The Early Years of Venerable Ajahn Chah

　　The Life and Teachings of Venerable Ajahn Chah Adapted from Uppalamani

　　It was in Bahn Gor, a small village a few hours walk to the south of Ubon town in the Isahn region of Thailand, that one of the greatest monks of the modern era was born, and close to which he would later establish a forest monastery that was to attain a world-wide reputation. His full monastic title came to be Tan Chao Khun Phra Bodhinyana Thera, but he is known familiarly as Luang Por (Venerable Father) Chah and to his disciples as simply “Luang Por”.

　　Luang Por Chah was born on the seventh waning day of the seventh moon of the Year of the Horse, 1918. He was the fifth child of eleven born to Mah and Pim Chooangchote, who, like the vast majority of their generation, were subsistence rice farmers. The name Chah means clever, capable and resourceful. In accordance with custom, Luang Por”s mother gave birth to him kneeling, her arms above her head grasping a rope suspended from the rafters of the house. Afterwards she endured fifteen days of confinement, lying with her stomach as close as possible to a charcoal brazier to “dry out” her womb – an ancient custom that still survived in the countryside despite, some seventy years previously, King Mongkut railing against it as “this senseless and monstrous crime of having women smoked and roasted”. In the first months after his weaning, Luang Por”s mother would have fed him by chewing and masticating sticky rice in her own mouth first and then gently spooning it into his.

　　Luang Por was born into an affectionate and respected household, one of the wealthier families in a closely-knit community. The Isahn villages of those days, isolated by forests and vulnerable to the vagaries of the weather and the caprice of spirits, put great store on sharing, generosity, and harmony. The model was of an extended family, and over the years marriages between inhabitants of a village tended to make it one in fact. Houses were made of wood, roofed with grass thatch, and raised on stilts as protection from floods and wild animals. They were placed close together with no fixed boundaries between them. Life was conducted on a large open space upstairs, with rooms used only for sleeping. People not only heard their neighbour”s family dramas, they could see them as well. There was no concept of privacy, much less a desire for it. The villagers subscribed to respect for monks, elders, and spirits; consideration for the feelings of others; and a sense of shame. They relished laughter and conversation. Luang Por grew up with a strong sense of community and place and “the gift of the gab”.

　　The adjective often used to describe Luang Por in his old age – ebullient – is the one that comes most readily to mind when picturing him as a child. He was a chunky, exuberant young lad and yet, at the same time, keen and perceptive – nobody”s fool. He was full of fun and vigour, with the sunny, buoyant disposition so common to his people; but even then he showed a glint of steel in his ways. He was both, a talker and a doer, the natural leader of his group of friends, the one whom everyone wanted to be close to and without whom all games and adventures seemed dull. Luang Por bore the round face and flat “lion”s nose” common to his race. More distinctively, his mouth was unusually wide and compelling – surely destined one day to have memorable things to say – while in charming contrast to the powerful symmetry of his face, his right ear was larger than the left. His childhood friends remember Luang Por”s mildness. They say he never enforced his dominance with bullying or coercion; no one can recall him in a fight. He was a mediator in his companion”s disputes and, from an early age, drawn by the yellow robe.…

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