Thai forest tradition (kammaṭṭhāna) · Dhammayut order
Ajahn Lee
Phra Suddhidhammaransi Gambhīramedhācariya (Ajahn Lee Dhammadharo)
พระอาจารย์ลี ธมฺมธโร
1907–1961 Wat Asokaram, Samut Prakan
A disciple of Ajahn Mun and a master of breath meditation, whose clear, practical instructions are still among the finest guides to concentration ever written.
Ajahn Lee was born on 31 January 1907 and ordained as a young man. He became a disciple of Ajahn Mun, and spent many years wandering and practising in the forest before he began to teach.
His special gift was breath meditation. Where others taught it briefly, he laid it out step by step — how to find a comfortable breath, spread it through the body, and let the mind settle into stillness — and then showed how that stillness becomes the basis for discernment. His guide Keeping the Breath in Mind has taught generations of meditators, in Thai and in English.
Late in life he founded Wat Asokaram in Samut Prakan, near Bangkok, which became a large centre for monks, nuns, and lay meditators. He died on 26 April 1961. His student Ajahn Fuang Jotiko was the teacher of Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, through whom much of Ajahn Lee’s teaching reached the West.