Ajahn Chah is the root teacher of the Western Forest Sangha — the lineage that produced Ajahn Sumedho, Ajahn Brahm, Ajahn Amaro, Ajahn Pasanno, Ajahn Munindo, Ajahn Sona, and a global network of branch monasteries. A direct heir of the Thai Forest revival begun by Ajahn Mun Bhuridatta, he founded Wat Pah Pong in 1954 and Wat Pah Nanachat (the international monastery for foreign monks) in 1975.
His stripped-down, often humorous teaching on simple mindfulness, contentment with little, and the radical letting-go at the heart of the Forest tradition has been preserved in collections including A Still Forest Pool, Food for the Heart, and the BBC documentary The Mindful Way (1979) — the only widely-circulated film footage of him teaching. He passed away in 1992 after a decade of paralysis from a stroke that he met with characteristic equanimity.