Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Treasure Mountain, the podcast that inspires and guides us to find the treasure within human experience.
I'm your host. Saul hannah. Joining us on this episode is a humble yet trailblazing monk from the forest tradition lineage of Ajancha, who is now the senior most biku at Abayagiri Buddhist monastery in California.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: I'm speaking?
[00:00:23] Speaker A: Of course. The venerable Ajan passano. Ajan Pasano took ordination in Thailand in 1974 with venerable PRA crew Nyanasiri Vatana as a preceptor. During his first year as a monk, he was taken by his teacher to meet Ajancha, with whom he asked to be allowed to stay and train. One of the early residents of Watpananachat, ajan Pasano became its abbot in his 9th year.
During his incumbency, Watpananachat developed considerably, both in physical size and reputation.
Spending 24 years living in Thailand, ajan Pasano became well known and highly respected monk and dharma teacher. He moved to California on New Year's Eve in 1997 to share the Abbotship of Abayagiri with Arjan Amaro. In 2010, Arjan Amaro accepted an invitation to serve as Abbott of Amaravati Buddhist monastery in England, leaving Arjan Pasano to serve as the sole abbot of Abayagiri for the next eight years.
In spring of 2018, Ajan Pasano stepped back from the role of Abbott and now serves as the guiding elder for the community.
Now, I have a quick note for listeners. I had a lot of problems with delayed echoes across the original recording. I did a lot of editing to remove that echo, and I believe I've removed all of that which can be removed without changing the flow of the interview. I think it's turned out quite well, but there are a few points at which we have echo or less than optimal audio. In any case, I think that this is a really interesting interview in which one of the most senior Western disciples of Arjuncha reflects upon a life and the changing times as Buddhism comes to the west. I hope you all enjoy this interview with Arjun Pasano.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: Ajam Pasano, welcome to the podcast, and thank you so much for taking the time to join us. How are you today?
[00:02:46] Speaker C: Very good, thank you. Good to be here.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Look, I'd like to get stuck into understanding your early life. I believe you grew up in Manitoba, in Canada, up in the north of Manitoba. Indeed. And I was wondering what it was like growing up in such an isolated place and whether this influenced you towards a spiritual, philosophical inquiry from a young age.
[00:03:12] Speaker C: I don't know that it influenced me other than drove me to it.
You know, Northern, it's about, say, about 600 miles north of the American border.
Small town, pretty rough, and not much spiritual. Kind of examples, really.
I think certainly in me, it ignited a kind of a yearning.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: So you felt like you just wanted to get away and maybe see the world, or did you feel like there must be something different?
[00:04:02] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.
There's got to be something more than yeah, okay.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: Right after you grew up and you went to college in Winnipeg, you traveled around the world and ended up in Thailand. What set you off on this journey around the world?
[00:04:22] Speaker C: Well, it was both yearning for something other than what I grew up with and even what I was found at university, just sort of looking for something.
But then even when I was at university, I did get introduced to Buddhism.
I took courses in religion, a couple of courses, and that really stimulated my interest and Eastern religion. But what really stood out to me was Buddhism.
And then I started reading and there was no I really never ever found a place to learn meditation or anybody who was meditating.
It was really just from the books.
And so I did.
Mostly. And in those days most of the books were about Japanese, Zen.
So I had formulated an idea in my mind that I would like to go to Japan and study Buddhism, because that was the main thing that I came across in my readings. Although I did read about Terravada Buddhism. I did read about Tibetan Buddhism.
But the most popular thing in those days, because that was late sixty s was into early seventy s.
The most popular thing was then, and it did have an express inclination to meditation. And that seemed intuitively. I was drawn to the meditation element, but of mean, if I really wanted to go really quickly, if I were really motivated, I could have gone from Vancouver to Japan. But I didn't. I went the long way around and started in Europe and traveled through Europe, Middle East, India, Nepal, overland.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: And you never did make it to Japan. You stopped at Thailand.
