Ajahn Sumedho

Ajahn Sumedho (born Robert Jackman, 1934) is an American-born Theravada monk and one of the most senior Western disciples of Ajahn Chah, under whom he trained at Wat Nong Pah Pong.

Ordained in Thailand in 1967, he was the first abbot of Wat Pah Nanachat. Amaravati’s biography says he was invited to Britain in 1976; Wikipedia records that he went there with Ajahn Chah in 1977, at the invitation of the English Sangha Trust. He went on to found Cittaviveka (Chithurst) in Sussex in 1979 and Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in Hertfordshire in 1984, the principal seats of the Thai Forest Tradition in Britain. Amaravati says that in his thirty-four years in Britain he inducted more than a hundred people into monastic life and authorised the establishment of six other monasteries. He stepped down as abbot and teacher in November 2010.

Wikipedia notes a meditation he teaches of resting in what he calls “the sound of silence”, which he discusses at length in The Way It Is; The Sound of Silence is also the title of a 2007 collection of his talks from Wisdom Publications.