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About Ajahn Plien Panyapadipo (1933–2018)
Ajahn Plien (Paññāpadīpo) was born on 16 November 1933 in Sakon Nakhon province, northeast Thailand, the third of six children. He wished to become a monk from the age of twelve, and was ordained on 31 March 1959, at the age of twenty-five, at Wat Tat Mee Chai in Sakon Nakhon. He is also known as Luang Por Plien and Phra Ajahn Plien Panyapatipo. In Thai his name is written หลวงพ่อเปลี่ยน ปัญญาปทีโป.
As a monk he trained under several senior teachers of the Thai Forest Tradition, most of them disciples of Ajahn Mun Bhūridatta, among them Luang Pu Waen Suciṇṇo, Luang Pu Thet Thesrangsi and Luang Pu Phrom Jirapuñño. From 1966 he lived at Wat Aranyawiwake in Mae Taeng district, Chiang Mai province, a forest monastery established and named by Ajahn Mun, and he served as its abbot. He also visited Australia to teach. He died on 15 February 2018 at the age of 84.
His published teachings in English centre on sati-sampajañña, mindfulness and self-awareness, as the basis of meditation and of the development of the mind.
On this site
This site currently holds a small selection of his teachings, in the form of question-and-answer sessions. They focus on meditation and daily life. In one, he teaches that the mind is the forerunner of all things, and compares the search for happiness to travelling to Wat Pah Nanachat: take the wrong road and one becomes lost and anxious, while the right road leads where one wants to go. In another, he discusses the different temperaments (carita), explaining that one person can show several at once though some tendencies dominate, and that greed and anger come as a pair.
“This body is not ours. Our possessions are not ours.”
Ajahn Plien Panyapadipo