[00:06:53] Speaker C: I still haven't made it.
[00:06:59] Speaker B: So why Thailand?
What was that attracted you when you went to Thailand?
[00:07:05] Speaker C: One, you just had to pass through Thailand. And I didn't really know anything about Thailand. I didn't really know that it was a Buddhist country even.
But then you get there and it's obvious that Buddhism is everywhere.
And then the elements of the society and culture that I found really attractive and just the kind of warmth of the people and easy going nature of the culture.
It's just that well, the major conditioning influence here is Buddhism. So I should study budhism. And there were monasteries everywhere and I started checking and asking and there was opportunities to learn about meditation.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: Did you go on a retreat there because you ended up ordaining in Bangkok? How did that all come about?
[00:08:14] Speaker C: I did go on a retreat.
My introduction to meditation was a one month long Mahasi Sayada, kind of intensive, sort of in a room by myself for 18 hours.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: That's pretty intense.
[00:08:35] Speaker C: Yeah, it was.
But I loved it, so I felt really drawn. I felt like this is something I really can explore and really have to explore so then I went where I did this retreat was up in the north of Thailand and I had to go back down to Bangkok because of some embassy business for passport. I had to renew my was there. I'd heard about a monastery in the outskirts of Bangkok that had a very good English library as well as a meditation section as a part of the monastery. So I went there and studying meditating.
And then the monks, after a while seeing me sort of practicing and staying there, they kind of said, well, why not? Ordain are you going to ordain? And I said, no, I couldn't ordain I couldn't live like this for the rest of my life, which was my assumption from say, like from Catholic tradition.
But then they said, oh no, in Thailand you don't need to ordain for your whole life. You can just do it for a short period of time, of a few months, if you like. That's ordinary for Thai men to do that. So then a few months I can do that.
That was the extent of my commitment.
And so then I took that ordination and they didn't really give me any training. But then I started hearing about the Forest monasteries, especially in the northeast of Thailand, and then heard about Was.
That really piqued my interest.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: So how did it come to be that you ended up with Arjunchar? What was it like that first time that you met Arjun Cha?
[00:11:01] Speaker C: Well, the first time I met Janchar was really intimidating because I did I was really newly ordained.
My teacher at where I took ordination encouraged me to go up.
He says, Ajan Cha is a very good teacher.
Go up and pay respects and spend a bit of time.
So then I did, I took his suggestion, went up there and I arrived. And you pay respects to this senior monk, the teacher, when you arrive. So I did that. And then Jan Cha just kind of looked at me with no real expression. And then he just said, if you want to stay here, you have to stay at least five years.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Well, what was your reaction to that? To be intimidating.
[00:12:03] Speaker C: Yeah, that was intimidating. Yeah, exactly.
Five years. Five years. I'm in my early twenty s. Five years is the rest of your life.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
[00:12:16] Speaker C: So I just couldn't quite get my mind around that.
Even though I did love the monastery and him as a teacher and the kind of community and the example of the lay community as well, there just seemed to be such sincerity that I was really drawn to it. But just that idea of a long term commitment was just too much. So I left after a month.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:52] Speaker C: Then I went and stayed in a small meditation monastery in central Thailand. And the teacher there, he taught a particular method. He was quite well known at the time. He had a few western disciples. So I wasn't too strange. And he did have a monk who could do some translation, an Indian monk could translate his teachings. So I stayed there and practiced, although at that early few months of that, then he wasn't there so much. He was back and forth. He was in the process of kind of winding down a monastery that he had lived at as a teacher for a while, and he was building his own place. So I was in this new, quite small place.
So it was very quiet. It was out in the countryside, and I was able to a lot of practice, and I really enjoyed it.
And then I was there for longer and longer. Then I just kept thinking of Ajan Cha, that I've got to go back. I've got to go back and give myself to Ajin Cha. Five years is you got to do it.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah. That's a big decision for such a young man as well. And I think Westerners, we don't necessarily like the idea of committing, certainly not for life.
