To go back to Thailand is to nourish my roots and as all of you should know, nothing's safe without strong and healthy roots. In the garden at the Forest Hermitage after the wind and torrential rain at the end of last year we have one young pine tree that's listing badly and could come a cropper and all because its roots have not spread and been well established. Our practice too can fall if it's not well rooted. Look around the Buddhist world and you'll see what I mean. The task we've set ourselves - the uprooting of greed, hatred and delusion - is a difficult one, one for which we need all the help we can get. One for which not only must we depend on our own growing ability but one for which we benefit by the experience of those who've gone before, the guidance of the scriptures and the accumulated wisdom, weight and authority of tradition. So every year I return to the North-East of Thailand, to Wat Nong Pah Pong to respect my late teacher, to meet my friends and to nourish my roots.

Shortly before I set off we had a surprise visit from Khun Charlee, proprietor and master of the Artists' Place on the Thonburi side of Bangkok. A few years ago a friend of his, the well-known writer and broadcaster, Sathienpong Wannapok, who I have known since he was at Cambridge thirty years ago, suggested that Charlee might like to sculpt a Buddha Image specially for the Forest Hermitage. Charlee agreed and set to work on what I remember Sathien describing to me as a fairly modest sized image in fibre-glass. I don't quite know what happened but the eventual result was a magnificent five-and-a-half foot image cast in bronze and covered in gold-leaf. As you can imagine such a size and weight posed certain logistical problems when it came to moving it six thousand miles around the world to Lower Fulbrook and so in the Artists' Place it stayed and every year when I went to Thailand we talked about how to bring it here. Then suddenly last December, quite out of the blue, Charlee phoned me from Scotland and announced that his masterpiece was already at sea on board a certain vessel that was due to dock at Southampton around the beginning of January and he'd come to witness its arrival and inauguration At a quarter past eight one Saturday morning, just two days before I was due to fly to Bangkok and two weeks after Charlee had installed himself at the Forest Hermitage, I strolled down our drive and found a lorry drawing up outside with a massive crate on board and no lifting equipment! Thankfully we had organised a few people to come over that morning to help and they were joined by the builder and his brother who when they arrived to mend the roof were quickly roped in to help. Will, when I rang him with the news, was enjoying a lie-in but heroically fell out of bed and into his car and was here in record time to lend a hand. But it still took around two-and-a-half hours to get that Buddha-Rupa off the lorry, up the drive and into the conservatory end of the Shrine Room. And there it had to stay until I got back from Thailand. Since when our previous principal Buddha-Rupa has been moved into the small shrine room and the new one - Phra Buddha Ñanajali - has been hoisted into place in the main Shrine Room. It's magnificent and you would think, made to measure. The name, which obviously includes a wordplay on the name of its creator, was chosen by Sathienpong and means 'net of knowledge'. Well done Charlee! And to Charlee and everyone who in any way helped the Phra Buddha Ñanajali Image to come to Wat Pah Santidhamma, the Forest Hermitage, a heartfelt ANUMODANA!

I took off for Bangkok on Monday, January 12th and spent my first night back in Thailand with Phra Maha Sompoch at his big old kuti in Wat Thepnimitr at Chachoengsao. The next morning, Deht, who drove me last year, appeared with a minibus courtesy of the ladies who own the Home Plaza Property Company that he works for and we set off for the North-East. There I joined the other five hundred and more monks who were gathered to honour Ajahn Chah on the anniversary of his death and afterwards the slightly smaller group of three hundred who made the long, six hour journey to Udorn to respect Ajahn Maha Boowa, the sole surviving disciple of Ajahn Mun. Unfortunately, Ajahn Maha Boowa was unwell and unable to receive us personally. From there, leaving the main contingent to the six hour drive back, I went on to spend a few nights on a mountain in Sakorn Nakorn where one of my most favourite monasteries, that of a friend of mine, Ajahn Tongjun, is situated. I've been going there for about six years running and it's becoming a custom every year for me to have to lead a long and well-supported almsround in one of the local towns, this year with a four man police escort! From there I drove back to Ubon and on to Numyeun to a warm and enthusiastic welcome from Ajahn Dang with whom I used to live many years ago and who has been both mentor and friend for much of my bhikkhu life. From there we drove south, more or less parallel to the border with Cambodia until we reached another branch of Wat Pah Pong near Rayong, east of Bangkok. This wat occupies a large chunk of one side of a fairly substantial mountain and from the higher reaches where the new Uposatha Hall is being built, you can glimpse the Gulf of Siam sparkling in the distance. There I was left alone to do nothing. Even the Uposatha Day was relaxed and in the evening it was so uplifting to sit with such an admirable company of monks for the Patimokkha recitation. From there we headed west, zipping through Bangkok on our way to Kanchanaburi and yet another branch of Wat Pah Pong. This is the area best known to the British for the infamous railway that the Japanese drove Allied POWs to build during the Second World War. The wat I was heading for is past the town of Kanchanaburi and well along the road that'll take you to Burma. The next day we drove up to the border at Three Pagoda Pass along a winding and precipitous route where every so often one's equanimity was tested by some alarming overtaking! At Three Pagoda Pass the official took one look at me and said something about it being more than his job was worth to let me cross so all we could do was gaze on the faraway Burmese hills and then return. I had to be back at Chachoengsao that night in time for an important engagement the next day and so after a quick cuppa Deht and I pressed on back east, stopping only for a few minutes at the famous Bridge over the River Kwae. During all this I didn't forget those who spend much of their lives locked up and my appointment the next morning was with Khun Tirawat Sucharitakul, Aide to HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindorn, who had arranged for me to visit Thailand's largest women's prison in Bangkok. The Governor herself received us and as we stepped into the main compound we were met by a very smart woman officer who rapped out a formal report on the state of the prison and informed us of the presence of over three thousand prisoners. On my tour I was shown just about everything and I was impressed by how spotlessly clean the place was and how relaxed the atmosphere. I was able to talk very freely with four Western women, including one British, all serving very long sentences and all in remarkably good spirits considering their predicament. Notably, they said that suicides just don't happen there and that there's hardly any violence! I haven't the space here for more on that prison and my tour of it but I hope to write it up in more detail later. When she had our Angulimala organisation and what I do in England explained to her, the Governor was interested in having an Angulimala link with her prison. Next we paid a surprise call on Charlee at his Artists' Place and met Sathienpong. Then the next day, the last of this trip, I managed a visit to Thailand's only forensic psychiatric hospital. It's not far from Buddha Montone, an enormous park which lies on the western outskirts of Bangkok and is set out like a mandala radiating from at its centre a huge and magnificent Image of the Buddha Walking. I was fortunate in being able to include a visit there and in an extraordinary coincidence, only moments after we'd arrived and having left the car, begun walking across to the main Image, the public address system began broadcasting the biography of Ajahn Chah! In the evening we called on Khun Tirawat and Khun Tipvadee and sipped tea in the cool of their twenty-second floor apartment before speeding off to the airport and the flight to London in the gracious care of Thai Airways International.

Graham Clark, former Governor of HMP Wandsworth, addressed the last Angulimala Workshop. This was a very useful and supportive contribution and I am grateful to Graham for sharing his time and knowledge. The current Governor of Whitemoor will be speaking at the next one.

Take care, keep smiling and stay happy!