Medicines

Medicines

Throughout his life at Wat Pah Pong (Forest Monastery), Luang Por (Venerable Father) showed a determination to keep the world of institutions and bureaucracies at arm’s length as best he could, and to maintain the independence of his Sangha. During the first ten years or so of the monastery’s existence, this policy included a rejection of allopathic medicine. His rationale was that monks had not had the advantage of Western medicine for 2500 years, and that what had been good enough for the great monks of old was good enough for the Sangha of Wat Pah Pong. To his way of thinking at the time, access to medical care provided by the state was one of the conveniences of lay life renounced on entering the monastic order. 

Running to the local hospital with every small complaint would undermine the key virtue of patience that the training aimed to cultivate. 

Over the course of time, Luang Por’s compassion led him to moderate this particular principle, and he eventually discarded it. But for the early pioneers of Wat Pah Pong, it was a proud tradition.

This did not mean that physical ailments were left untreated altogether. In times of illness, the monks relied on herbal medicines made from local roots and leaves. 

Luang Por himself had gathered a wide knowledge of such traditional remedies during his years of wandering and knew treatments for most of the common ailments – digestive problems, joint pain, and hemorrhoids – that afflict monastics. 

In the early years at Wat Pah Pong, malaria was the greatest scourge, and virtually nobody was spared from it. 

For those afflicted, malarial fevers occur every one or two days, usually commencing in the afternoon. 

They are characterized by a coldness that no number of blankets can relieve and accompanied by blinding headaches and nausea. If the parasites find their way to the brain, death may result. 

Fortunately, nobody died at Wat Pah Pong, but many, including Luang Por, came perilously close. Maechee Boonyu (Nun) remembered one occasion vividly:

 “Luang Por was the first one to fall ill with malaria, and he got it very badly. 

He had the monks carry him down from his Kuti (A single-person dwelling place for a Buddhist monastic) and lay him on a bamboo bed in the shade. We had no modern medicines. Luang Por wouldn’t let anyone have anything to do with the hospital; he wouldn’t even let anybody mention its name. So we just did our best to treat him with the herbs we had.

“When he got really bad, his skin took on a kind of greenish, discolored hue. 

We knew that meant he’d reached the last stage of the illness. One day, the fever was particularly severe. 

After laying there for a moment, he’d pull himself up into a sitting posture; then, almost immediately, he would crumple back down again. This happened time and time again. Monks, novices, nuns and laypeople – we all sat there watching in silence. All our eyes were glued to him. He sat up again. He was swaying from side to side, trying to keep himself upright. He looked about and saw the dipper of medicine. He lifted it towards his mouth unsteadily, and before his attendant could help him, tipped it all over himself. 

He lay there drenched for a moment. Then you could see him make a great effort to gather himself. He put down the dipper, sat up straight one more time – and stayed that way. There was silence. He had entered Samādhi (This terms refers to concentration, unification of mind, mental stability). 

We were all frightened and amazed at what we saw.

“The next morning, he still hadn’t recovered, but from then on, over a period of many days, he started to gradually improve. I don’t know how it was he recovered but as soon as he did, then everyone else started to get ill. It was like an epidemic: monks, novices and nuns, everyone got it badly.”

Malaria rarely disappears completely. It often lies dormant in the liver. Luang Por was to suffer a number of relapses over the next three years. 

Ajahn (Teacher) Jun was one of the monks who tended to him during those times. “At one time, he became seriously ill and we took turns nursing him. There would be two monks on each shift who would sit out on the veranda of his Kuti and go inside every now and again to check how hot he was and see if he needed anything. 

But he would never let us massage him. He was concerned he’d become dependent on it. So we would sit out on the veranda and he would lie in the room shaking with fever. The attendants didn’t talk. We would sit meditating with our backs to each other. Whenever there was something to be done, we went inside.

“His fever would come on in the afternoons. I remember one day some people had come to see him and were waiting beneath the mafai tree, where we’d made a raised seat for him to sit on. Luang Por’s fever was very high right then: his head ached and he felt nauseous. But when we told him he had guests, he just got up, put on his robe and went down to welcome them as if nothing was the matter.

“The fever gave him bad constipation. Finally, one day he called me over, ‘Ajahn Jun, come and have a look at this.’ I walked over to where he was standing. He pointed to a leaf that he’d put down on the ground by the side of him and said, ‘That’s why I’ve been so constipated.’ I looked down. 

In the middle of the leaf was something that looked like a small rock. It was a lump of his excrement.”

The medicine used for malaria was prepared from borapet. The making of borapet infusions became one of the daily duties of the nuns. Maechee Boonyu recounts the method:

“You’d finely chop the vine – a foot-long section for each person – pound it to a mush and then strain it through a thin cloth into a glass of water. That would give you a thick liquid. Then you’d have to hold your breath and knock it back.”

Luang Por’s attitude to illness was uncompromising:

The monks in those days knew how to endure. No matter how ill they were, they would refuse to go to the hospital. I myself had malaria for three years and never went to the hospital once, I just struggled with it here. 

How did I treat it? I boiled borapet and drank it with salt or with samor. The samor (chelubic myrobalan) is an astringent fruit allowed by the Vinaya (The basket of the Discipline) to be eaten at any time of the day as a laxative. It worked really well; it just wasn’t very pleasant, that’s all. It was difficult on the body, but if you haven’t reached your time, you won’t die. There was no medicine in those days. If anyone got malaria, I’d encourage them, ‘Endure it. 

Meditation monks must be fearless. If any of you die, I’ll see to the funeral myself. If I die first, then all of you can cremate me. Don’t hold on, it’s suffering.’ That’s how we’d talk and admonish each other. There was no discouragement or despair. The monks were really brave, courageous, capable. I had no concerns that any of them would be cowed by such things.

As Ajahn Jun remembered it, Luang Por’s treatment of sick monks was gentler than his rhetoric:

“Luang Por was very tough. He used to say, ‘If you’re not dead, then make it good; and if it’s no good, then let it die.’ Even so, whenever one of the monks or novices became ill, he would always give them special attention and be particularly kind to them. If someone was too ill to come out for the meal, he would put food aside for them himself. He would go and visit them regularly at their Kuti and ask how they were. If their spittoon was full, he’d take it away and wash it out. 

After that, he would sweep around the kuti and then inspire them with Dhamma (The truth of the way things are, and the path leading to the realization of that truth) teachings. 

We didn’t have much in the way of medicine – only local herbs – but he gave the best that he could: encouragement in the practice.” – 

~ Ajahn Chah