.
Carefully studying the sentences word by word, one should trace them in the Discourses and verify them by the Discipline. If they are neither traceable in the Discourses nor verifiable by the Discipline, one must conclude thus: 'Certainly, this is not the Blessed One's utterance; this has been misunderstood.' ... But if the sentences concerned are traceable in the Discourses and verifiable by the Discipline, then one must conclude thus: 'Certainly, this is the Blessed One's utterance; this has been well understood.'
(from the Mah2 Parinibb2na Sutta)
It seems so long since I last prepared one of these newsletters that I feel I've almost forgotten how to. In the two months that have passed since the last time I wrote we've had a quiet and peaceful time here over the Xmas/New Year holiday period, but then for me that was followed by my becoming one of the victims of the flu epidemic. Fortunately I neither landed up in a crowded Casualty department nor in a mobile mortuary parked outside but I was prevented from going to Thailand when I'd planned to to join the Ajahn Chah Memorial Ceremonies at Wat Nong Pah Pong on January 16th. I was all set to travel on the 14th but there was no question of my being able to go and so my ticket was changed and my departure postponed until the 22nd.
As I was still not sure that I was really well I decided to begin my short break by putting up at the Wat Pah Pong branch monastery near Rayong, just to the East of Bangkok. It's a very beautiful and well-supported wat set in fairly thick forest on a mountain slope from which you can just glimpse the sea twinkling in the distance. It seemed an ideal place to recuperate so that's where I went for almost five days.
The weather which I gather had been unusually cool up till then was beginning rapidly to warm up and as it did so came one or two showers including a fierce monsoon style downpour that halted much of the traffic and slowed us appreciably on the night I was being driven up to Ubon in the North-East. Up there, I based myself for a few days at Wat Pah Nanachat, the International Forest Monastery where live monks of a variety of nationalities. They were very kind to me and enabled me to make a couple of useful excursions, one to near the Cambodian border to see my old friend and mentor Ajahn Dang 
and the other to Sakorn Nakorn to Ajahn Tongjun's wonderful mountain monastery. On the way to Ajahn Dang's I looked in on Amper Det Udom and paid my respects to Ajahn Anek at the lush and abundant forest wat he has transformed from arid and derelict paddy fields. It has an entrance so bedecked with piles of boulders and lumps of petrified wood that you have difficulty finding your way in, or out, and you could easily be forgiven for thinking you'd stumbled into a Jurassic Park. Ajahn Anek has visited us here and so I took some time to bring him up to date with our latest news. Then on the way back I called at Wat Pah Pong to pay my respects to Ajahn Chah at the chedi which houses his relics and at his old kuti or dwelling, where, while he was alive and active, we would gather around him of an evening to hear him and to be with him and to enjoy his presence.
The photo at the top of this page was taken on my last night at Wat Pah Nanachat in the bot or chapter house where we'd gathered for the Patimokkha recitation. Each full moon and new moon day is an Uposatha day which every bhikkhu has to observe in one way or another. Where a sangha of monks is present, in other words, a gathering of four or more bhikkhus, a recitation of the Patimokkha, our fundamental rule, should take place with one monk reciting and the rest listening.
Early the next morning after a hurried meal I tore myself away and sped off to catch the plane for Bangkok where an old friend, Sathienpong Wannapok, met me at the airport and took me into his care. Before leaving the U.K. I had heard that the activities and teachings of a controversial and popular Buddhist sect in Bangkok were coming under fire. What I hadn't realised was that some of that fire was being directed by Sathienpong and that this wasn't going down too well with them. You will get some idea of how serious the situation was becoming when I tell you that as we sat in his office that Monday morning of his birthday, two very fit and capable looking young police officers arrived to protect him and when in the afternoon we drove off to our 
appointment with Somdet Pra Buddhajahn at Wat Saket it was withSathien crammed in the back between the two of them. And all because Wat Dhammakaya asserts that Nibbana possesses atta, or self and is some kind of permanent heaven, even though, as Sathienpong and others have pointed out and published, Theravada Buddhism is quite clear on the point that everything, including Nibbana, is anatta, that is, without any self, abiding substance, soul or entity.
We can never prohibit individuals and groups from developing their own views and opinions, and we do mostly live in a relatively free society. But it is galling when teachings that blatantly contradict what we know of what the Buddha taught are marketed as the word of the Buddha. And it happens everywhere, in the East and in the West; and some people can believe anything and twist everything. Whether it be knowledge through personal experience as is esteemed within our contemplative forest tradition or the new and fresh expressions of the Buddha's message to be found in some of the developing schools, for whatever it is to be Buddhist there has to be some agreement with the essentials of the Buddha's teachings as handed down and preserved through the centuries. To be able to assess what has been written and taught as well as to monitor your own development it is so important to have at least a rudimentary acquaintance with the scriptures, then you will be able to apply standards like that contained in the quotation I've printed on the previous page. It comes from the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, translated by Sister Vajira and Francis Story and published by the Buddhist Publication Society as 'Last Days of the Buddha'.
Now, to return to that photo of the Patimokkha recitation at the top of page one. This is a tradition that was established by stages during the Buddha's life and has been maintained ever since. It is the recitation of the fundamental rule of 227 precepts by which every bhikkhu is supposed to live. Just before he passed away the Buddha, refusing to appoint a successor to lead the Sangha, stated, 'that which I have proclaimed and made known as the Dhamma and the Discipline, that shall be your Master when I am gone.' If a monk is asked who his boss is or to whom he is responsible an answer might include an abbot or any senior monk with whom he lives and certain ajahns who are important to him but ultimately the authority by which members of the Sangha are regulated is the Dhamma-Vinaya and in particular the Patimokkha. To hear it recited is to be reminded of that; and to feel a connection with the roots of the bhikkhu life.
The heritage of the bhikkhu includes an event that predates the institution of the Patimokkha we have today. The Buddha was staying on the Vulture's Peak near Rajgir and went down from there to the Bamboo Grove. This was the time of the Full Moon in the constellation of Magha and one thousand two hundred and fifty bhikkhus, all of them arahants and all of them having been accepted as bhikkhus by the Buddha with the 'Come-bhikkhu' formula had assembled without any prior arrangement. Then the Buddha recited the Ovada Patimokkha, three verses which you can find in the Dhammapada (vv 183-185). This was the first recitation of a summary of the Dhamma-Vinaya for bhikkhus on an Uposatha Day.
That occasion is remembered at Magha Puja which this year falls on March 1st and will be celebrated with us on February 28th. It will also be the fourteenth birthday of Angulimala, the Buddhist Prison Chaplaincy Organisation.