..续本文上一页monk, according to Achaan Chah. Around him a large monastery grew up.

　　From its beginnings as a few thatched huts in the forest, Wat Ba Pong has developed into one of the largest and best-run monasteries in Thailand. As Achaan Chah”s skill and fame as a teacher have become widespread, the number of visitors and devotees has rapidly increased. In response to requests from devotees throughout Thailand, over fifty branch monasteries under the guidance of abbots trained by Achaan Chah have also been opened, including one near Wat Ba Pong especially designed for the many Western students who have come to seek Achaan Chah”s guidance in the teachings. In recent years several branch monasteries and associated centers have been opened in Western countries as well, most notably the large forest Wat at Chithurst, England, run by Abbot Sumedho, Achaan Chah”s Senior Western disciple.

　　Achaan Chah”s teachings contain what has been called "the heart of Buddhist meditation," the direct and simple practices of calming the heart and opening the mind to true insight. This way of mindfulness or insight meditation has become a rapidly growing form of Buddhist practice in the West. Taught by monks and laypeople who have themselves studied in forest monasteries or intensive retreat centers, it provides a universal and direct way of training our bodies, our hearts, and our minds. It can teach us how to deal with greed and fear and sorrow and how to learn a path of patience, wisdom, and selfless compassion. This book is meant to provide guidance and counsel for those who wish to practice.

　　Achaan Chah”s own practice started early in life and developed through years of wandering and austerity under the guidance of several great forest masters. He laughingly recalls how, even as a child, he wanted to play monk when the other children played house and would come to them with a make believe begging bowl asking for candy and sweets. But his own practice was difficult, he relates, and the qualities of patience and endurance he developed are central to the teachings he gives his own disciples. A great inspiration for Achaan Chah as a young monk came from sitting at his father”s sickbed during the last days and weeks of his father”s life, directly facing the fact of decay and death. ”When we don”t understand death," Achaan Chah teaches, "life can be very confusing." Because of this experience, Achaan Chah was strongly motivated in his practice to discover the causes of our worldly suffering and the source of peace and freedom taught by the Buddha. By his own account, he held nothing back, giving up everything

　　for the Dharma, the truth. He encountered much hardship and suffering, including doubts of all kinds as well as physical illness and pain. Yet he stayed in the forest and sat-sat and watched-and, even though there were days when he could do nothing but cry, he brought what he calls a quality of daring to his practice. Out of this daring eventually grew wisdom, a joyful spirit, and an uncanny ability to help others.

　　Given spontaneously in the Thai and Lao languages, the teachings in this book reflect this joyful spirit of practice. Their flavor is clearly monastic, oriented to the community of men who have renounced the household life to join Achaan Chah in the forest. Hence frequent reference is made to he rather than he or she, and the emphasis is on the monks (an active community of forest nuns also exists) rather than laypersons. Yet the quality of the Dharma expressed here is immediate and universal, appropriate to each of us. Achaan Chah addresses the basic human problems of greed, fear, hatred, and delusion, insisting that we become aware of these states and of the real suffering that they cause in our lives and in our world. This teaching, the Four…

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