What the Buddha Never Taught

By Tim Ward

John Hunt Publishing Ltd.

Copyright © 2013 Tim Ward
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78279-203-1

Contents

Foreword………………………………………………………….xiPreface…………………………………………………………..xv1. The Farang Wants to Go to a Wat…………………………………..12. How Big Is a Stick?……………………………………………..253. Samadhi Suicide: Our Example……………………………………..444. Refugees in the Triple Gem……………………………………….625. Sore Feet on the Noble Path………………………………………816. The Fan Man’s Rapture……………………………………………1007. Bhikkhu Bob and Boomer Bunte Gird Their Loins………………………1188. What Is and Isn’t Bat Shit……………………………………….1389. Mind Over Menu………………………………………………….15810. What the Buddha Never Taught……………………………………18011. A Perfect Place to Hide…………………………………………20112. The Lone Pahkow………………………………………………..22013. The Water Tank Is Made of Metal………………………………….24114. Ajahn Chah Gives a Teaching……………………………………..263Glossary………………………………………………………….284List of Characters…………………………………………………289Postscript, 2010…………………………………………………..292

CHAPTER 1

The FarangWants to Go to a Wat

I told nimalo, the Australian novice, that they atedeep-fried cockroaches on the bus. I expected him tolaugh. “Beetles, not cockroaches,” he told me in all seriousness.Of course. Silly of me. Certainly beetles would be amuch tastier snack.

I rode all day. It was dark when the bus neared the city ofUbon Rajathani, less than fifty kilometres from the Laosborder. Then I started asking other passengers where to getoff for Bung Wai village. The Thais blinked at me, smiledpolitely and let me babble as if it was for my own entertainment.Finally the driver got it into his head that I wanted off.He stopped the coach and let me out into the night. It wasraining. I found a local bus stop nearby.

“This stop for Bung Wai bus?” I said to a young Thai soldierin uniform. He grinned at me.

“Bung Wai bus?” I said to a man wearing glasses and awristwatch. He shrugged his shoulders, smiled shyly andlooked away.

A farmer’s wife controlling two whining children glancedat me nervously. I kept quiet. A bus came. Everybody climbedon board. I put one foot on the steps.

“Bung Wai bus?” I said to the driver. He looked at theticket girl, a short woman who wore the regulation blue skirtand fat legs. She gave a helpless little smile.

“Bung Wai bus Bung Wai village,” I explained.

She looked wordlessly at the driver. He revved the engine,and looked down the highway. I stood my ground, not gettingon, not getting off.

“Bung Wai. Bung Wai!”

The driver gestured impatiently, beckoning me to board.I knew he hadn’t understood. I gave in. Shaking the rainfrom my rucksack, I sat down next to the most-likely-to-be-educatedperson on the bus, a student wearing a white shirtwith three ballpoint pens in his breast pocket.

“This bus go Bung Wai?” I tried again.

The student looked back at me, polite but puzzled.

I unzipped the outer pocket of my pack and pulled out asmall white book. Finding the name I was looking for, I pronouncedit several times in various tones, hoping I’d hit acombination understandable to his Thai ears.

“Pah Nanachat. Pah Nanachat. Me go Wat Pah Nanachat,Bung Wai bloody village.”

The young man’s smile turned a bit wary at my insistence.I nipped through the pages, hoping for a picture of AjahnChah, but it was in the other book, four hundred kilometresaway in Bangkok. I drew my legs up and folded them underme, then placed my hands together in my lap, straightenedmy spine and closed my eyes meaningfully for a few seconds.I opened them again and looked piercingly at the student. Hescratched his head. But the soldier called over to him, andmimicked my posture. The student grinned openly and noddedhis head. Everyone on the bus looked relieved. The farangwants to go to a wat.

The bus, however, had reached Ubon Rajathani by thistime. My hazy sense of direction told me I would have tobacktrack to reach Bung Wai. The student got down with mein the city. Apparently he knew what I wanted, but not whereto find it. He seemed determined to help. He was tall for aThai, almost my height, but skinny and younger than I firsthad thought: fifteen perhaps. My new guide stopped a groupof soldiers on the street. One of them seemed to know theplace for which a foreigner like me would be looking. Hesmiled and spoke in broken English.

