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Ajahn Mun Bhuridatta

Ajahn Mun Bhuridatta

1870 CE1949 CE · Modern · Ubon Ratchathani

1870–1949 CE

Ajahn Mun Bhuridatta (1870–1949 CE) is, with his teacher Ajahn Sao Kantasīlo, credited with founding the modern Thai Forest Tradition (the Kammaṭṭhāna or 'meditation' lineage). Born in a Lao-speaking farming village of Ubon Ratchathani in Thailand's northeast, he ordained in 1893 and spent most of his life as a wandering forest ascetic across Thailand, Burma, and Laos, devoted to strict discipline and intensive meditation. He trained a generation of teachers—among them Ajahn Lee, Ajahn Maha Bua, and Ajahn Chah's wider milieu—whose monasteries spread his approach across Thailand and abroad. He is a well-documented historical figure; the meditative attainments and visionary episodes celebrated in his devotional biographies are traditional and are kept distinct here from the attested history. Following the site's house style, he is treated aniconically, with no portrait.

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Ubon Ratchathani

What they did here

DOCUMENTED: born in a farming village of Lao-speaking northeastern Thailand in 1870; ordained at Wat Liap in the provincial town of Ubon Ratchathani in 1893.

About Ubon Ratchathani

Ubon Ratchathani is a province and city in the Isan (northeastern) region of Thailand, near the Lao and Cambodian borders. It is a heartland of the Thai Forest Tradition (kammaṭṭhāna): Ajahn Mun Bhuridatta, regarded with his teacher Ajahn Sao as the tradition's founder, was born in the province, and Ajahn Chah later established his forest monastery Wat Nong Pah Pong here.

In Ubon Ratchathani at the same time

Ajahn Sao Kantasīlo, Ajahn Lee Dhammadharo, Ajahn Chah

See other sages who lived in Ubon Ratchathani

In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with Ajahn Mun Bhuridatta’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Ajahn Mun Bhuridatta’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works

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