Publications

Fuengsin Trafford (née Sarayutpitag) is brought up in Thailand in a traditional and ambitious family of devout Buddhists. She shows aptitude as a child, but is desperate to escape the confines of home, making a resolution to leave and never return. It is only when a monk suggests that she learn to meditate that she finds stability. Encouraged, she develops her practice, later arriving at Wat Paknam Bhasicharoen, a famous temple that becomes her spiritual home as she pursues Vijja Dhammakaya, advanced meditation of the Middle Way. However, her karma catches up with her: whilst studying in London, a fateful encounter with Tony leads to marriage and settling in the UK. It's an outcome no-one in Thailand approves except for Ajahn Gaew, her meditation teacher, who declares she will now teach Buddhism in the West. Thursday's Lotus reveals how she gradually fulfilled that prophecy - as a wife, mother and lay teacher in England. Remarkably it was to Fuengsin, not monastics, that her Ajahn gave his handwritten book on advanced meditation practice. Through her own contemplative experience and by learning to draw on many spiritual traditions and secular customs, the biography describes how she applied her training to help people from all walks of life.