Wat Nong Pah Pong

Wat Nong Pah Pong is the forest monastery in Warin Chamrap, Ubon Ratchathani, that grew up around Ajahn Chah. Abhayagiri’s account says that in 1954, after many years of wandering practice, he was invited to settle in a dense forest near his birth village, and that a large monastery formed there as monks, nuns and lay people came to train with him. The Forest Sangha calls it the mother monastery of Ajahn Chah’s community.

Abhayagiri describes the life of the monasteries in his lineage as simple and rigorous: strict adherence to monastic discipline, meditation and contemplation, and an emphasis on community living and right view. It describes his own teaching as simple yet profound, with an emphasis on practice in everyday life.

In 1975 Ajahn Chah established Wat Pah Nanachat nearby so that men from other countries, who did not know Thai language or culture, could train as forest monks; his American disciple Ajahn Sumedho was its first abbot. Branch monasteries of the lineage now stand in Britain, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Switzerland and other countries, according to Wikipedia’s list. Abhayagiri counts more than three hundred branch monasteries in Thailand and abroad, many founded after Ajahn Chah’s death in 1992.