Luang Pu Sim Buddhacaro

Luang Pu Sim Buddhacaro was born on 26 November 1909 in Sakon Nakhon province, in north-eastern Thailand, to farming parents who supported their local monastery. Access to Insight’s biographical note says he became a novice at seventeen and soon became a disciple of Ajahn Mun. He took full ordination at twenty, at Wat Sri Candaravasa in Khon Kaen.

He stayed with Ajahn Mun and several of Ajahn Mun’s senior students for many years, then served as abbot of a number of monasteries in different parts of Thailand. In 1959 he received the ecclesiastical title Phra Khroo Santivaranana. In 1967 he founded a monastery in the remote mountains of Chiang Dao, in Chiang Mai province, which is Wat Tham Pha Plong. A French travel guide gives the same founding year, and he died in 1992.

The Dhamma talks translated on Access to Insight come from a collection printed for free distribution in 1986. They teach sitting and walking meditation, with the inner repetition of “Buddho” together with the breath. He tells listeners to stay in the present, let go of thoughts about past and future, and build calm (samatha) before insight (vipassanā). He also points them to turn attention inward and not to cling to the body, feelings or ideas of self.

The booklet is the main English source found for his teaching. Wat Tham Pha Plong, with its forest stairway and a small museum of his belongings, is where most visitors meet his memory today.