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Tisarana Kathina and Ten Year Anniversary, Sunday, October 30, 2016

Dear Friends:

We are happy to let you know that arrangements are well under way for the Tisarana Kathina celebration and Ten Year Anniversary scheduled to take place at Tisarana Monastery at 10:00 am on Sunday, October 30th. All friends of the Tisarana community are welcome to participate in this happy and auspicious occasion.

For the Ten Year Anniversary we have invited several Ajahns to take part in this celebration, including Luang Por Pasanno from Abhayagiri Monastery in California, Ajahn Jayanto from Temple Monastery in New Hampshire, Ajahn Kusalo (the former abbot of Tisarana) from Bodhinyanarama Monastery in New Zealand, Ajahn Punnadhammo from Arrow River Hermitage in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and Ajahn Caganando, also from Temple Monastery.

The Kathina will be held in several large tents on the Monastery’s front lawn. One of the tents will be used as a food servery. The tents will be enclosed and several heaters will be operating to keep everyone warm.

This year’s Kathina monetary contributions are being prioritized for Tisarana’s newly refurbished kitchen. There is a wish to stock the new kitchen with a complement of commercial kitchen wares and equipment so it can be efficiently run and organized. For more information about how to contribute to this year’s Kathina, please contact Anoma de Silva at: anomadesilva@yahoo.com… Read the rest

The Goal or the Method

At a Day of Mindfulness meeting in Ottawa Ajahn Vīradhammo explains how to understand what it is we need to do to realize the goal of our practice. We focus on the method rather than the goal, cultivating present moment awareness to understand how we relate to the world and how to let go of the unwholesome actions of our minds.… Read the rest

The Inner Workings of Self: Q & A

At a tea time meeting with Ajahn Vīradhammo, he answers questions and speaks on topics about chronic pain, over analysis, a sense of self arising, trying to get to the end/goal, dealing with the khandas.… Read the rest

A Noble Attitude

Ajahn Viradhammo explores how we can make our living environments reflect the state of our minds thereby creating a noble attitude in the way we carry our actions of body, speech, and mind.… Read the rest

The Buddha’s Jig

For the Noble Eightfold Path Study Group, Ajahn Vīradhammo teaches about vedanā (pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feeling), the second tetrad of the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (Four Foundations of Mindfulness). Using the metaphor of a wood working jig, Ajahn explains how the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path are a step by step, specific and pragmatic method to aid in perfecting the qualities that lead to enlightenment.… Read the rest

I Teach Frustration

Ajahn Chah would explain to people that his teaching method was through frustration. Ajahn Viradhammo explains: By being with our experiences of not getting what we want, we see our attachment to the conditions we desire and the suffering that ensues when we do not have access to these conditions. Through seeing this suffering we can more easily learn to let go of this attachment and grasping so we are available to the unconditioned. This talk is followed by a short question and answer series.… Read the rest

Coming Back Home to Awareness

In this talk Ajahn Viradhammo encourages us to see how conditions can be held in awareness.  When anger goes out to an external object there is always an internal experience where this intention arises. Awareness hold this space of the mind moving outward. By quoting Ajahn Dune Atulo’s inverse order of the Four Noble Truths, he expresses how we can come home to awareness:

The mind sent outside is the origination of suffering.
The result of the mind sent outside is suffering.
The mind seeing the mind is the path.
The result of the mind seeing the mind is the cessation of suffering.

From: Gifts He Left Behind, trans. by Ajahn Geoff… Read the rest

Ajahn Viradhammo’s India Pilgrimage Slide Show

Ajahn Viradhammo will be showing slides of his 2015 pilgrimage to the Buddhist holy sites in India. There will be two showings, one in Ottawa and one at Tisarana:

Ottawa: Saturday, July 16 on the Day of Mindfulness around 2:30 pm at the Trinity United Church (1099 Maitland Ave, Ottawa). Please see the OBS website for more information: http://ottawabuddhistsociety.com/activities/days-of-mindfulness/

Tisarana: Saturday, July 23 after the 1:30 pm meditation (beginning around 2:30 pm)… Read the rest

What Is in Awareness? What Is the Knowing?

At the Ottawa Buddhist Society’s Friday night meeting Ajahn Viradhammo asks us again to investigate: “What is in awareness? What is the knowing?” By attending to the transcendent truth we can ask these liberating questions and experience peace whereas questioning the necessary but conventional truth, such as “Its hot in the room, turn on the fans . . .” is limited. Peace comes with knowing, in the sense of non-grasping. Thus knowing is not limited. The mind moving outward comes from grasping or seeking an object whereas knowing, being with, and receiving an object in awareness is an experience of non-grasping and has a liberating quality.… Read the rest