Ajahn Mun Bhuridatta

Ajahn Mun Bhuridatta (1870–1949) was born in Ban Kham Bong, a farming village in Ubon Ratchathani province in north-east Thailand. He was ordained as a monk in 1893 and spent the rest of his life wandering through Thailand, Burma and Laos, living mostly in forests and practising meditation.

Together with his own teacher, Ajahn Sao Kantasilo (1861–1941), he is credited with founding the kammaṭṭhāna (“basis of work”) forest tradition. It is the lineage to which Ajahn Chah’s monasteries, and the Western branch monasteries that grew from them, belong. Ajahn Mun drew a large following of monks. Among them were Ajahn Lee Dhammadharo, who founded Wat Asokaram near Bangkok, and Ajahn Maha Bua, who stayed with him until his death and later wrote his biography. Ajahn Chah, who trained with several teachers, also spent time with him, and Access to Insight records that Ajahn Mun’s influence gave his meditation direction and clarity.

Ajahn Mun himself wrote very little. The best-known English collection of his teaching, A Heart Released, gathers seventeen excerpts from Dhamma talks he gave in 1944 and 1945, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. His biography, written by Ajahn Maha Bua in consultation with senior monks who lived with him, is distributed free by Wat Pa Baan Taad.

He is remembered for his strict observance of the vinaya and the dhutaṅga (ascetic) practices, and for teaching both calm (samatha) and insight (vipassanā) as the Buddha taught them. He died in 1949 at Wat Suddhavasa (Wat Pa Sutthawat) in Sakon Nakhon province, where a museum now holds relics and belongings associated with him.