What was Luang Pu like?

What was Luang Pu like?

Luang Pu was a popular monk and non-ending streams of people came to find him. 

Devotees offered many things to Luang Pu including money in the amount of more than ten thousand baht daily, which was a very large amount at that time. 

In the evening at the end of the day, he would have his close disciples gather the offerings and offer them to the abbot for Wat Sakae, not keeping any as his personal property at all. 

If Luang Pu was free on lazy afternoons with no devotees waiting to see him, he would go and collect all the rubber bands that have fallen on the floor and hung them on the nails beside his kuti. So that the devotees who came to the temple could make use of them. 

When Luang Pu took a bath, he did so at the dragon jar area without using soap or hot water at all.

Luang Pu did not easily change the eight requisites (attha parikkhara) that a monk is allowed to own (i.e. the robes, alms bowl, razor, needle & thread, belt etc.), even though his disciples were constantly offering him new items. 

For example, many disciples would offer Luang Pu a new cushion seat, and he will sit on it for a while to satisfy the donor. After a few days, he would have his disciples bring it to the other monks to be allocated to another bhikkhu, and continue sitting on the hard wooden board again. 

Luang Pu originally only had one meal a day. But as he grew older, many more devotees came from afar to visit him and offer him food. Out of compassion on them who wanted to make merit, he would also start to take a second meal before noon. 

Luang Pu’s mattress that he slept on was very small, without hardly any space for him to turn. 

Nevertheless, he was kind to encourage his luksits to use his kuti as their meditation corner as Wat Sakae didn’t have a meditation hall at that time yet. 

It can be seen that Luang Pu taught the Dhamma not just via words but also by example. 

Luang Pu Doo Prompanyo

Wat Sakae, Ayutthaya Province

24 July 2023