© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved – Sakon Nahon, Thailand

Present throughout Thailand, Burma and Sri Lanka, Theravada Buddhism is also known as the Southern School of Buddhism, whose tradition is grounded in the discourses recorded in the Pali Canon – the oldest Buddhist scripture known.

Theravada literally means the Way of the Elders, and is named so due to its strict adherence to the original teachings and rules of monastic discipline expounded by the Buddha. The Thai Forest tradition is one branch of the Theravada Buddhist tradition which upholds the original monastic rules of discipline laid down by the Buddha in its strictest form.

The Theravada Forest tradition strongly emphasizes meditative practice and the realisation of enlightenment as the focus of monastic life. As such, forest monasteries are primarily oriented around practicing the Buddha’s path of contemplative insight, including living a life of austerity and frugality with few possessions.

Despite being located in remote areas of Thailand, forest monastics continue to live in daily interaction with and dependence upon the lay community who provides  material support such as alms food and cloth for robes in exchange for spiritual teachings.

Unlike laypeople, the forest monks follow an extensive 227 rules of conduct. They are required to be celibate, to eat only between dawn and noon, and not to handle money. They also commonly engage in a practice known as “tudong” in which they wander on foot through the countryside either on pilgrimage or in search of solitary retreat places in nature, where they are one with nature – eating and lying where able.

The forest tradition pre-dates Buddha, whom at the age of twenty nine, giving up his palace life in search of the way beyond birth, sickness, aging and death joined the Brahmins and other spiritual seekers in ancient India in the wilderness and mountains.

Buddha: Born in the forest . Enlightened in the forest . Taught in the forest . Died in the forest.

Theravada forest monks continues the practice, teachings and codes of monastic conduct expounded by Buddha 2,500 years ago, introduced by Ajahn Sao and Ajahn Mun; popularised by Ajahn Chah where to date there are more than 200 forest branch monasteries in Ajahn Chah’s lineage spreading throughout Thailand and the West, notably in England, France, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Italy, Canada and the United States.