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Epilogue: Dusk
Ajaan Jia returned from Chaang Rawng Cave having made a decision about his future role in the forest Sangha, but without a plan for how to realize it. However, his old friend, Ajaan Mahā Boowa, was already one step ahead of him. A longtime lay disciple of his had recently purchased a tract of land in Pathumthani province and offered the property to him in the hope that he would build a forest monastery at the site. By the time the two ajaans met again in 1984, Ajaan Mahā Boowa had already determined that Ajaan Jia was the only monk he trusted to head up the project and make it a success. Not only did he feel it was time for Ajaan Jia to have a monastery of his own, but he also believed that his character had the rigor and resolve needed to transform a piece of land on Thailand’s central lowlands into a forest monastery in the style of Ajaan Mun. To honor their venerated teacher, Ajaan Jia decided to name the new monastery Bhūridatta Paṭipadārāma Forest Monastery, Bhūridatto being Ajaan Mun’s formal monastic ordination name.
Both Ajaan Mahā Boowa and Ajaan Jia had put their lives on the line in the service of Ajaan Mun and his teachings. They shared in that inspiring experience and understood its transformative qualities. Among that generation of Ajaan Mun’s disciples, Ajaan Mahā Boowa had been one of the most successful at replicating the intensity and strictness of wilderness training inside the confines of an established monastic center. Ajaan Jia agreed to put down roots in Pathumthani under the condition that Ajaan Mahā Boowa lend his strength and advice to get the project off the ground.
In 1984, Ajaan Jia moved his old and aching body to Pathumthani, where he planned to drag a new generation of forest monks-kicking and screaming-back to the old ways of dhutaṅga training. But first, he had to build the basic infrastructure for a functioning monastic community. The land that he had been offered measured about fifty acres in total. Much of the property was covered with pine forest that had an abundance of thick foliage and limited undergrowth. A smaller section of the property was open pasture. Another section consisted of fallow rice fields where the mud walls that retained the rainwater needed to grow rice followed the contours of the land in large rectangular patterns. Those low, earthen walls also served as raised walkways between the fields. The open land was bordered on two sides by a shallow canal.
The environment certainly had potential, but much work would be needed to shape many different environments into a viable monastic living space. With the help of local devotees, Ajaan Jia set to work, first building a simple abbot’s residence-a small bamboo hut placed at the edge of the pine forest. He constructed the hut using four wooden posts to support a raised floor and a thatched roof made of woven coconut fronds. The walls consisted of old and frayed monks’ robes hung like curtains to shield the four sides. From this cool, breezy platform Ajaan Jia surveyed the farmland in front of him and contemplated how to incorporate the open spaces into the overall monastic ground plan so that the pine forest behind him would not feel like an island of forest encircled by a sea of tamed fields.
Fortunately, a group of dedicated engineers volunteered to offer their services. Together with Ajaan Jia, they drew up plans to fill the sunken portions of the rice fields between the mud walls with compacted earth, thus leveling the land area so that any water that did not sink into the soil would run off into the canals instead of collecting in the fields. It also opened the possibility of reforesting the undeveloped pasture and field areas. Since tree saplings often take decades to grow to a mature height, the earth-moving work became their first priority.
The rice fields were positioned in a wide area that spread out on both sides of the entrance road. Ajaan Jia’s crew brought in excavating equipment to dig out earth from the adjacent pasture. The fresh soil was used to fill each rectangular section of the rice field to the top of the low wall. When one section had been fully compacted, a dump truck drove over it to begin depositing soil into the next section. By the time the job had been completed, the ground level of the entire area had been raised above the water level in the canals, which helped to prevent future flooding. The large holes left in the ground after the earth was removed became rainwater ponds.
When work on the infrastructure began in earnest, a group of Ajaan Jia’s energetic monastic disciples joined the effort, prompting the team to build more bamboo huts in the shelter of the pine forest. They also erected a small pavilion where the monks would gather in the morning for the meal and in the evening for instruction and meditation.