[00:14:32] Speaker C: Commitment is anathema.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: Yeah. We want to go and have a good time.
[00:14:38] Speaker C: And that's quite natural at that age.
That's what one is drawn to. But the poll to the example of Ajancha and the example of the monastics in the monastery, that really pulled me.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: So you went back to Arjun Cha and wapong.
Were there any memories from that period of training with Arjunchar that really stand out in your.
[00:15:18] Speaker C: Mean one is just how difficult it was.
[00:15:21] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
In what way some people who are listening may not know. In what ways did you find it?
[00:15:28] Speaker C: Well, I mean, that was the early 70s, so that conditions were very austere. The northeast of Thailand is extremely the poorest part of yeah, conditions were very austere. There just wasn't like oftentimes you wouldn't have flashlights for your battery to go back and forth from your dwelling place in the forest.
At night. It's dark and it's tropical night, so they get really dark and it's in the forest.
And sometimes there would be batteries and sometimes there wouldn't. Sometimes there'd be candles, and sometimes there wouldn't. So just basic things where sometimes you go to the store monk to get, say, something like a bar of soap for bathing and the stars monk would be cutting bars of soap in half so that each monk could get some.
Yeah. Conditions were quite simple.
Food in the northeast of Thailand is not a but especially in those days.
Over time, then there was much more of a gardens and far more vegetables being grown and a lot more of the just basics were more available over time. The economy was being developed. Yeah. And also besides kind of the physical conditions, I never saw such a thing as a zafu until like a cushion to sit meditation on for years and years.
You just sit on the floor.
All of the northeasterners they grow up on the floor, so they're comfortable sitting on the floor. And yeah, as a Westerner with a body that not very flexible, had to just that physical hardship and then there was a rigorous schedule at times. But the thing is you're young and it's all a challenge. So yes, it was difficult, but it was also very satisfying. It felt like really exactly what I wanted to be doing and should be doing.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that because there were quite a few Westerners that went to train with Thailand at the time.
Not all of them made it.
What got you through that period of time? What kept you going?
[00:19:02] Speaker C: Well, I think probably certainly a trust in Ajancha, but then also an increasing trust and confidence in the efficacy of the teachings that this was a really true teaching that really pointed to a way of peace and freedom. So it was a confidence both in the teacher as well as the teachings themselves being firmly grounded in truth.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: I'd like to move forward to when in early eighty s, you became the abbot of what Nana Chut, which for those who don't know, was a branch monastery of Arjuncha's Watong Papong, which catered to Western Bikus.
How did you come to be abbot of.
[00:20:14] Speaker C: Oh, what is it? A series of unfortunate circumstances?
[00:20:24] Speaker B: I was going to ask I was not nine reigns.
[00:20:29] Speaker C: Yeah, it was very young at the time, although in those days we were all reasonably when Ajan Sumedo became the abbot, I mean, he was just going into his 9th year as mean in those days there were a few more senior monks around, but then it was when Ajancha and that's when it was right. At the time when Ajan Jakaro was leaving to go to he'd gotten permission from Ajancha, but the group in Perth, Western Australia, had got Ajancha's blessing that he would send Ajan Jakaro with one other monk to go.
And so that first monk who went was a monk called Purisol, who went for a year and then Ajan Brahm went after.
So but anyway, Ajan Jaakaro was leaving and he had been the abbot of Watnacha. And so then I was out at kind of a remote branch monastery along the border of Laos. I'd spent the reins retreat there and I absolutely loved it. There was a huge forest, about 1000 acre forest that still had plenty of wild animals and it was in a reservoir from a power down. So it's very beautiful conditions and I found it very conducive to meditation. So I was making plans to stay, which yeah, you should never make too many plans at the moment.
And then a letter came to the abbot telling me to this after the reigns retreat, telling me to go back to Watana Chat to prepare to take on the duties of Abbott of Watanachat because Ajan Jockar was going to be leaving.
