and told
me all about her journey and the meditation monks whom she had met and been instructed
by. Of all those she had met she
particularly focused on one during our conversations: Venerable Bhikkhu Jarun,
known as Luang Poh Jarun (Venerable Father Jarun). She encouraged me to go and see him and
ask for instruction in meditation, saying that he was a most unusual, with
ability to teach anyone willing to ask for instruction, and with the insight to
know at crucial times exactly what the meditator needed to advance in
meditation. She said, further, that
he was complete open to everyone, no matter the nationality, the religion, or
ethnic origin. She teasingly
insisted that he would even instruct a “western barbarian” like me. I was very curious to meet him and
wondered just how effective his instruction might be, but it would be many
years before I would actually meet him, and several years after my good friend’s
passing unfortunately. She would
have been very pleased to hear that I had at last met Venerable Luang Poh of
Ambhavan.
Actually,
both Pa Nu and I were initiated into meditation practice by the same teacher,
one of the most respected teachers in the North, Venerable Ajarn Thong, now
abbot of Phra That Chom Thong Temple in Chom Thong. Like Venerable Luang Poh Jarun, he speaks
no English or “world language”.
Both, however, have taught people from all over the world, and have
traveled extensively to teach those who are unable to travel to Thailand. And as Luang Poh Jarun teaches the same
method as Ajarn Thong, there was no difficulty for me in seeking further
instruction from him. Pa Nu
encouraged me many times to make the journey “south” to ask for instruction, as
opportunities to be taught by such a good, gifted and serious teacher were
rare. But after leaving the
monkhood and Chiengmai, losing my good friend to cancer, and eventually leaving
Thailand, I never expected to have the opportunity to meet the abbot of
Ambhavan Temple.
In
1995 I was lecturing at Chulalongkorn University when a university in South
Korea contacted me to see if I would be willing to take up the position as
assistant professor and dean of the newly established Faculty of Foreign
Languages. After long inner
struggle, I agreed and for the next four years I lived in South Korea, making
annual trips to Thailand to see my meditaion teacher and good friends. Naturally, I remained in contact with my
many former colleagues at Chulalongkorn University, and shortly after having
returned to Korea one year, I got an email message from one of the professors
at Chulalongkorn asking me if I would be willing to help a friend of hers, a
professor and writer, by editing and proof reading one of her books that she
had recently translated into English.
Professor
Suchitra sent me her manuscript for Fruit of Karma, a collection of
episodes about Luang Poh’s personal experiences, to Korea. I worked on it in Korea and while in the
States, too. I remember at the time
thinking that the monk who was the central character of her book of episodes
seemed a bit familiar to me. As I
worked on the manuscript I came to realize that this very monk was the
inspiring teacher who my good friend had admonished me to seek out for
instruction. It had been several
years since my friends’s pilgrimage to Ambhavan. And, though I felt that any possible
future connection had disappeared with her death a short year after her
pilgrimage, I was surprised to see that connecting had just taken a little
longer tht expected. However
actually meet Professor Suchitra and thus establish a “connection” to Ambhavan
Temple and to Luang Poh Jarun.
Having
settled once again in Thailand in 1999, to assume a position as professor in the
Department of English of the Faculty of Arts at Chulalongkorn University, I was
soon to be invited by Professor Suchitra to visit Ambhavan Temple and meet
Luang Poh Jarun, the monk whom I had been encouraged to meet so many years ago
and whom I had come to know quite a lot more about through my work on Professor
Suchitra’s manuscript. Nonetheless,
I remained rather skeptical and would reserve judgement until I had met the
teacher. I had lived in Thailand
for sixteen years prior to my return in 1999 and had had the opportunity to
meet some of the most revered meditation teachers and to travel to far and
often remote places to do so. I was
familiar, either through personal contact or through reading, with the
teachings of many of the meditation-monks, many other lesser-known forest
monks, and scholar-monks. Moreover,
since I was not born into Buddhism but had “become” a Buddhist after graduation
from university, I was, as I have always been, a skeptical listener and
seeker. Over the years of studying
and practicing the Buddha’s teachings I have made a loose list mentally of
criteria by which to measure the validity and integrity of what I hear and of
those whom I meet. Three of the
criteria on this list is the exclusivity, the selectivity, and the authenticity
elements of a person’s understanding and teaching. If one claims to have “the only way” or “the
only method”, if one accepts only certain people for training as their
disciple, or if one’s own personal life and actions do not accord with their
own instructions, then, in my mind, they fall short or the mark and do not
measure up. They are not ready to
accept disciples or to teach others.
Luang
Poh Jarun made a very clear and immediate impression on me from the moment we
met. I could perceive right away
that he was very serious about the work he was doing and the instruction he was
giving to the people that fill the meeting hall every day fo the year. But I continued to cling to my
skepticism, not wanting to be fooled and waste my time with a false
teacher. If I were to believe,
without reflection or observation, what many had told me or what I had read
about this monk, I could only but come to the conclusion that he did not even
take time to sleep or eat, or engage in the mundane activities that nature and
necessity often demand. He seemed
to be kept much too busy teaching, instructing, redirecting and guiding people
from all over Thailand, from many parts of the world, in face-to-face meetings,
by phone, perhaps by fax and email too for all I could tell.
Professor
Suchitra took me to see Luang Poh Jarun several times on day-trips, to listen,
to ask questions, to observe and to learn. Then, in late 1999, I decided to do a
retreat with him for seven days. I
was able to hear him speak on several occasions and to obtain information about
his past, about the many, sometimes very troubled, people who were helped by
him, about his attitudes and his conduct.
From all that I gathered and from personel observation, I believe that
Luang Poh is a true practioner and teacher. He is not merely performing a role or
playing the part of a monk or teacher.
He is very serious about his own personal conduct and practice and about
the practice of whose who ask for his guidance and instruction. Also, he teaches everyone who comes to
him for instruction, without discrimination of any kind, regardless of age,
gender, race, creed, ability, or nationality. He and Ambhavan areopen to all, and
without any intention to convert people of other religious beliefs. Further, though he teaches a particular
method of meditation that is well-known in Thailand and Burma, and now many
places in the world, he does not expound that it is the only method to peace
and enlightenment, but that any method that uses the Four Foundations of
Mindfulness taught by the Buddha as its core is the right and proper practice. His sole reason for teaching is to lead
those who come to him to self-realization, to guide them to an understanding of
who they are, through their own effort.
His intention is to help people find inner peace and stability so that
there can be a chance for outer peace and stability. Without a psychological and spiritual
shift in attitude and attention away from ignorance of who we are, away from
the false view of ourselves and the world, there can be little peace within the
individual. Without a personal,
inner change in perception and attitude, there is little chance for temporary,
momentary peace, and no chance at all for true, lasting peace and stability in
the world. Leading people to
personal, inner peace is the only way to begin to create communal and world
peace. Luang Poh vowed many years
ago to gring about his change in as many people as his physical being and
energy will allow. He has been and
is a revered and dynamic teacher who has contributed greatly to the inner peace
and stability of thousands.
Associate Prof. Donald W. Sandage
Department of English
Faculty of Arts
Chulalongkorn University
Bangkok
July 9, 2001