Venerable Ajahn Maha Boowa

About Ajahn Maha Boowa (1913–2011)

Ajahn Maha Boowa (Ñāṇasampanno) was born on 12 August 1913 in Baan Taad village, Udon Thani province, northeast Thailand. He was ordained as a monk on 12 May 1934. In his early years as a monk he studied the Pali language and the scriptures, passing the third level of Pali studies. He is also widely known as Luang Ta Maha Bua and Ajaan Maha Boowa; his Dhamma name was Ñāṇasampanno. In Thai his name is written หลวงตามหาบัว ญาณสัมปันโน.

After some years of study he set out to find Ajahn Mun Bhūridatta and became his disciple, practising meditation in the forest tradition under his guidance. In November 1955 work began on Wat Pa Baan Taad, a forest monastery in his home village, where he lived and taught for the rest of his life. He also founded a charitable project to help the Thai economy. He died in Udon Thani on 30 January 2011, at the age of 97.

His teaching focused almost entirely on meditation practice, with one aim for his disciples: reaching the end of suffering. He is known for an uncompromising and vigorous style, urging meditators to make a determined effort against the kilesas, the defilements of the mind, and to rely on a clear meditation object such as the repetition of Buddho.

On this site

This site holds a small selection of his teachings, mostly selected sections with one short teaching. Meditation is the central theme throughout, together with Nibbāna and kamma and rebirth. The readings include his account of resolving to sit through a night of severe pain in order to understand it, his practice of keeping Buddho in mind from waking until sleep, his warning that continuous samādhi can become a trap, and his reflection on why people still suffer when genuine practice has been worn away by the defilements.