So there was Ajan Cha's initiative.
It wasn't a request.
He let me know that's what I was going to be doing.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: Gosh, that's a huge change. And I think coming from a Western culture, we're not used to that idea that you're going to get ordered, more or less, to do something.
How did you feel about it?
[00:23:40] Speaker C: Well, I felt terrified.
Right.
The idea of taking on that responsibility, having that duty.
I also felt that if Ajan Cha felt I couldn't do it, he wouldn't ask me to do so, because I had a lot of trust in him and felt that he really understood human nature and understood us as human beings. So I had the confidence that he knew what he was doing. I didn't have the confidence that I knew what I was doing, but I felt, okay, I think we'll just have to make this work.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: It worked out really well, though, in the sense that your leadership watnachak grew in size.
There was more monks coming to practice.
[00:24:56] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, I think I did okay.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: It's very modest. It's very modest.
Did you want to say anything else about that?
[00:25:10] Speaker C: Well, it's just that sense of right at the timing was also when Ajancha was becoming quite ill.
So it was a period when he was getting more sick on a certain level.
It wasn't a negotiable situation, because I don't want to bother him or put too much onto his plate, because his health was really falling apart at the just gotta I gotta do it.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And when Arjun Cha did pass away, you were quite involved in the funeral as well. So that's quite a big position of trust, because I believe I heard a million Thai people came and visited during the funeral period.
[00:26:26] Speaker C: Yes. I mean, the funeral period was quite long, but yes, just on the actual day of the funeral, there was about somewhere between three and 400,000 people.
It's incredible. And then over that period of the funeral, people were streaming in from all over the country.
But one of the things that we did that started probably four or five years before Ajan Cha passed away was, we know Ajan Cha is not going to get better, and there's going to be a funeral, and it's going to be huge.
We've got to start figuring out how to make this work. So there was a lot of planning that went into developing the infrastructure to receive that situation, although I think none of us could have conceived of how big it was going to be.
But one of the things it did do, and I talked with a couple of the senior monks and know we should really take a group of senior monks up. There was a very senior disciple of Ajan Mann who passed away very respected, and his funeral was taking place. I said, we should go up and observe that to see what we can learn from that and what we learned was that we had to be organized because it was chaos.
And then everybody came back with a real strong consensus that, okay, we've got to do something that would honor Ajan Cha, and having a chaotic funeral ceremony happen is not a dedication to all of his goodness.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: How do you feel it went?
[00:29:04] Speaker C: Of course, I know all the things that went wrong, but in terms of overall, it was absolutely magical.
And it really was able to provide an atmosphere of peace and faith and introducing teachings and practice to so many people.
Right around the time of the actual cremation, there were about, I think it was about 5000 monks living in Wapapong, about 1000 nuns, and then a little over 10,000 laypeople actually camped out in the monastery.
And we were able to provide toilets and showers and food for everybody.
As soon as you walked in the monastery, there was no monetary exchange for anything.
And we had, wow, that's just incredible books for free distribution for everybody who wanted them.
And I remember it wasn't quite opened yet, and I think there was about 45, 45 kitchens that were volunteer. People had volunteered different groups and communities volunteered to have free kitchens, and they would serve different things and make it available to everybody.
A bunch of us who were the organizers, we came up with the idea that it'd be really good for everybody to keep the eight precepts and then make it easier on the kitchens. They just need to provide food in the morning, and then there just need to be some drinks in the afternoon, and we sort of let people know that's what we're thinking. And then by that evening, we had a protest march coming down from all the kitchens coming up to meet us, and no way there's going to be people coming day and night, and they should be receiving food.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: You had to give in.
[00:31:49] Speaker C: They should be looked at. Yeah, we had to give in.
That wasn't negotiable.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: That's incredible.
I'd like to move on and just ask a little bit more about your time as Abbott of Wapanana. Chart one of the things you're involved in was a model reaforestation project.
How did this come about and what motivated you to promote reaforestation in Thailand?
