Khanti - Wat Pah Nanachat

senior monks who I admire and do this service only for them.
Who is this other monk anyway; who does he think he is.’
I’ve seen that kind of attitude in a number of places
over the years. And where does it come from? It comes from
thinking that my bow and my service, my offering is so
valuable, that I’m only willing to give it to someone very
special. Ask yourself whether that sort of thinking comes from
the kind of mental state that you would like to cultivate within
yourself.
When I was a young pa-kow and novice in Wat Nong
Pah Pong we upatthaked 9 any monk with five rainy seasons. In
the early days everyone around here was so much more junior
anyway. It’s hard for all of you to appreciate what five rainy
seasons meant in those days. For one thing, there was this kind
of superstition that once you reached five rainy seasons, you
were safe, you were in for good, you weren’t going to disrobe.
If you could just get through those first five years you’d be
okay. And once you had five years, as a formal recognition, a
triangular pillow was put at your seat. That was a big thing. I
remember being the storeroom-keeper, getting out one of these
pillows for a monk that I liked who had just completed his fifth
rainy season. It made me so happy to be the one to honour him
in this way. He was a very humble monk and as I put it out I
remember looking forward to his reaction.
And then we had monks of five rainy seasons, of six
rainy seasons and so on disrobing, so we started thinking, well
maybe it takes a little bit longer... And then there was a monk
9 This is a monastery idiom frequently used in the Ajahn Chah
Sangha. The Pali noun upatthak is made into the English verb
upatthaking i.e. giving upatthak-service.
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