About This Teaching
Por Puang, one of Ajahn Chah's closest lay disciples and among the first supporters of Wat Pah Pong from nearby Warin, had helped provide the monastery's bell, a grandfather clock and its brass Buddha statue, and had offered his skeleton to the monastery after death.
In January 1963, sent home from hospital, he lay groaning, unable to speak or open his eyes. After a meal at the local army camp, Ajahn Chah asked for a truck, telling a puzzled attendant they were going to pick up the body. Arriving with Ajahn Jan and other monks, he stroked the dying man's face until Por Puang opened his eyes and wept.
Gently but firmly he told him that the body belongs to death: it was borrowed and must be returned, so let it go, and keep the sound inside. The groaning stopped at once. He reminded him the body is impermanent and not beautiful, and to seek a new body in the place seen in a vision as a monk. Predicting five more minutes, he kept stroking his face; at exactly 1 p.m. Por Puang died at peace.