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en af måske den bedste af dem alle er rejst derhen hvor vi alle skal en dag
Luangta Maha Bua Yannasampanno - 1913-2011
Revered abbot Luangta Maha Bua Yannasampanno has passed away at the Wat Pa Ban Tad forest temple in Udon Thani province. He was 98.
The director of Udon Thani Hospital, Pichart Dolchalermyuthana, said the abbot's condition deteriorated at 2.49am yesterday and he passed away at 3.53am.
Her Royal Highness Princess Chulabhorn was at the abbot's bedside until his last moments and she personally announced his death.
Crowds of followers joined the princess in offering alms to monks yesterday morning in a traditional merit-making ceremony for the abbot.
The princess also presided over a royally sponsored bathing rite on behalf of Their Majesties the King and Queen last night.
Royal wreaths have been placed at a pavilion where the abbot's coffin is laid. His Majesty the King also presented an urn and will sponsor religious rites for the abbot for seven days.
Udon Thani governor Khomsan Ekachai said religious rites would continue for a month before authorities decide on a cremation schedule.
Luangta Maha Bua expressed in his will, made in 2000, that he wished all donations he received would be spent on buying gold, and that the gold, together with earlier donations, would be handed to the Bank of Thailand to add to the country's reserves.
A committee will be formed to manage Wat Pa Ban Tad's assets and donations received at the funeral. Phra Ajarn Sudjai Thantamano, the temple's deputy abbot, will be the executor.
Luangta Maha Bua was widely regarded as a living ''arahant'', a monk who has attained spiritual liberation after having extinguished all worldly desires. His official title in the ec clesiastical hierarchy is Phra Dhamma Visuthimongkol.
He used temple donations to support numerous charities, hospitals, schools, homes for the disadvantaged and shelters for abandoned animals.
After the economic meltdown of 1997, Luangta Maha Bua took advantage of his nationwide popularity to raise over 12 tonnes of gold and about 300 million baht in cash in various denominations to replenish the depleted foreign reserves.
But Luangta Maha Bua also courted political controversy when, in 2005, he publicly criticised Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Luangta Maha Bua fiercely questioned Thaksin's appointment of Somdet Phra Phuttacharn, abbot of Wat Saket in Bangkok, as acting supreme patriarch.
He viewed the appointment as a gross violation of royal powers and an attempt to control the clergy.
Luangta Maha Bua became seriously ill in November. He was treated by physicians at Wat Pa Ban Tad.
HRH Princess Chulabhorn, one of his followers, visited him and worked with the medical team.
He was born in 1913 to a rice- farming family of 16 in the village of Ban Tad in Udon Thani.
He agreed to a request from his parents to be ordained in 1934 when he was 21 years old. It was intended to be a short monkhood, as is customary for many young men, but he soon became committed to a spiritual quest.
Luangta Maha Bua was a disciple of the late Ajarn Mun Bhuridatto, a charismatic leader of the forest monk tradition in the Northeast.
While urban monks focus on the studies of Buddhist texts, forest monks devote themselves to rigorous meditation and a life of simplicity close to nature as the path to spiritual liberation. Ajarn Mun was also revered as an arahant.
The death of his teacher in 1949 prompted Luangta to practise rigorously in the seclusion of the forested mountains. His spiritual breakthrough reportedly came six months later.
In 1997, he talked to his followers about death. He said this lifetime was his last and he would never be born again. His followers took this as a confirmation of him becoming a spiritually enlightened monk.
Luangta Maha Bua also took the occasion to prohibit chanting at his funeral ceremony, calling it unnecessary. He also prohibited the temple from using his dead body to attract visitors and donations. He said he would prefer his funeral to be simple because the Buddha taught simplicity.
Phrakru Atthakit, abbot of Wat Pa Doi Labnga in Kamphaeng Phet province, said the cremation ceremony for Luangta Maha Bua was expected to be held in early March.
Phrakru Atthakit headed the council of monks which took responsibility for the treatment of Luangta Maha Bua during his illness.
Early yesterday morning Thailand lost its most revered monk. Luangta Maha Bua, who was known for his immense influence, his mammoth works of charity and his role as a sort of saviour when society was in crisis - by leading a national fundraising campaign to restore the country's national reserves after they were depletฌed by the 1997 financial crisis.
To millions of his followers across the country it was a sad day, for they have lost a guiding light - the 97yearold abbot of Wat Pa Ban Tad in Udon Thani.
Luangta Bua's direct talks, dynamic sermons, and outspoฌkenness saw him embroiled in national politics in recent years, when governments were led by both the Democrats and Thaksin Shinawatra.
Responding to critics who argued that it was not a monk's place to get involved in worldly issues, especially politics, the monk said: "They even dare to accuse Luangta Maha Bua of playing politics. Politics, what dog shit! There's only shit all over the country. I brought the Buddha's dharma to cleanse in order for them to repent and recognise good and evil - because they're the governฌment. The world flatters them as smart people, but don't be smart down in a toilet.''
In a sermon that Luangta Bua himself called "most veheฌment", the monk called on Thaksin Shinawatra to step down, saying it was time for Thaksin to abandon the "rotten system he is presiding over". He described the Thaksin governฌment as "wicked, corrupt, powerhungry and greedy".
The monk said he regretted endorsing Thaksin's candidacy. "I looked at his financial status and I believed he was honest. I admit that my judgement about this man was wrong," the abbot said.
On 27 September 2005, Manager Daily published a serฌmon that was extremely critical of Thaksin by Luangta Maha Bua. Thaksin sued the newspaฌper but not the monk. The case was withdrawn after the King indirectly advised against such legal action during his annual birthday speech.