“You go farang wat? Wat Pah Pong, Wat Pah Pong.”

“I go Wat Pah Nanachat, Wat Pah Nanachat. AjahnChah.”

“Ajahn Chah, Ajahn Chah. Wat Pah Pong. Wat PohPong,” he corrected me.

“I see. Why not? Wat Pah Pong then.”

Everybody seemed happy about this decision. The soldiershailed a tuk-tuk for the student and me. Wat Pah Pongwas also mentioned in Ajahn Chah’s books so I assumedsomebody there would at least be able to speak English. InBangkok, one can be lazy. English will get you by. Out herein the northeast you might as well speak Portuguese.

The tuk-tuk driver said he would take us to Pah Pongmonastery for thirty baht. The three wheeler drove us eastthrough the rest of the city then out along a muddy dirt roadinto the jungle. In twenty minutes we arrived at a set of greatiron gates. They were locked tight. The student found a smallside door in the high concrete wall which was open. It was ablack night and still raining. I pulled my flashlight from thebottom of my pack and went through the small entrance withthe student clutching my arm. Beyond the wall we found ahuge hole in the road about twenty metres wide. My lightwas reflected by puddles on the bottom. We could see thatthe sides were smooth, like an excavation pit.

“I guess Pah Pong isn’t here right now,” I said to my guide.He pulled me back through the gate. Outside, our driver wastalking with the proprietor of a small noodle shop near thewall. His chairs were all piled up for the night on top of ricketywooden tables. A kerosene lamp flickered. He shook hishead as we joined the driver. He pointed to the road leadingwest from the gates. “Pah Nanachat.” I heard him say.

“Yes, Pah Nanachat!” I nodded furiously. Our driver tooknew directions and the three of us crawled back into his tuk-tuk.He stuck a dipstick into his petrol tank and mutteredsomething quietly. Then he started the engine. We roaredalong the slippery new trail until it opened onto a differenthighway. There the driver hesitated. The student argued withhim over which way to turn. Finally we turned right, backtowards the city. But the student harangued the driver untilhe turned around and headed in the opposite direction. Whenwe neared the lights of a small roadside village, the driverstopped and left his seat to get help in a nearby house. Hereturned, giving us a confident thumbs up signal. Half anhour later we were completely lost. The engine began tosputter in the rain. The driver seemed ready to mutiny, let meoff on the highway and go home. He and the student arguedloudly. A wooden signpost loomed in our headlight. It waswritten in Thai and English: ‘Wat Pah Nanachat. Bung WaiInternational Forest Monastery.’ Together we made gleefulnoises. The tuk-tuk followed the turn off. It was only a mudand gravel track. We were soon surrounded by jungle. Afootpath appeared through the rain. The tuk-tuk slitheredsideways in the open muddy space next to it. The driver lefthis engine running.

I gave him what he asked, one hundred baht for the job,and thanked them both. I prayed they would have enoughpetrol to get back to town safely. My student waved at meas the machine swung around. After watching the little lightdisappear down the road, I clicked on my flashlight, shoneit into the dense, wet trail and wondered what comes out atnight when the rains flood the earth. Pack slung over onearm, I walked into the black jungle.

I expected a nerve-steeling walk of several kilometresbefore reaching the forest retreat. It irritated me when thegrey outlines of buildings emerged after only five minutes.Ahead I saw lights. The path widened and the tree coverthinned as I reached a large barn-like building. A side doorwaywas open. It was a temple. At the front was an altar likea stage, dominated by two large brass Buddhas. Smaller brassfigures knelt in worship on either side. Lesser images in frontof the main idols glittered by the light of two candles. In frontof the altar, five rows of red mats had been set out. In the backrow sat a young man dressed in white. His head had beenshaven. He sat in typical Thai meditation posture, legs crossedwith the left foot resting on the right calf. His hands werefolded in his lap, eyes closed, still as the Buddha images. Hetook no notice of me. He was Caucasian.

