Ajahn Sao Kantasilo

Ajahn Sao Kantasilo, who lived from 1859 to 1942, was a monk in the Thai Forest Tradition of Theravada Buddhism and a member of the Dhammayuttika Nikaya. He was ordained at the age of twenty into the Maha Nikaya order and re-ordained into the Dhammayut order in 1887, both times in Ubon Ratchathani Province. Ajahn Mun Bhuridatta Mahathera was one of his most well known students, and the two were known to often travel together, wandering the forests of Thailand in the tudong tradition of monks who take up the ascetic dhutanga practices allowed by the Buddha in the Pali Canon. Ajahn Sao was greatly influenced, in his own practice and in teaching his disciples, by the methods of Somdet Phra Vanarat Buddhasiri, one of the founders of the Dhammayut order, and as a teacher he urged his disciples to be diligent, systematic and consistent, teaching them to wake at 3 a.m. and to practice sitting or walking meditation until 10 p.m.