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FOCUS
The Ottawa Buddhist
Society serves Theravada Buddhists of all nationalities in and around
Ottawa. All who support the Society and its objectives are
welcome to Society events, and to become members. The OBS
focuses primarily on Buddhist teachings in the Theravada tradition
as practiced in the forest monasteries of Sri Lanka, Thailand
and Burma.
Practitioners and the
spiritual mentors of the OBS communicate primarily in English.
Please see the following websites for
information on proper conduct / etiquette with Theravada monastics:
- http://www.ratanagiri.org.uk/Book/book3/discipl.htm
- http://www.abhayagiri.org/etiquette.html
SPIRITUAL MENTORS
Bhante Henepola
Gunaratana
Bhante Gunaratana
is a bhikkhu (mendicant monk) of the Theravada (School of Elders)
tradition of Buddhism. He was born in Sri Lanka, ordained in 1940, and
received a classical Buddhist education. He spent five years working
with the Harijans (Children of God - Gandhi’s term for the
“Untouchables”) in India on behalf of the Maha Bodhi Society. He then
worked ten years as a missionary, teacher, and administrator in
Malaysia.
Bhante Gunaratana was invited to the United States in 1968 to teach
Buddhism and lead meditation retreats. He earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy
from the American University and has lectured at many universities in
North America, Europe, Australia, and Southeast Asia. He is the author
of several books including the popular Mindfulness in Plain
English (1994) and Eight Mindful Steps to
Happiness: Walking the Buddha’s Path (2001).
Bhante Gunaratana is now the abbot of the Bhavana Society monastery and
retreat center in the Shenandoah Valley of West Virginia, about 100
miles west of Washington, DC. He continues to teach and conduct
meditation retreats worldwide.
http://www.bhavana.us
Ajahn Viradhammo
Ajahn
Viradhammo was born at Esslingen in Germany in 1947 to Latvian refugee
parents. They moved to Toronto when he was five years old. He studied
engineering at the University of Toronto but became disillusioned with
academic life, and left in 1969 to go and work in Germany. Later, while
living in India, he encountered Buddhism, meeting the late Samanera
Bodhesako, who introduced him to the writings of Venerable Nanavira
Thera. He eventually travelled to Thailand to become a samanera at Wat
Mahathat and ordained in 1974 at Wat Pah Pong. He was one of the first
residents at Wat Pah Nanachat, an international forest monastery of
Ajahn Chah.
Having spent four years in Thailand, he went back to visit his family
in Canada and Germany in 1977. Instead of returning to Thailand, he was
asked by Ajahn Chah to join Ajahn Sumedho at the Hampstead Vihara in
London. In subsequent years, he was involved in the establishment of
both Chithurst and Harnham monasteries.
In 1985, on invitation by the Wellington Theravada Buddhist
Association, he moved to New Zealand, accompanied by Venerable
Thanavaro. Ajahn Viradhammo was the abbot of Bodhinyanarama Forest
Monastery near Wellington from 1985 to 1994. He then rejoined his
teacher Ajahn Sumedho in England and became the abbot of Amaravati. He
returned to New Zealand in the summer of 1999. Ajahn
Viradhammo recently returned to Ottawa for a long-term visit to take
care of his mother. He is currently involved in a number of
teaching activities with the Ottawa Buddhist Society and other Buddhist
groups in Canada.
http://www.bodhinyanarama.net.nz
Bhante Yogavacara Rahula
Bhante
Rahula was born in 1948 in Southern California. He grew up in the
hippie revolution and entered the US Army for three years in 1967,
spending ten months in Vietnam. Adopting the lifestyle of a wandering
hippie, he began a long odyssey starting in Scandinavia which took him
half way around the world to India and Nepal. He encountered his first
spiritual teachers, Tibetan Lamas, in Nepal at a month-long meditation
course. He was more or less converted to being a Buddhist or at least
an earnest seeker after Truth by the end of the course. His search
brought him south to Sri Lanka where he ordained as a Buddhist monk in
1975 and subsequently received full ordination in Los Angeles in 1979.
He remained in Sri Lanka off and on until 1986 whereafter he returned
to the United States.
Bhante Rahula tells his tale of spiritual awakening in a candid
autobiography entitled One Night’s Shelter: From Home to
Homelessness. He has also compiled The Way to Peace
and Happiness, an anthology of fundamental Dhamma writings
translated from the Pali Canon with his helpful introductions and
commentaries. He has been living at the Bhavana Society, a
forest monastery/meditation center, in West Virginia since it opened in
1988. He conducts retreats integrating vipassana meditation with Yogic
breathing and exercises primarily in the United States and Germany. The
Buddha told his monks to go forth into homelessness and Bhante Rahula’s
footloose journey continues to this day. He spent several months of
2000 in India working with the Harijans. He subsequently undertook a
four month trek in the Himalayan Mountains.
http://www.bhavanasociety.us
Ajahn Sona
Born in
1954, Ajahn Sona’s background as a layperson is in classical guitar
performance (U. of Toronto). He left behind the worldly life and
embarked on a five year spiritual journey as a lay hermit. He ordained
as a Theravada monk at Bhavana Society monastery in West Virginia and
further trained for three years at monasteries such as Wat Pah Nanachat
and Wat Keuhn in Northeast Thailand.
Ajahn Sona is a pioneer in introducing the Theravadin forest monastic
tradition to Canada. He established the Birken Forest Monastery north
of Vancouver upon his return to British Columbia in 1994. He is well
experienced in leading meditation retreats and his teachings on
Buddhist practice combine tried-and-true Buddhist wisdom with modern
common sense. Ajahn Sona is the abbot of Birken Forest Monastery at its
new and expanded location near Kamloops, BC.
http://www.birken.ca
Ajahn Ayya Medhanandi
Ajahn Ayya Medhanandi
was born in 1949 in Montreal. She began meditating as a student and
practiced in India for a number of years under the guidance of an
Advaita master. After completing an MSc in nutrition, she served in aid
programmes for malnourished women and children in Thailand, Senegal,
Ecuador and Nepal.
In 1987, she began her nun's training with Sayadaw U Pandita at the
Mahasi Sasana Yeiktha in Myanmar. Later she joined the Amaravati Sangha
and trained under the tutelage of Ajahn Sumedho for ten years. In 1999,
she moved to New Zealand.
http://satisaraniya.blogspot.com
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