I bowed three times to the statues, as Tan Sumana Tissahad shown me, touching my forehead to the ground threetimes from a kneeling position. I took a seat in the third rowand folded up my legs, just to try the place out. To the leftof the altar stood a glass case containing a complete humanskeleton.

I repeated my bows, stood, and left the temple in searchof an office. No one was expecting me. In the rain again, Inoticed that light was coming from a window at the back of thetemple. There was a door. I heard voices inside so I knocked.It opened. A white-skinned man wearing white robes blinkedinto the dark at me through steel-rimmed spectacles.

“Do you speak English?” I asked.

“I suppose so,” he said humourlessly.

“I’m sorry I’ve come so late,” I stammered. “I took a daybus. The tuk-tuk got lost in the rain. I just arrived.”

“Yes,” he said. He turned to an adolescent Thai boy wearingochre robes seated next to a tape recorder on the floor ofthe room, and spoke to him in Thai.

“I will take you to the Ajahn,” said the man, turning backto me.

I followed his white robes across the clearing, into thejungle again. They seemed luminous in the night. The rainhad stopped but water dripped everywhere from the densecover overhead. We came to a small wooden house raisedhigh off the ground by stilts.

“Sawadi krup,” said my new guide, as we walked up towardsthe dark building.

A dark figure appeared at the railing above. A voice spokedown to us in Thai. When the reason for the interruptionso late at night was explained, the figure descended the widewooden staircase. I shone my flashlight on him and was surprisedto see he was another Westerner. The man was talland thin, perhaps forty years old—but with no hair. He had aski jump nose. His eyes seemed blue beneath his pink scalp.

“Thank you, Michael,” the Ajahn said. The man in whiteraised his palms together in front of his face in a wai, the Thaigesture of respect. He turned, and walked back through thejungle like a ghost.

“We can sit down here,” said the Ajahn. He wore the ochrerobes typical of Theravada Buddhist monks, a muddy yellow-brown,but his accent was Australian. We sat on the marblesurface of the foundation beneath his quarters, he on a lowplatform, me kneeling in front of him.

I explained briefly that a monk in Bangkok had given metwo of Ajahn Chah’s books on meditation and had recommendedWat Pah Nanachat as the best place in Thailand forforeigners to learn how to put the Buddha’s teachings intopractice. I said I wanted to stay for three months or so.

The head monk nodded. “I’ve been expecting you. Fornow you can sleep in the guest room above the kitchen. Onceyou get to know your way around, you may shave your head.That’s the sign you wish to stay for some time and practise.We will give you a kuti to live in once you have been shaven.You may think it is strange that we attach so much importanceto shaving the hair, but people are attached to theirhair. Here we teach how to overcome our attachments. Thisis the way to end suffering. You start with the hair. There’sno hurry though. When you are ready. There’s a lot to learnwhen you first get here. I won’t say much now. It’s late andyou will forget.

“You will hear the bell at three in the morning. Everyoneis expected to be in the sala—that’s the main temple—bythree thirty for morning chanting and group meditation. Themeal is at eight. We eat only once a day. Some people findthis difficult to adjust to at first. It’s easy to be attached to oldhabits. Now, I’ll get some blankets and show you where youwill sleep.”

“By the way,” I said, “my name is Tim. I’m a Canadian.”

“Fine. Before you get up you may as well learn it’s customaryto bow three times whenever you come into the presenceof an Ajahn and whenever an interview is over.”

I did my bows.

“Tomorrow we’ll talk about proper ways of bowing andsitting,” he said.

The room above the kitchen was huge, with a high roofand many windows. I opened them all for the cool. The wholebuilding was made of wood. The floorboards held a darkglow. Painted on one wall was a familiar—but out of place—TibetanWheel of Samsara. In the centre of the wheel, a pig, arooster and a snake chased each other in a circle. They representedignorance, desire and hatred, the three causes of sufferingwhich bind all beings to the endless cycle of existence.All living beings are continually reborn in the six realmswhich were shown as radiating outward from the centre circleof the wheel. In each realm there was suffering. The hellbeings suffered physical torment; the hungry ghosts of thespirit realm, with their thin throats and huge bellies, wereincapable of gratifying their cravings of thirst and hunger.In the animal realm, beasts suffered from fear and ignorance.Amongst the various activities of the human realm, there waspoverty, cruelty and pain. The Titan-like asuras, envying thegods, devoted themselves to perpetual war with heaven. Buteven the gods in the deva-realm of bliss, suffered. All beingswill die and take rebirth according to Buddhist doctrine.When gods die, they fall again into the lower worlds. Theysuffer the fear of death. The entire wheel, the realms of godand hell being alike, was clasped in the yellow teeth and clawsof a red-eyed demon. This was the first Buddhist truth: life issuffering. Yet Buddha was also depicted in each realm of thewheel, preaching his message of release.

