Khanti - Wat Pah Nanachat

ut had spent some twenty years as a farmer in Laos. Ajahn
Chah had given him this monastery to look after and really
tried to give him some gamlang jai 11 .
Upatthaking Ajahn Chah, in the morning, you’d go up
to his room, and you’d compete for this job of emptying his
spittoon. It was one of these big spittoons, and it was full – full
of urine and betel nut juice and other bodily fluids. And
everybody wanted to be the one who could empty this spittoon
on the ‘betel nut-bush’ behind the meditation hall. I found this
a great job. And one day I was walking to the meditation hall,
and this car was out in front, and Ajahn Chah was putting on
his robes, and the novice that had come along had his robes on
already, so I thought: ‘Oh, I’ve lost it. They’re leaving. I’ve got
to get my bowl and everything’, and I was very embarrassed
that I hadn’t been on the ball, and so I said something like,
‘Luang Por, krap, I need just two or three minutes to get my
bowl.’ But he said, ‘You don’t need to. You’re staying here.’
And so from being in this classic kind of heaven-realm,
living in a small monastery helping to serve Ajahn Chah, I
suddenly found myself in what felt like a hell-like situation:
there was just me and this monk who famous for the fact that
no monk that I knew had ever been able to live with him for
more than a month or two. Everybody had run away. He was
notorious. And he spoke this really thick Lao, which was made
even more incomprehensible by the betel nut that was always
in his mouth. He was bad tempered and grumpy and miserable.
But then I thought, well, I’m not going to suffer about this. I’m
not going to make this worse than it is, and if Ajahn Chah left
me here, I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he
wants me to be here and to make something out of this. I’m
11 gamlang jai: encouragement, friendly support
13