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saffron robes, he was a monk in his early fifties. His forehead showed determination, intelligence and uncommon strength of character. His glare was penetrating and yet compassionate—his presence resolute. It was a typical Thursday afternoon at the tem- ple. The Great Abbot was in the middle of giving a sermon on Dhamma practice at a pavilion near the kitchens. When Upāsika Thongsuk introduced Chandra to him, he raised his head and peered at her. After a brief silence he asked the rhetorical question, “What kept you so long?” Chandra didn’t really understand what the abbot meant. She was only twenty-nine and young by comparison to most people in the temple congregation. She would have to look deeper to know the significance of his words—because it’d already been a long time that he’d awaited the person who was going to lead his team of meditators in research. Without having to pass the usual examinations of mastery in Dhamma practice, the Great Abbot sent her straight into the meditation workshop. He al- lowed her to join the most highly experienced group of meditation researchers in the temple. When she first entered the meditation workshop it was like being in a foreign country because the people there spoke entirely of things she could not understand. They used technical terms and she could make no sense of anything they were talking about. Even though she didn’t fully understand why the Great Abbot had given her such special treatment, she wasn’t complacent. She trained herself in medi- tation seriously, to try to be able to do meditation research like her seniors and to be able to serve the