[00:32:18] Speaker C: Well, I was a forest monk living in a forest, and you go around to different monasteries, branch monasteries, and that was at a time of really rapid transition, and even on the end of quite a rapid transition of Thailand turning from a very rural agrarian economy to trying to get an international economy going that had something.
But part of that was built on agriculture, and that was cash crops. And a lot of forests were completely cut down just for the cash crops of, say, of sugarcane or tapioca or jute products.
And especially the northeast of Thailand has very poor soil, so that the soil be depleted and the forest would be gone. So it was a real loss for everything.
So wanting to try to reestablish areas of nature and look after the places and as well as expanding just the monastery itself so that it's a bit more of a refuge for people because that's in Thailand and for those people who are in Western Australia and familiar with what mean it's a refuge for so many people. Just a peaceful that extending the boundaries of the monastery, planting forests, and like, I probably quadrupled the size of the monastery and did all sorts of planting and then got involved with other areas of land and forests that were being protected as well as also because the thing is, it's not just forests that you want to pay attention to. It's also the villagers.
Villagers need to make a living, especially when you live in the, say live in a forest. We're dependent on the village very close contact with the local community, and you really get to know the problems that they face.
Part of it is just sometimes a lack of knowledge or education or simple resources.
So that trying to introduce livelihoods that would help supplement their income and that creates a stability in the village culture that is good for everybody.
Trying to get them involved and also taking them out to different development projects and get them thinking what would work in our village, what would work in our I.
And when they're doing that, then they're able to look after the forests a lot more because especially in the northeast of Thailand, traditionally, the forests were really that was their market.
A traditional diet or way of life in northeast of Thailand is they would plant a single rice crop and then they would have a small gardens close to their houses with just garlic and chilies and spices and whatnot.
And the rest of the food was gathered from the forest.
[00:37:21] Speaker B: Right.
[00:37:26] Speaker C: That's gone now. So then trying to introduce ways that the villagers could be planting things in areas that would give them either supplemental income or supplemental nutrition.
[00:37:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that's really interesting. Like the holistic way of thinking about how everything is connected and yeah, it's like everyone wins.
[00:38:01] Speaker C: Everyone wins. Everyone wins.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Fantastic.
[00:38:09] Speaker C: I had good people helping me out. It wasn't just me, of course.
[00:38:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
I'd like to turn next to the time when you're invited to join Ajan Amaro as cohabit of the newly established Abiagiri monastery in California.
How did that come about?
[00:38:31] Speaker C: Well, in were the group in the Bay Area. San Francisco Bay Area had the commitment to establish a branch monastery.
And they knew Ajan Tomato because of his connection to California. His parents were in California. He'd go back about once a year to visit them. They were elderly. And so then that was in Southern California. But he'd come up, jack Cornfield would invite him up and to teach. And so that a group of people started to gather who wanted to have a branch monastery of Amaravati in Northern California, and Ajan Sumedo felt he couldn't really take it on, so he designated Ajan Amaro to do that. So Ajan Amaro would come about once a year and visit the Bay Area, but visit other areas of Buddhist groups in America, trying to get a feel for what this strange thing called America was.
There started to be groups of people and then it gets into, say, like early ninety s, and say, our communities in Europe were they went through a whole period of upheaval and everybody said, let's not commit at all to the place in America. It's just too much. We've got enough on our plate already. We need to consolidate what we have and make sure our communities are stable, which is the right thing to so one of the things, one of the conditions was that they wouldn't start anything until they had a group of monks, at least four, to start this new venture in America around that time, in the beginning of the early 90s. Then some of the group from the Bay Area were also coming to Thailand.
And I was getting to know them and then which was nice. They're good, they're very sincere, solid practitioners. So that was inspiring to see this.
And then there was a period where I went on retreat and ended up in and stayed in England for a year in Chidhurst Forest for a yeah.
And I had already started to think in terms of, in the long term of my life, I don't know, maybe I should be trying to be somewhere else and help in some other way, but it wasn't really clear in my mind.
