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

– One should teach the Dhamma in a well-reasoned
and systematic way, gradually, without omitting
points of meaning.
– One should not teach for the sake of material gains.
– One should not teach praising oneself and making
insinuating or denigrating comments about others.
To teach the Dhamma is also work. But if we keep in line with
the Dhamma, unwholesome intentions as the ones mentioned
won’t arise. Our intentions are entirely coming from a place of
wanting to offer useful improvements and corrections.
When I was living with Luang Por Chah, and was at the age
where one is still quite strong, he would sometimes ask me to sew
robes for the new candidates that wished to practice and train
under the Dhamma-Vinaya temporarily 29 . One year it was forty or
fifty sets of triple robes. To sew as much as that, one has to start
early every morning. If one does the work harbouring negative
feelings about it in one’s mind, one will have to experience
feelings of irritation and anger and eventually start complaining. I
was able to do the job feeling good. If on one particular day I
would finish only a certain amount, I would be alright with just
that, continue next day, and just keep on doing the work. I didn’t
have any feelings about it. When it was time to stop, I stopped.
Luang Por Chah said to do just the amount we could handle. And
when the night came, I would spend it quietly keeping up my
meditation. So, this is also a kind of work. One has to work with a
29 a tradition in Thailand: young men to become a monk for at least one rainy
season. Well equipped with the basic teachings and practices of Buddhism after
such a temporary ordination, a young man is considered to be ready for family
life and work.
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