In 1969, Paul Breiter was among the throngs of disaffected youth who traveled to the exotic East, seeking to escape the cultural and spiritual upheavals at home. He traveled first to India, thinking that indulging the senses would be his means of finding God. Instead, he found himself at a monastery in Thailand, taking the precepts of a Buddhist monk. He would spend the next seven years in robes, not indulging the senses, but depriving them.
One Monk, Many Masters: The Wanderings of a Simple Buddhist Traveler is an account of Breiter’s life as a monk and his ongoing search for enlightenment after leaving the monastic robes. Breiter’s spiritual wanderings weave through the Theravada, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhist traditions under such great teachers as Ajahn Chah, Ajahn Sumedho, Kobun Chino, Lama Gonpo, and the 16th Karmapa.
"Breiter relates his journey with self-effacing modesty. His knack for unadorned observation takes the reader on a worthwhile trek through modern Buddhism as journeyed by a Western layman turned monk and back again." —Sakula Mary Reinard, Spiritual Director, Portland Friends of the Dhamma
"Breiter’s experience with [Buddhist] teachers, expressed in this book with honesty and insight, is a pleasure to read. The Dharma emerges throughout his memories as a sincere gift, and a teaching for all who are fortunate to read it." –Angie (Zuiko Enji) Boissevain
PAUL BREITER was born in Brooklyn in 1948. In 1970, he became ordained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, where he met Ajahn Chah and became his student. After disrobing in 1977, Breiter returned to the US and continued Buddhist study with masters in the states. Breiter’s other books include Venerable Father: A Life with Ajahn Chah (from Paraview Special Editions), A Still Forest Pool, Being Dharma, and Everything Arises, Everything Falls Away.
Born in Brooklyn in 1948, Paul Breiter traveled to Thailand in 1970, where he took ordination as a monk. He soon met Ajahn Chah and became his student. Paul learned Thai and the local Lao dialect (Isan) and served as Ajahn Chah's translator for the many Westerners who came to study with him. He kept a journal of his translations of Ajahn Chah's teachings, some of which he published with Jack Kornfield in A Still Forest Pool (Quest Books, 1985). He traveled with and translated for Ajahn Chah when he visited the United States in 1979. He later published an account of his time studying with Ajahn Chah, Venerable Father: A Life with Ajahn Chah, which has become an underground classic (Buddhadhamma Foundation, 1994; Cosimo Books, 2004). He also published two books of Ajahn Chah's teachings through Shambhala Publications, Being Dharma (2001) and Everything Arises, Everything Falls Away (2005).After disrobing in 1977, Paul returned to the United States and continued Buddhist study and practice with Roshi Kobun Chino Otogawa of the Soto Zen school, and then with Lama Gonpo Tsetan and other masters of the Nyingmapa lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. He currently lives in Florida and tries to keep an open mind.
