05/25/2026
In Memory of Phra Ajaan Fuang Jotiko
4/5 May 1915 ~ 14 May 1986
40th Anniversary of Passing
÷•÷•÷•÷•÷•÷•÷•÷
“𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑩𝒖𝒅𝒅𝒉𝒂’𝒔 𝑫𝒉𝒂𝒎𝒎𝒂 𝒊𝒔 𝒂𝒌𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒐 — 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒔.
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏’𝒕 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒕 𝒚𝒆𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒖𝒔𝒆 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒕𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒔: 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔, 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕, 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒌, 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒕, 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒆𝒂𝒕, 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒍𝒆𝒆𝒑...
𝑶𝒖𝒓 𝒘𝒉𝒐𝒍𝒆 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆 𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒔 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒔, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒔 𝒂 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒖𝒍𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒅𝒐𝒏’𝒕 𝒈𝒊𝒗𝒆 𝒖𝒔 𝒂 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒕𝒉 𝒄𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒚 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏 𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒗𝒆𝒔.
𝑺𝒐 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒎𝒂𝒌𝒆 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒑𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒆 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒔. 𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒕’𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒕𝒉 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒊𝒏 𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒔.”
~Than Phaw Fuang
~÷~÷~÷~÷~
One of the teachings he’d (Ajaan Fuang) like to say often was that you want to be practicing all the time: You want to make your practice timeless. After all, the word “to develop” doesn’t mean you have to close your eyes and sit still. You can develop your mind anytime as you go through the day: As you’re driving around, as you’re working, dealing with other people, you can always try to develop good qualities in mind. That way your practice becomes timeless.
Or as he would say, make your practice samma. The word means “right” but it also means “just right,” and it also means you want to do it all the time. “Just right” doesn’t mean a middling right. It means whatever is appropriate for the task.
Sometimes if really strong anger comes up in the mind, you’ve got to deal with strong measures. Other times the problems in the mind are a little more gentle, so you treat them with finesse. In other words, you try to figure out what’s just right for right now. And always keep on top of right now.
Because If you're developing inner wealth only for five minutes a day or ten minutes a day or once a week, you think of all the hours in a week that you’re spending your inner wealth otherwise. Then the question is, are you operating on a profit or a loss? You want to be operating on a profit. And you can. Just work on developing good qualities in the mind all the time.
When a situation calls for patience, you develop patience. That’s developing, too. When the situation calls for equanimity, when it calls for compassion, those are things you want to develop at that time when it’s appropriate.
In other words, keep on top of things all the time—because your mind can create trouble all the time if you’re not careful.
So you want to have at least part of your mind looking at the other part, making sure everything is running well, nothing’s going out of bounds, and that you actually are developing good qualities in mind as you go through the day. That way, every one of those 168 hours of the week is going to be a profitable hour in terms of your inner wealth.
We commemorate the passing of the ajaans in this way because it reminds us that even people who developed really good qualities still had to die. So we’re all going to have to die at some point. The question is: What are we going to die with— profit in our ledger or a loss?
Ajaan Fuang was always counseling. He said that we don’t have all the time in the world to practice. We have one lifetime which we have no idea how long it is. Once you’re born, you’re in a line and you may have a number in your hand but you never know what number they’re going to call because they don’t call the numbers in numerical order.
Sometimes you’re in the line a little bit of time and then you’re gone. Other people stay a long, long time before they’re gone. But the question is, “What are you going to do with that time?” Because for everybody, it’s limited.
So you’re trying to make the best use of it. Don’t fritter it away. Don’t do the books at the end of your life and see you’ve come up with a big loss. You want to come out with a profit: good qualities of mind that keep you happy now and will provide for your happiness as you go on to the next life.
So we’re trying to make use of the fact that we’re commemorating the passing of the ajaans this way by remembering: They warned us about how little time there is, and we should take that lesson to heart.
What time you do have is time that you can do good. And then that’s time that’s well-spent.
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Than Phaw Fuang's quote from Awareness Itself— The Teachings of Ajaan Fuang Jotiko. Translated by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu.
https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/AwarenessItself/
Excerpted Dhamma talk from Practicing All the Time by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu.
https://www.dhammatalks.org/audio/morning/2016/160515-practicing-all-the-time.html (Edited by Kammaṭṭhāna Thai Forest Tradition for increased verbatim fidelity to audio recording.)
