Luang Pu Waen Suciṇṇo

Luang Pu Waen Suciṇṇo was a Thai forest monk who spent most of his life walking the countryside as a wandering ascetic (thudong) and his last twenty-three years at Wat Doi Mae Pang, in Chiang Mai province. Thai Wikipedia says he was born in Ban Na Pong in Loei province, and that he became a novice in 1896, as a boy of eight, at his grandmother’s wish and his dying mother’s request. Sources disagree on his birth year, so none is given here.

He trained under Ajahn Mun in the north. Ajahn Maha Bua’s biography of Luang Pu Khao Analayo tells how, after Luang Pu Khao had searched the forests of Chiang Mai for a year, Ajahn Waen knew where to find Ajahn Mun and led him there, to Wat Pa Miang Huay Sai in Phrao district; the two camped in the mountains nearby and went to Ajahn Mun for instruction. Ajahn Thate’s autobiography also records wandering with him in the north. When Luang Pu Khao later went back to the north-east, Ajahn Waen stayed on in Chiang Mai, wanting to go on with his practice there. Thai Wikipedia says he joined the Dhammayut order in 1927 at Wat Chedi Luang, and that after he went north he never spent a rains retreat in another region.

A leg injury in 1946 left him unable to walk far. In 1962 Ajahn Noo Sucitto invited him to Wat Doi Mae Pang, where he stayed until he died on 2 July 1985. The monastery preserves his hut, and a reliquary and museum hold his ashes and belongings.

Thai Wikipedia quotes his advice: the past is drunken Dhamma and the future is drunken Dhamma; the mind that is settled, knowing and letting go in the present is buddho, is dhammo. English Wikipedia explains the pun: dhammo said as dham-mo, with mo meaning drunk. Thai Wikipedia lists Ajahn Plien, later abbot of Wat Aranyawiwake, among his disciples.