Ajahn Maha Bua Nanasampanno

Ajahn Maha Bua Ñāṇasampanno ( Thai : หลวง ตา มหา บัว ญาณ สั ม ปัน โน - pronunciation: [lǔaŋ taː máhǎː bua jaːnnásǎmpannoː] ; * August 12, 1913 in Ban Tat, Thailand as Bua Lohitdee ; † January 30, 2011 ) officially Phra Thamma Visuthimongkon - ( พระ ธรรม วิ สุทธิ มงคล ) was a Buddhist monk highly revered in Thailand and abbot of Wat Pa Ban Tat monastery in Udon Thani Province . He was also respectfully called Ajahn Maha Bua (other spelling: Acariya Mahā Boowa ), which literally means "venerable teacher Great Lotus".

Life

Bua Lohitdee was born in a village in Tambon Ban Tat ( บ้าน ตาด ), which is in the province of Udon Thani in the northeast of Thailand. He was one of 17 children in a family of rice farmers. As a child he finished school after the third grade, which in his time corresponded to the highest level of education that could be achieved in the village.

On 12 May 1934 he was at Wat Yothanimit in the province of Udon Thani to theravada - Buddhist monk ordained . His teacher, the Venerable Chao Khun Dhammachedi of the order of the Thammayut-nikai , gave him the name of the order Ñāṇasampanno , which comes from the Pali , which means something like "one who has wisdom ".

In the following years he studied the Pali language and the Buddhist canon . After seven years of study he passed the exams for the third degree of the Pali studies and the highest degree of the degree programs on the Dhamma and the Vinaya. His Pali degree entitles him to hold the title of Mahā .

Now he could devote himself entirely to the meager life of a Dhutanga monk (hiking / forest monk) in accordance with the Thai forest tradition . Since the meditation exercises on his wanderings were initially unsuccessful, he decided to search for Ajahn Man Bhuridatta , one of the most famous monks and meditation teachers at the time. He finally met him in 1942 in the northeast region of Thailand , the so-called Isan , and was able to convince him to become his teacher. He lived under the guidance of Ajahn Man until his death in 1949.

Ajahn Mahā Bua soon became one of the central figures of a group of monks who continued the Kammaṭṭhāna Dhutanga tradition , which had been almost forgotten at the time, and thus wanted to preserve the unique practice of Ajahn Man for future generations. In the course of these efforts, he published the biography of Ajahn Man in 1971.

In the 1960s, the onset of modernization and the associated deforestation of the Thai forests caused the Dhutanga monks to reorient themselves. They had to learn to limit their wanderings or even to give up completely. Some teachers, including Ajahn Mahā Bua, chose to establish permanent monastic communities where forest monks were provided with a suitable environment in which to live on their hard-won virtues, such as renunciation, strict discipline, and intense meditation in the sense of Ajahn Man. This is how the so-called “forest monasteries” (Thai: วัด ป่า - Wat Pa) came into being, which received a large number of practicing monks and thus developed into major centers of Buddhist practice.

From the 1960s, a community of lay people gathered around Ajahn Maha Bua, who traveled to him from Bangkok and the central region to hear his sermons and to be close to him. Maha Bua, like other monks who come from farming families, is known for a very popular and direct language with clear comparisons and images. His disciples worshiped him as an arahant , a consummate Buddhist saint, during his lifetime .

Ajahn Mahā Bua's forest monastery Wat Pa Ban Tat in Udon Thani was founded by the monk students themselves, who came here for purely spiritual reasons to receive instructions from an authentic master. Even monks from western countries were later ordained here; some still live here, others founded similar monasteries in western foreign countries. Former Vice Abbot Ajahn Pannavaddho, who was born in England, died in August 2004.

Maha Bua repeatedly commented on political sermons in his sermons. During the Asian economic crisis of 1997/98, which hit Thailand hard, he launched the “Thai help Thai” (Thai chuai Thai) campaign . In order to save the Thai state treasure, it collected over 3 tons of gold from wealthy donors by the end of 2000; by October 2007 it was 11.5 tons of gold and 10.2 million US dollars in foreign currency. This national campaign (promoted by Ajahn Maha Bua with religious-nationalist rhetoric) was largely responsible for the relatively quick recovery in Thailand after the crisis and the over-punctual repayment of the loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Ajahn Maha Bua, however, did not agree with the amalgamation of the donations, which in his view should be reserves for an absolute emergency, with the government budget and their use for loan repayment. He furiously criticized Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai's ruling Democratic Party . In contrast, he supported Thaksin Shinawatra of the Thai-Rak-Thai party , who became prime minister in 2001, in his proceedings for allegedly concealing assets. In the following years, however, he developed into a sharp critic of Thaksin. In 2005 he appointed Somdet Kiaw of the Mahanikai Order as Interim Patrarch, who was supposed to take over the official duties in place of the seriously ill and de facto incapable of acting Supreme Patriarch Somdet Phra Nyanasamvara . In a sermon published in the opposition newspaper Phuchatkan ("Manager"), Maha Bua claimed in September 2005 that Thailand was under dark influence, Thaksin wanted to become president (i.e. replace the king) and trample the Thai nation, religion and monarchy . Maha Bua was hostile to democratic governments because elected politicians would always be greedy and abuse their positions for their own benefit. The king, on the other hand, was for him an embodiment of the Dhamma and a just “father” of the nation.

