The Thai Forest tradition

The Thai Forest tradition is a lineage of Theravāda monks who live and meditate in forest monasteries and keep the monastic rule closely. Its modern form goes back to Ajahn Mun and his teacher Ajahn Sao in north-east Thailand, and through Ajahn Chah it has spread to monasteries in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. It is less a meditation technique than a way of life: what it mostly offers lay people is the chance to stay at a monastery and share its routine.

Where it comes from

Ajahn Mun Bhūridatta was born in 1870 in Ubon province, near the borders of Laos and Cambodia, and ordained in 1893. He wandered through Thailand, Burma and Laos, living mostly in the forest. With his teacher Ajahn Sao Kantasīlo (1861–1941), he established the forest meditation, or Kammaṭṭhāna, tradition that later spread through Thailand and abroad. He died in 1949 at Wat Suddhavasa in Sakon Nakhon. The Forest Sangha writes that almost all the accomplished and revered meditation masters of twentieth-century Thailand were his direct disciples or influenced by him. More: Ajahn Mun.

The Forest Sangha also notes that forest practice itself began in the Buddha's time and has waxed and waned through Buddhist history.

Ajahn Chah and Wat Pah Pong

Ajahn Chah was born on 17 June 1918 in a village near Ubon Ratchathani and received full ordination as a monk on 26 April 1939. In 1946 he gave up his studies, and he went on to learn from Ajahn Mun. In 1954, after years of wandering, he settled in a forest called Pah Pong near his home village. This became Wat Nong Pah Pong, the first monastery of his tradition; his memorial chedi, shown above, stands there.

In 1967 an American monk, Ajahn Sumedho, came to stay. In 1975 Sumedho and a few Western monks began living in a forest nearby, and Wat Pah Nanachat, the International Forest Monastery, was founded as a training monastery for Westerners. Ajahn Chah visited Britain in 1977 at the invitation of the English Sangha Trust, and Chithurst, the first of the European branch monasteries, began in 1979. He died in January 1992.

A way of life more than a technique

Forest monks keep the Vinaya, the monastic discipline. The Forest Sangha describes it as 227 rules, including total celibacy, eating only between dawn and noon, and not handling money. Monks often go on tudong (Thai), wandering on foot on pilgrimage or in search of solitary places. Lay people provide the monks' material needs, such as almsfood and cloth for robes, and the monasteries are organised around the practice of insight. For the place of ethical conduct (sīla) in the path, see the three trainings.

How the meditation works

The breath and "Buddho"

Breath meditation is one of the main practices. In his talk "On Meditation", Ajahn Chah warns against forcing the breath to be long or short. He describes noticing the breath at three points (the nose-tip, the chest and the abdomen) and then, once attention has settled, letting those go and noting the breath only at the nose-tip or upper lip.

Some forest teachers pair the breath with the word "Buddho". In Ajahn Lee Dhammadharo's breath manual, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, one method begins with three or seven long breaths, thinking "bud-" on the in-breath and "dho" on the out-breath, with the syllable as long as the breath. More on breath practice: Anapana.

Walking paths

In forest monasteries walking is given as much weight as sitting. Ajahn Nyanadhammo's booklet Walking Meditation, published by Wat Pah Nanachat, gives the practical details:

• The Buddha's walking path at Bodhgaya was seventeen steps long. Forest monks' paths can be up to thirty steps; for beginners, fifteen paces is a good length, because on a long path the mind tends to wander.
• Keep the eyes cast down about a metre and a half ahead, with attention on the feeling at the soles of the feet.
• Ajahn Chah recommended walking naturally, not too slow and not too fast.
• If drowsy, repeat "Buddho" quietly and walk faster.

Walking complements sitting: the same object can be developed in a different posture. The booklet also suggests loving-kindness (mettā) and the recollection of one's own generosity and virtue as walking subjects. See walking meditation and Mettā.

Calm and insight together

Forest teachers generally develop calm (samatha) and insight together, and value deep concentration. Thanissaro Bhikkhu, who translated Ajahn Lee, argues in the essay "One Tool Among Many" that samatha and vipassanā are not separate paths of practice but complementary qualities of mind. Other traditions, such as Mahasi noting, rely on momentary concentration instead; see samatha and vipassanā.

Staying at Wat Pah Nanachat

Wat Pah Nanachat, about 15 km from Ubon Ratchathani, trains English-speaking people in forest monastic life and receives lay guests. It says plainly that it does not offer private meditation teaching, retreats or courses, but a chance to experience the challenging lifestyle of a traditional forest monk. Its visitor information, as of 2026:

• Booking: write to the guest monk well in advance (the contact page says at least two weeks) with your name, gender, nationality, age, arrival date and length of stay. No reply means no place. Arrive in the morning, preferably before 8 am.
• Length: all guests are accepted for three days at first and may then extend with permission, generally up to a month. The recommended minimum is one week.
• Experience and health: guests need earlier meditation experience, preferably a retreat of about ten days; the monastery suggests Suan Mokkh, Dipabhavan or a Goenka-tradition centre in Thailand. Guests must be in good physical and mental health, with health or travel insurance, and the monastery cannot accept people with a history of mental illness.
• Precepts and dress: the eight precepts, including one meal a day and no smoking. Men wear loose white trousers and a white shirt; women a white blouse and a long black skirt. Men staying longer than a week shave their heads.
• Daily routine: wake-up bell at 3:00, chanting and meditation at 3:30, the meal at 8:00, a short teaching at 9:30, chores at 15:00, a drink at 16:30, and evening chanting and meditation at 18:15. The rest of the day is for sitting and walking, in a forest hut or a meditation hall. The schedule is mandatory.
• Devices: no phones, computers or cameras.
• Cost: food and lodging are free; the monastery lives on lay donations (dāna).

Women are generally welcome as guests, but there is no resident woman teacher.

Western branch monasteries

The Forest Sangha lists branch monasteries of Ajahn Chah's tradition in England, France, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Italy, Canada and the United States. Among them:

• Cittaviveka (Chithurst Buddhist Monastery), West Sussex, begun in 1979.
• Amaravati Buddhist Monastery, Hertfordshire, established by Ajahn Sumedho in 1984 and formally opened in 1985. Its retreat centre holds residential retreats for lay people for nine months of the year.
• Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery, Redwood Valley, California.

Other centres are listed under Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia.

The 2009 bhikkhunī ordination

On 22 October 2009, four women were given full ordination as bhikkhunī (nuns) in Perth, Western Australia, with the involvement of Ajahn Brahm, abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery. The senior monks of Wat Pah Pong then removed Ajahn Brahm from communion with the Ajahn Chah Sangha, and Bodhinyana was delisted as a branch of Wat Nong Pah Pong.

The two sides saw it differently. In a letter of November 2009, Ajahn Chandako gave the senior monks' reasons: Thai law, he wrote, forbids bhikkhunī ordination without the consent of the Great Council of Elders, and the ordination went ahead without consulting other senior monks and nuns. Supporters, writing in Lion's Roar under the title "The Time Has Come", described it as the first full bhikkhunī ordination in the Forest Sangha of Ajahn Chah. Bodhinyana, begun in 1983, has been outside the Wat Pah Pong network since then.

The Forest Sangha website, forestsangha.org, is the portal to the monasteries in the Wat Pah Pong network, with contact details for each.