Luangta Bua and his followฌers also got into argument with the Democrats when the monk insisted that the cash and gold donated by the public to him be kept untouched in the national reserves. The Finance Ministry under minister Tarrin Nimmanhaeminda wanted to use it to repay bad debts that had accumulated in the banking system. The conflict has led to the monk's followers seeking to impeach Tarrin, although the attempt did not succeed.
The story of a monk appealฌing to his countrymen to donate foreign currency and gold in a campaign called 'Thai Help Thai' to bolster Thailand's rapidly shrinking currency reserves made international headlines as a stunning amount of continuous donations were received from people who had faith in him.
From April 1998 to January 15 last year, Luangta Bua handed 15 donations of gold to several governments. All up some 967 gold bars weighing 12 tonnes and 79.8 kilograms plus $10.2 million in cash were donated.
The diminutive, simple, and humble looking monk attractฌed followers who saw him as a monk who did not seek personal gain.
He was born to a wealthy farming family of 17 children. Though it is a Thai tradition to show gratitude towards parents by joining the monkshood Luangta Bua refused his parฌents' wish to see him ordained till he saw their teary eyes. After learning Dharma, his determiฌnation to reach enlightenment, following in the footsteps of Lord Buddha, kept him in the monkshood.
He went in search of Luangpu Man Phurithatto, one of the most renowned meditaฌtion masters, with his desires, intent and doubt on whether he could ever reach enlightenment, or Nirvana. Man clarified the questions in his mind, showing him that the path to Nirvana still existed. Luangta Bua said he respected Man ever since and regarded him as a parent.
Learning that his mother was ill he returned home to look after her. He accepted a donaฌtion of land to build a monastery there after his relatives asked him to settle permanently in November 1955. It was given the name Wat Pa Ban Tad. The vigour and uncompromising determination of his Dharma practice attracted other monks to his temple.
Luangta Bua always went without food as he said it helped him feel light and made him progress well with meditation.
To his disciples, he was wideฌly regarded as an Arahant — a living Buddhist saint who reached his ultimate goal of enlightenment.
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her er lidt mere om munken det er næsten for godt til at være sandt er glad for den slags mennesker findes
Luangta Maha Bua - doing good even in death
Soon after his passing early last Sunday, Ajahn Maha Bua's last will was revealed: it said all of his personal property and the money that may be donated at his funeral be converted into gold bars and given to the Bank of Thailand, to be added to the country's reserves.
That will is unique, but not out of the ordinary. This is because after the 1997 economic crisis, when the country lost most of its close to US$30 billion reserves, Luangta Maha Bua led a series of campaigns to raise funds, in the form of gold and dollars, to help replenish the country's reserves. After 15 campaigns spanning a number of years, the final sum given to the central bank came to about 12 metric tonnes of gold and US$10.2 million. At today's rates, that gold is worth about half a billion dollars.
That is a large sum, indeed. Placed in the context of the country's finances, however, it is not. As a result, should a crisis similar to that of 1997 again arise, it cannot be of much help in fighting a run on the national currency.
But that apparently was not the intention of the venerable monk. His campaigns were aimed more towards getting Thais to focus on the causes of the crisis and, knowing the causes, they should change their behaviour to prevent such an event from recurring.
As the fundamental causes of that crisis were greed, corruption and selfishness, asking the people to part with their gold and dollars was one way of getting them to reduce their greed which had led to needless accumulation of property and made them vulnerable to corruption; and giving their donated gold and dollars to the central bank to replenish the country's reserves was a way of telling them to think more of the common good, not just their narrow self-interest.
The billions of baht worth of gold and dollars donated and transferred to the central bank may be taken as an indication that a lot of Thais are not entirely selfish. But how many of the donors were not selfish to begin with, and how many have changed their behaviour as a result of Ajahn Maha Bua's bidding, cannot be ascertained. One thing is clear: he saw that he could not change the contemptible behaviour of then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and of the people around him.
Uncharacteristically of him since he was known as a gentle and kind monk, Ajahn Maha Bua publicly condemned the government about 18 months into the first Thaksin administration, using language normally reserved for the basest of people. He also correctly predicted the turmoil that would befall the country as a result of their greed, corruption and selfishness. How he knew that is, of course, a matter of conjecture. Some people believe that since he was an arahant or saint, he could see into the future.
As I read about Ajahn Maha Bua and observe current developments of Buddhism in Thailand, I cannot help but think of another kind of will: his will to resist the temptations thrown at him by the material world.
A lot of his contemporaries, including some trained in the Forest Tradition by the venerable Ajahn Mun Bhuriddata, and younger monks have succumbed to such temptations.
Many have built elaborate temples, accumulated vast wealth and lived in luxury, and supported the creation of objects believed to possess supranatural powers such as amulets.
Ajahn Maha Bua had done none of those, although he could easily have. He preferred not to touch money and asked donors to put their funds into accounts that would finance worthy causes such as building hospitals. Ajahn Maha Bua is the last of the disciples directly trained by Ajahn Mun. His passing, therefore, signals the end of an era.
From now till March 5, when his body will be cremated, hundreds of thousands will travel to Wat Pa Ban Tad in Udon Thani, to pay their last respects. More will be watching on television and reading from newspapers and magazines about his life, his teachings, his personal conduct, and his funeral.
However one pays one's last respects to him, the most enduring way that I surmise he'd wish for, would be for us do some of his bidding. http://www.bangko...n-in-deathhusk at leve livet mens du kan, om lidt er kaffen klar
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