Luang Por by Ajahn Jayasaro You were a fountainof cool stream waterin the square of a dusty town,and you were the source of that stream,on a high, unseen peak.You were, Luang Por, that mountain itself,unmoved,but variously seen.Luang Por, you were never one person,you were always the same.You were the child laughingat the Emperor’s new clothes, and ours.You were a demand to be awake,the mirror of our faults, ruthlessly kind.Luang Por, you were the essence of our texts,the leader of our practice,the proof of its results.You were a blazing bonfireon a windy, bone-chilled night:How we miss you!Luang Por, you were the sturdy stone bridge,we had dreamed of.You were at easein the presentas if it were your own ancestral land.Luang Por,you were the bright full moonthat we sometimes obscured with clouds.You were ironwood, you were banyan, and you were bodhi:‘Pormae – khroobaajahn’.Luang Por, you were a freshly dripping lotusin a world of plastic flowers.Not once did you lead us astray.You were a lighthouse for our flimsy raftson the heaving sea.Luang Por,you are beyond my words of praise and all description.Humbly, I place my headbeneath your feet.พระช้อนJune, 1995