Mahā Bua died on January 30, 2011 at the age of 97.

Appreciation

The following important information is missing from this article or section:

German translation - Daiichi 12:36, Jan. 31, 2011 (CET)

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The Cistercian monk Thomas Merton , who was particularly concerned with Buddhism on his trip to Asia, commented on Wisdom Develops Samadhi in his diaries :

The Thai Buddhist concept of sila, the "control of outgoing exuberance", is basic, somewhat like the Javanese rasa. There is a good pamphlet on the "Forest Wat", the idea of ​​wisdom, beginning with sila. This small book, really only an extended article, "Wisdom Develops Samadhi" by the Venerable Acariya Maha Boowa Nanasampanno, a translation from the Thai published in Bangkok, is a spiritual masterpiece.

Ajahn Maha Bua followers have founded a forest temple in Kanchanaburi Province , which is named after Ajahn Maha Bua. It is known to tourists as the " Tiger Temple " because the monks keep several Indochinese tigers there.

Fonts (selection)

• Wisdom Develops Samadhi . Translated by Bhikkhu Pannavaddho into English. The original appeared in May 1967 in the Thai magazine Visakha Puja , a publication of the Buddhist Association of Thailand.
• Dhamma Teaching of Acariya Maha Boowa in London , Thailand 1974. ( The talks and answers to questions given by Ven. Acariya Maha Boowa [Bhikkhu Nanasampanno Maha Thera] while visiting the Dhammapadipa Vihara in London in June 1974. - PDF file ; ZIP ; 577 kB)
• Straight from the heart. Thirteen Talks on the Practice of Meditation . Thammasat University Press 1987. ( PDF of the English version ( ZIP ; 28.9 MB) or the German version )
• Things as They are . P. Pamphan Panich, Thailand 1988. ( English PDF file ; ZIP ; 31.6 MB)
• Venerable Acariya Mun Bhuridatta Thera: A Spiritual Biography . 3rd edition, Thailand Forest Dhamma of Wat Pa Baan Taad, Wat Pa Baan Taad (Udorn Thani / Thailand) 2005, ISBN 974-92007-4-8 . ( English PDF file ; ZIP ; 4.2 MB)

Explanations of the names and titles

The Honorable Ajahn Mahā Bua can be called in different ways, the name can appear in different spellings. It can be one of the following names, but also a combination of the individual components.

• Full title: "Ajahn Maha Bua Ñāṇasampanno":
  • Ajahn ( อาจารย์ , read: [ ʔaːt͡ɕaːn ], Sanskrit Acariya , "teacher", other spellings "Acharn" or "Ajaan") as an honorary title for learned and deserving monks.
  • Maha ( มหา ) as a title after obtaining the third degree of the Pali examination;
  • Bua ( บัว , spelling in the English-speaking world: "Boowa", literally: "Lotus") as a nickname, short name;
  • Ñāṇasampanno , other spellings: Yannasampanno or Nyanasampanno as a religious name.
• Respectful, shortened name and title in Thailand: "Luang Ta Maha Bua":
  • Luang Ta ( หลวง ตา , "Venerable grandfather (maternal side)") as an honorary title for a particularly highly venerated monk (other highly venerated monks are referred to as Luang Pu "Venerable grandfather (paternal side)", only Maha Bua uses the matrilineal form)

Web links

• Website of the Wat Pa Baan Taad monastery

literature

• Jim Taylor: Buddhism and Postmodern Imaginings in Thailand. The Religiosity of Urban Space. Ashgate, Farnham (Surrey) / Burlington VT 2008. In particular, chapter “Nation, Embodiment and the Charisma of a Thai Saint” and “Kammathaan Monks, Tradition and Sites of Memory”, pp. 109–168.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Archive link ( Memento from February 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
2. ^ Taylor: Buddhism and Postmodern Imaginings in Thailand. 2008, p. 110.
3. ^ Taylor: Buddhism and Postmodern Imaginings in Thailand. 2008, p. 121.
4. ^ Taylor: Buddhism and Postmodern Imaginings in Thailand. 2008, p. 111.
5. ^ Taylor: Buddhism and Postmodern Imaginings in Thailand. 2008, pp. 118-120.
6. ^ John Funston: Thailand. Thaksin Fever. In: Southeast Asian Affairs 2002. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore 2002, p. 307.
7. ^ Taylor: Buddhism and Postmodern Imaginings in Thailand. 2008, p. 120.
8. ^ Taylor: Buddhism and Postmodern Imaginings in Thailand. 2008, p. 125.
9. ↑ See page 15 in: Naomi Burton et al. a. (Ed.): The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton . New Directions Books, New York (NY / USA) 1975, ISBN 0-8112-0570-3 . (engl.)
10. ↑ Footnote 18 on page 22 in: Naomi Burton u. a. (Ed.): The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton . New Directions Books, New York (NY / USA) 1975, ISBN 0-8112-0570-3 . (engl.)