Stillness Flowing

I would recommend this lovely though long book to anyone interested in Buddhism as a religion. It’s not a guide to meditation or a pithy and inspiring set of dhamma talks. Instead, Ajahn Jayasaro provides us with not merely a comprehensive view of Ajahn Chah’s life and teachings (as the subtitle explains) but a deep background on the entire Thai Forest tradition. Part of the task he took on was to restore the context so notably missing from something like Gold Wrapped in Rags. So while he tells the story of the very hard core dhamma of the early Ajahn Chah, he also explains that this was an effective way of teaching and practicing in the Thai culture in which it evolved. Many young men in Thailand came to be monks for just a few years or even just a season, before returning to lay life. Taking robes could be seen as a mere rite of social passage, and in this context, students would require a certain discipline to go beyond the introductory phase and uncover who was suited to a deeper calling. In addition, Thai culture apparently does not suffer from the crippling self-doubt, self-castigation, and reactive self-assertion so common in the West, but instead tends towards a more natural self-confidence and indolence. In this context a hard core and almost fiery dhamma focused on renouncing sensual attachments makes a lot more sense. And in fact, Jayasaro points out that the softer, funnier Ajahn Chah so famous the West, is likewise a bit of a mask adopted as a skillful means of teaching neurotic overly intellectual Westerners. In short, I really appreciated how much time the book took to situate the teachings as a function of the context. I feel like I also now have some deeper insight into the particular monastic soil from which they grew.