And then after being in retreat for, I don't know, almost a year, then Ajan Amaro came back from one of his trips to he just spent the winter with a group in California and he was relating what was happening and how it was going.
And also one of the senior monks from Chitturst, where I was, he had spent that time there. So they were saying what they're doing and then saying how it would be and kind of, when are we ever going to be able to get enough monks to help? And then it sort of, you know, maybe I could help with that.
And so then I approached Ajan Amarill and said, would you like me to help Ajan Amarill when he relates the story?
He said, I was talking with him, but I was very hesitant and sort of wasn't quite direct. And he said, what's going on with Ajimposto? He's usually really straightforward.
And then when I broached the subject of maybe helping him out, he just about leaped up and kissed me.
But I said, the only thing is I don't have permission. I've got to go back to Thailand. I've got to get permission from the elders at Watwapong. I've got to make sure that I can pass on the abbotship of Watana Chat. So it's not a done deal, and you can't say anything until that happens.
And he felt a lot of confidence as he went forward and developing plans to keep going because he always felt he had this ace in the back pocket of Ajan pasana ready to help end. And it ended up a wonderful collaboration between the two of us, because I'd known Amaro since basically since the day he wandered into Watana Chav as a hippie off the beach.
[00:45:31] Speaker B: I'd like to ask about what was it like establishing a forest monastery with strict vineyard of the forest tradition in the rather more libertarian, if not liberty, California of the 1990s?
[00:45:46] Speaker C: Yes. I mean, it's a more interesting juxtaposition.
[00:45:53] Speaker B: From Northeast Thailand.
[00:45:56] Speaker C: But the thing is how do you say it's? Strict, but it's not unreasonable.
And there's an integrity and clarity there that I think inspires a trust in people, because it's also at a time when and of course, continuing into just how many spiritual communities had been just torn apart by fundamental lack of precepts and integrity.
Yeah, we were the new guys on the block, but there was a certain pull there that was trusted.
They might not even like it sometimes, but at least it could be okay. They're doing something here that's special, that's different.
[00:47:08] Speaker B: Even though Abiagiri Monastery is not near a major city, there has been plenty of interest from both lay people and from those wishing to ordain what do you credit for the successful establishment phase of Abiagiri Monastery?
[00:47:26] Speaker C: Well, I just think the clarity of the teachings, clarity of the lifestyle, it's clear we are what we say we are.
That helps, and we can't really be more than that.
But it's really good to not be less than know. I think it engenders a certain trust and interest.
And there is a fidelity to the know there's. There's obviously, because we're in the west and we're in America, there's certain adaptations that one needs to make in the same way that at the podium, Najan Brahm and the community there, there's adaptations that are made. But there's a fidelity to the tradition from Thailand and the greater Buddhist tradition from the time of the Buddha. So it's founded on vinya, and the teachings are not hopefully not straying from the Buddha's word. Too yeah.
[00:49:03] Speaker B: Out of interest, how many monastics are there at Abayagiri right now?
[00:49:10] Speaker C: Right now we've just had a little bit of an exodus of monks starting a movement, but there's 15 and then there's three postulants in training and a novice continuing the training.
[00:49:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it's going very well.
During your time in the United States, how do you think the knowledge and practice of Buddhism has changed?
[00:49:45] Speaker C: Personally, I think it's really maturing a lot. Of course, America, you can't say one thing about true, it's a real mishmash, but the people that are drawn to Bayagiri are the people that I come. Into contact with.
There's a maturity that I see and a sincerity that is really quite wonderful.
And people are getting interest, say, today in the monastery there's, I think, I'm not 100% sure there's a brother and sister came to spend a few days in the monastery, which, I mean, there's always people coming to stay and coming and going.
I think she's maybe 18 and the brother is 1617 and they're already practicing Buddhism and want to come up here.
To me, that's amazing.
So there's a range of people, a range of ethnicities, a range of ages, people coming to practice.
