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January
2007
2550
Number 78
The Forest Sangha is
a world-wide Buddhist community
in the Thai Forest tradition of Ajahn
Chah
Arrows
and Clouds
Editorial
Under
the Bodhi Tree
Adapted
from a talk given by Ajahn Thaniya
"It’s
the Buddha’s birthday" someone said this morning, and
I found myself surprised – I guess because Wesak is, so much
to me, the day I recollect the Buddha’s awakening, the historical
Buddha and that which he realized, nibbana [liberation; the end
of suffering]. But Wesak is also the day we recollect his birth,
as well as his Parinibbana [the Buddha’s final passing away].
There is something very powerful in the image of these three together,
the birth, the awakening and the Parinibbana, in the way they relate
the conventional reality and the transcendent. The sense that a
being was born, having been born, dies; which is the predicament
that we all share.
Read
on...
Triple
Celebration of the Triple Gem
Ajahn
Munindo reflects on recent events at Harnham
When we decided to mark our 25th anniversary on the same day as
our Kathina festival this year, then follow it the next day with
a double ordination, and then with an Elders’ Council meeting
the day after that, to some it seemed we might be taking on too
much. It’s true, it might have been too much. As with all such
events we didn’t know how many people would come, Sangha or
lay friends; we didn’t know how we would accommodate everyone,
what the weather would be like, how we would cope with the parking….
Yet as Ajahn Sucitto later pointed out, goodness has a tendency
to attract goodness, and I took the decision to go for it. And anyway,
if I believed in the way things seemed to be, Harnham Monastery
probably wouldn’t be here.
I’m sure it was the same for the monastery’s founders,
Nick Scott, Virginia Deaper and Richard Hopkins: without their faith,
daring and commitment this sanctuary wouldn’t even have been
started.
Read
on...
 The
Dhamma of walking
Ajahn
Sucitto on practice while long-distance walking
‘I
don’t think I can do this.’
‘This is fantastic!’
These two comments, eight hours apart, came from one of the participants
in a walk I did this year in the mountains of Crete. Indicative
of the struggle and the breakthrough involved when passing through
previous limitations, they’re a sign of Dhamma-practice. It’s
much the same on a 10-day meditation retreat, when on the third
day the inspirational energy is flagging and the results of the
endeavour haven’t yet made themselves apparent. That’s
the practice, that’s the furthering: through meeting the edge
of our limitation and mindfully working through it, we can arrive
at a larger, more confident sense of our capacity.
Read
on...
 Monastery
reports
Checking-in with some of the
monasteries
at the end of another year
Amaravati
Amaravati Monks
2006 has seen, as ever, a number of comings and goings within the
still and steady vessel of Sangha life at Amaravati. Mostly this
year it seemed to be arrivals. Ven. Vinitha, already a novice for
12 years in his native Sri Lanka, joined us early in the year, taking
upasampada with Luang Por Sumedho before the vassa. Joining him
was Samanera – now Bhikkhu – Dhammiko, one of a steadily
growing group of Portugese practitioners taking interest in joining
the monastic community here.
Read
on...
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