A bell rang in the dark. The clear tone reverberated throughthe jungle. I sat up on the floor to listen, to clear the sleepfrom my head and remember what it was. Three o’clock.

The air outside was cool. I joined the other dark figurescoming out of the jungle, moving towards the sala. Inside Isat in the back row with four other men, all dressed in whiteclothing. The row ahead of us seated three people wearingwhite robes. One of them was Michael. Ahead of them satthe monks and novices wearing ochre, about twelve of themaltogether. The community was smaller than I had imagined,which pleased me. We sat in silence for an hour. A few monksstood up and walked to the rear of the sala where they pacedback and forth. I had never seen walking meditation practisedbefore. I closed my eyes and searched for the point ofconcentration, for the light sensation of air moving throughmy nostrils, rushing against my upper lip. Here I would learnvipassana meditation, the meditation which begins with simpleawareness of natural body sensation, the feel of feet onthe ground, of inbreathing and outbreathing, returning themind to that which sustains it, establishing it there, free ofthe illusions and fantasies which crowd our everyday lives.

Images whirled behind my closed eyes, though I tried toconcentrate. Fresh yellow pineapple wedges eaten on the bus.Sugar cane juice sticking to my fingers. Hair like black rawsilk falling down the back of the Tourism Information Officer.Her Thai smile. Phra Sumana Tissa in Bangkok, ticklingme when I tried to bow to him. Rambutan, all red and hairyon the outside, sweet and white inside, a most exotic fruit.What could be more disgusting than fried cockroaches,served up in a sterile plastic bag?

A small gong sounded from the front of the sala. Thewalking figures returned to their seats. Everybody knelt informal posture, buttocks resting on heels, back straight andpalms pressed together at the chin in the wai position. TheAjahn crawled forward on his knees towards a photograph infront of the Buddha statues. He lit a candle on either side ofit. In the dim light I could see it was a picture of an old Thaimonk. A special mat had been set in front of the picture.Anyone who was seated on it would naturally be facing themonks, not the Buddhas. It was the teacher’s seat for AjahnChah. Only his photograph faced us.

The gong rang again. The Ajahn’s voice rose in a strongdeep monotone chant, “YO SO,” vowels drawn out, vibratingthrough the quiet dark hall. The monks, novices andwhite ones joined their voices to his in praise of the Buddha.”BHAGAVAN ARAHAT SAMASAMBUDDHO …” Theychanted in Pali, the language of Theravada Buddhist texts,reputed to contain the original words and teachings ofGautama Buddha. Pali was once the common language ofnorthern India where Gautama Siddhartha Buddha lived. InThailand, Pali is a mystical religious language, chanted by alldevotees but understood only by a small minority of educatedmonks. It filled the sala, creating a rhythm out of longand short sounds. There was some intonation in the nasalhum of it, but it remained free of song, free of the swell ofemotion. A severe, a solemn, a detached offering to the silentbrass images before us.

Then it was dawn. Outside light leaked into the sala. Wesat in silence until the bell rang again. Three times we bowedto the altar. Three times we bowed to the photograph of ourabsent teacher, Ajahn Chah. In silence the monks and othersstood. They rolled the mats and returned them to a shelf atthe rear of the hall. We all took small grass brooms from alarge wicker basket and swept the floor clean, gathering dustand dead moths together with hundreds of tiny black antscaught while foraging for food. All was brushed into a pilethen swept into a dustpan and shaken out of the door. Not aword was spoken, not a sign from anyone that a new face hadjoined them in the night.
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