We don't advertise people show up because they've heard of us or they've tracked us down through our website, through YouTube channel, and then they show up here.
[00:51:43] Speaker B: In 2018, you stepped away from the role of Abbot of Abiogiri, passing the role on to Ajan Karuna Damo and Arjun Nyanako. Both of these monks are American and have mostly trained in the United States and indeed mostly at Abhiyagiri. I wanted to ask you how you feel about this milestone and what do you think it signifies for Buddhism in the US in general that you can now be transferring leadership to monks who have trained mostly in the US.
[00:52:23] Speaker C: I'm really happy about that. I think it's a real sign of the maturing of Dhamma here and Budhism here in America that such a thing is taking place.
I think it bodes well for the future.
So that just having the homegrown and that's kind of been Abayagiri.
You were so far away from everything that we have had some time. Monks come, but not so many, and it's not so easy for them. And we have had some monks from time to time, say from England, who've come and spent some time, but the vast majority have all been monks who have begun their training here and have continued. And we try to send people out as part of their training to have the experience of being in other monasteries, whether it's in Europe or in Thailand.
And it's very heartening that most of them want to come back and help out here.
[00:54:06] Speaker B: Coming now to the end of the interview. Ajan, you've lived a life dedicated to the spiritual quest of a Buddhist monk.
What advice would you give to someone who's starting out on the eightfold Path and who may have an interest in ordaining as a monk or nun?
[00:54:25] Speaker C: Well, if you've got an interest, go for it.
[00:54:29] Speaker B: Simple advice? Simple advice.
[00:54:31] Speaker C: Simple advice. I mean, just don't think about it too much.
One is don't try to find the perfect monastery, don't try to find the perfect teacher.
Just try this out, try that out, try that place out, try and see what feels like a fit.
But as I said, don't think that there's going to be some perfect place somewhere with a perfect teacher where all you need to do is go there and then a full awakening will be bestowed on you. It's not how it works. It's like Ajan Cha sort of saying people looking for the perfect place.
It's like a turtle with a mustache.
[00:55:25] Speaker B: You'Re just never going to find it.
[00:55:27] Speaker C: Never going to find way. You're looking for a turtle with a mustache, you're never going to find it. But you have to keep putting the attention on the practice and the training, the inner reflection, the inner contemplation.
And also, I think, one of the things that's really important because especially in Western culture, we're such a success oriented, well, success and failure oriented culture, but more measuring one's development, not in terms of some idea or ideal of success, but just how does it feel? Do I feel more comfortable. Do I feel more happy in myself? Do I feel more peaceful. Are there more skillful and beneficial qualities arising in me?
That's what one wants to be cultivating.
And sometimes that's difficult and sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's quick, sometimes it's slow. One really has to be patient with the process.
[00:56:50] Speaker B: That's very wise advice. Thank you, Arjun, for taking the time to join us on the podcast. I really appreciate it and best wishes.
[00:56:59] Speaker C: Wonderful talking with you. Yes, and best wishes to you and.
[00:57:04] Speaker A: Thank you to all our listeners for joining us for this inspiring episode of Treasure Mountain in which we heard about the spiritual path of Arjun Pasano.
If you've enjoyed this podcast, I'd appreciate it if you could share this episode with your friends or other people who could benefit from its Sage advice. And don't forget to click the follow button on your podcast app so you get the latest episodes turning up in your stream.
Treasure Mountain podcast is part of the Everyday Dhamma Network. You can find out more about Treasure Mountain podcast by going to the link in the show notes for this episode. You can also find out on the Treasure Mountain website information about all the previous episodes and guests, as well as transcriptions of our interviews. And if you go back to the Everydaydomer Net homepage, you can discover more about the three other podcasts on the network and links to subscribe to any and all of them as well.
I hope you'll join us again on our next episode of the Treasure Mound Podcast as we seek for the treasure within.
[00:58:45] Speaker C: Sam? Sam.
