Luang Por Liem: The Ways of the Peaceful - Wat Pah Nanachat

The Ornaments
of One Gone Forth
A teaching given to the monks of Wat Nong Pah Pong
on the occasion of entering the rains retreat (pansah) on
July 22 nd , 2005, after Luang Por had just returned from a
stay in hospital due to acute heart-weakness.
In the period that we determine to spend the pansah, a period
of ninety days, we take up both aspects of the Buddhas teaching:
the side of study (pariyatti-dhamma), in which we have to get a
bit of a foundation; and the side of practice (patipatti-dhamma), in
which we should already know what is what. We rely on this
period for developing these two because during this time we don’t
need to worry and make plans about what to do and where to go.
This cuts off all the problems about the things that we think we
need to do when we are following our desires. We rely on this
period for doing our duty of changing from the mundane state to
one which has more valuable qualities.
We can observe that those principles of life in society, the laysystem,
and the principles of One Gone Forth are different.
Having come from the lay-system, we are now the Ones Gone
Forth. The Gone-Forth-life has ideals, and there are standards of
behaviour and practice. Since there are guidelines for behaviour
and practice, we follow these ideals and standards of practice. If
we were to use our former system of life, the way of life of a
layperson, there wouldn’t be much value. We have to keep
reminding ourselves that we are now of a different gender than
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