When we were practicing a long time in Australia, America first, then Australia, we had gone to visit Thailand a couple of times to see teachers and we liked it a lot. Years later, we got to the stage in Australia where we felt our practice was kind of stagnating, we thought we should go and live in Thailand for a while, be with teachers more often, instead of just once in a while. We sold our property, put the money in the bank and moved to Thailand. We had no idea what we are going to do except go and visit more teachers, study more, practice more. We had already practiced about 14 years at that time, so we were fairly well into the practice, fairly advanced.
We went to a few teachers and we were staying at a particular place which some of you may know, Suan Mokkh, which is on the mainland of Thailand not far from our island. We felt that was not the best place to stay, so were going to leave. The head teacher at that time, or the active teacher I should say - Ajahn Buddhadasa was still alive but he died soon after that - the head teacher running the center was Ajahn Poh. Ajahn Poh liked us and he was disappointed when we were going to leave, but we felt that practice wasn't for us. We mentioned to him we were going to go to the islands for a little break, before we went for a longer retreat we had organized up in Northeast Thailand with another teacher. When he heard we are going to the islands for a break, he goes, "Oh, oh, I'll give you a letter of introduction, I know a nice Wat there, a nun is in charge."
Well, we had actually heard about a nun being in charge of "our Wat", Wat Kow Tahm, and that was one of the places we had already intended to visit, because it is so unusual in Thailand for a women to be in charge. Plus they had had one or two little retreats over there, and so we were kind of interested to go to that center and see what was going on. When he said he is going to write us a letter of introduction, Rosemary and I thought, "Oh this is great, this is even better to have a letter to show to the teacher at Wat Kow Tahm." So he wrote in Thai and we were able to read most of it. It kind of said, these are two experienced meditators, please take care of them, they are very nice people, and so on. We thought, "Oh, that's nice."
What we did not know, was that because Suan Mokkh already had a retreat program for a number of years, the head nun Mae Chee Ahmon had been writing Ajahn Poh, calling him on the phone, too, and asking him, would he send one of his top students over to Wat Kow Tahm to set up retreats. We didn't know this.
So, we arrive at Wat Kow Tahm, and she is just thrilled, gives us really nice little kutis, little huts, the very next day Rosemary is visiting me at my little hut and one of the nuns, whom some of you may know, Mae Chee Ganigah, she is still there, the main cook, she was only 18 at that time, Ganigah comes walking to us at our hut with two Westerners, one on each side. She says, in Thai, "Here, these people want to learn meditation, you teach them", and walks away. We said, "Ah, can we help you?"
For three weeks every afternoon one of those two people plus a whole mass of other people would come up from the beach and we would teach them in one of the halls, it became a routine. It got up to ten people at the most. After three weeks, we had a retreat to go to. When we told the head nun that we were leaving, she was very disappointed and said, "Please come back in the future, come back and teach a retreat."
We had never done this before and we thought, well maybe, maybe not, but it was getting a bit too much for us and we were getting out. That was not what we wanted to do. So we went and did five weeks with one teacher and another week with another. After that we were kind of at that point where we ran out of teachers to go and visit. We hadn't connected totally with any of them in particular. So we didn't have a place to really settle down and practice long term. The thought of going back and helping for a little while at Wat Kow Tahm came to our mind, and "Well, you know, we've now practiced 15 years, we could give a little back for a little while, and then see were we could go and practice later."
We decided to go back and teach a retreat. On the train going down, we were writing our talks, but when we got here, lo and behold, Ajahn Poh had sent someone else over to teach a retreat. Mae Chee Ahmon didn't need us at all. So we volunteered to help this other guy teach the retreat. He was happy with that, he had already taught one little retreat and was organizing another one, we became the managers.
Yet with 15 years practice I was being the manager of someone who had practiced I think four or five years. Through discussion with him, he became aware that his level of practice was much less than ours. All of a sudden he disappears, one week before the retreat just disappears, leaves. Who was going to teach the retreat? Ok, Rosemary and I taught. 15 people, it went pretty well. Mae Chee Ahmon said, "Oh, please teach another, that went so well." Ok - it went well again. "Teach another, that was so good." We weren't so sure, you know, we were seeing our feet getting sunk into the mud, but we had one more month before getting out of the country for a visa, so we figured, "Ok, we do one more and then go out and see what is going on." We do one more, she said, "Come back from the visa and teach three more." And we taught three more, and we taught three more, and we taught six more, and we taught nine more and it has been now 18 years.