We hope you can join us at Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery for the next Upasika Day on Sunday, October 14, a day of community, Dhamma study, meditation, and renewal. This will be both part of the regular Upasika Day program, and a special day. Abhayagiri has accepted a request from the Mendocino-Rebuilding Our Community team of the Community Foundation of Mendocino County to participate in a week-long series of events dedicated to remembering and healing from the October, 2017 Redwood Complex fires. Our theme and topic for the day will be Practice in a Global Context - Remembering the October, 2017 Fires: Dhamma Perspectives and Tools for Healing. Ajahn Kaccana and Pesalo Bhikkhu have graciously offered to share their personal experiences of...
Posted September 12, 2018

Each year since the time of the Buddha, at the end of the three-month Rains Retreat, the lay community around every Buddhist monastery has gathered to celebrate the completion of the retreat and to offer to the monastic community gifts of cloth and supplies that will be useful for the coming year. The cloth is then cut, sewn and dyed by the monks to make a robe on that day to offer to one of the Saṅgha. This 2,500-year-old tradition is still carried on here in the West in the Theravadan monasteries. It is initiated by a lay supporter or a group of supporters who request to organize the preparation and formal offerings. It is both a significant and joyful occasion that, over time, has become emblematic of the richness of the relationship...
Posted September 1, 2018

Monks’ chanting rose into the warm July evening of Āsāḷha Pūjā to mix with the smoke that was just beginning to fill the Abhayagiri valley. Several miles away, fires that were to become the largest in California history roared through the parched madrone. In the year since the Redwood Valley Complex fire nearly consumed Abhayagiri, the scarred hills surrounding the monastery have served as a daily reminder of life’s unpredictability. The nearby Ranch and River fires this season have once again forced the community to recall the instability of their situation, and to appreciate and blessing of a monastery still safe. Tan Suhajjo, who was evacuated during the previous year’s fires considered: It’s another great reminder. Many i...
Posted August 25, 2018

There is still space available on the Thanksgiving Retreat and registration will remain open until we have a waiting list. November 17-25, 2018 at Mount Madonna Center in Watsonville, CA (near Santa Cruz) If you already applied you will receive a formal confirmation from the retreat manager, Hitesi (hitesi3@gmail.com), in August. Please do not make travel arrangements until you receive this confirmation. To apply, mail your deposit and registration to Paul Friedlander as indicated on the application. Lead by the Abhayagiri Community Abhayagiri Monastery in Redwood Valley, California and the Sanghapala Foundation invite you to join Ajahn Sud...
Posted August 23, 2018

…people suffer more from their mind-state in the present than they do from the results of past bad actions playing out in the external world. No matter how much justice you try to bring into the world, people are still going to suffer and be dissatisfied as long as their minds are untrained in the qualities that make them impervious to suffering…Not only do people suffer when their minds are untrained, the qualities of an untrained mind also lead them to destroy any system of justice that might be established in the world. As long as people’s minds are untrained, justice would no...