Khanti - Wat Pah Nanachat

called “the supreme incinerator of defilements”. So, if we were
completely logical, rational beings (which we are not,
obviously), we would be incredibly interested in this quality.
Given that we have ordained with the intention to realize
Nibbana, when the Buddha tells us as plainly as he possibly
can, that the main causal factor for the realization of Nibbana is
khanti, you would think that khanti would be a major plank of
everybody’s Dhamma practice, the main strategy and the thing
that one devoted the most time attention to developing. But that
is rarely the case, is it? For instance, when we are asked, ‘Well,
how was your tudong 24 , or, ‘What was it like doing this kind of
practice and that kind of practice’, we may answer, ‘Well, I
didn’t get much out of it apart from a bit of od ton, a bit of
khanti.’ It’s as if khanti is the consolation price, what you
comfort yourself with having developed when you don’t get
what you really want from a particular practice.
That’s why I think that revising, looking again at the
whole topic of patient endurance is very helpful, particularly as
to this day with Luang Por Liem being such a fine and
consistent disciple of Luang Por Chah that patient endurance
still is the backbone of the training of Wat Nong Pah Pong. It
always has been and always will be, I’m sure.
One point I would like to make right away is that the
Dhamma-Vinaya is a vast and complex organic whole, and that
we seriously misunderstand it when we start to abstract
particular practices, particular dhammas, from the whole and
look at them in isolation. The most obvious example of this,
one which is quite famous in having given rise to a great deal
of debate in Thailand, is ‘santutthi’ (sandoht in Thai),
contentment. There was a period when monks were being
24 tudong: Thai expression for walking and wandering through
forests and wilderness areas, as a practice for forest monks
23