xxivAbout the Author
Venerable Ãcariya Mahã Boowa Ñãõasampanno is himself an out-
standing and distinguished figure in contemporary Thai Buddhism.
He is well-known and respected by people from all walks of life for
his impeccable wisdom and his brilliant expository skills. By apti-
tude and temperament, he is the ideal person to record for poster-
ity Ãcariya Mun’s life and teachings. Spiritually, he is one of Ãcariya
Mun’s exceptionally gifted disciples; didactically, he is one of the dhu-
tanga tradition’s truly masterful spokesmen. His no-nonsense, resolute
character, his extraordinary charisma, and his rhetorical skills have
established him as Ãcariya Mun’s natural successor.
Born in 1913 in the northeastern province of Udon Thani,
Ãcariya Mahã Boowa was ordained as a Buddhist monk in 1934.
Having spent the first 7 years of his monastic career studying the
Buddhist canonical texts, for which he earned a degree in Pãli stud-
ies and the title “Mahã”, he adopted the wandering lifestyle of a dhu-
tanga monk and set out to search for Ãcariya Mun. Finally meeting up
with him in 1942, he was accepted as a disciple and remained living
under his tutelage until his death in 1949.
In the period following Ãcariya Mun’s death, Ãcariya Mahã
Boowa, by then fully accomplished himself, soon became a central figure
in efforts to maintain continuity within the dhutanga kammaååhãna fra-
ternity and so preserve Ãcariya Mun’s unique mode of practice for future
generations. He helped to spearhead a concerted attempt to present
Ãcariya Mun’s life and teachings to an increasingly wider audience of
Buddhist faithful. Eventually, in 1971, he authored this biography to
showcase the principles and ideals that underpin dhutanga kammaååhãna
training methods and inform their proper practice.