Dhamma Book

This book contains a miscellany of my writings, rather than transcribed talks, from throughout my life as an ajahn in the Western Thai Forest sangha. The first part, ‘Roots’, is … Read More

This book is based upon the talks and meditation instructions offered during a thirteen-day retreat at Amaravati, in the summer of 2012. It is intended to be something of a follow … Read More

In the mid-fifties Luang Por Sumedho (then Robert Jackman) was a medic in the U.S. Navy, serving on a supply ship between the West Coast of the U.S.A. and Japan. During this time he was introduced by a fellow crew-member to the translations of haiku poetry of R.H. Blyth and thence to the writings on Zen Buddhism of D.T. Suzuki. Over fifty years passed between that time and the next opportunity for Luang Por Sumedho to visit Japan. During those intervening decades he had entered monastic life in Thailand (in1966), had been invited back to live in the West (to England, in 1977), and had established many monasteries around the world. Since the contact with D.T. Suzuki’s writings had been the spark which lit the fire of the Buddha’s teaching in his life, Luang Por Sumedho had always had the wish, in the back of his mind, to return to the land of his inspiration and to pay his respects to that first teacher. The opportunity to do so arose in 2009, at the invitation of some long-standing students of his – Richard Smith and Edward & Ead Lewis. This small book recounts that journey of pilgrimage to the graves of D.T. Suzuki and R.H. Blyth, as well as other travels in Japan – the Land of Eight Islands.