News Updates, Page 12

New property addition:

Near the beginning of the winter retreat we became aware that a neighbouring property along the NW boundary of Tisarana came up for sale: 548 Pike Lake Rt. 17A (see the image below). This is 59 acres which have long been held by a group of hunters. The piece is undeveloped in that there is currently no source of water or septic.  There is a gravel access road and a small cabin and storage shed. The acreage is mixed hardwood forest, scrub and marshland, very similar to the Tisarana property. It also has a small stretch of lake access.

At the suggestion of several lay supporters and with the approval of the Board of Directors, the monastery has decided to pursue purchase of this property. We have in mind several purposes:

• Buffer one boundary of Tisarana and insure no new (possibly disruptive) neighbour appears there;
• Create additional wildlife refuge;
• Expand the amount of useable trail and forest for monastery visitors;
• Create a men’s compound (eventually) for increased separation of visitors by gender, and
• Expand the number of monk’s kutis by one or more.

The property listed at $295,000 (CDN) and we expect to close a deal to complete the purchase and transfer of ownership by mid-June of this year. … Read the rest

Ordination of a New Anagarika: On Jan 31, during the Uposatha observance evening, Luang Por Viradhammo gave the Anagarika precepts to Christopher Harnett, who has gone forth into the homeless life, wearing white. The Tisarana community welcomes Anagarika Christopher to the training!… Read the rest

Subject: 100 years

The Tisarana community of monastics and lay supporters has entered the 2018 3-month  Winter Retreat. The resident community and retreat crew will be conducting ourselves in Noble Silence as much as possible. We thank all our supporters for this wonderful opportunity to cultivate deep practice.

From now until 31 March we will not be hosting overnight guests, although we are always open to day-visitors. Also our usual Saturday afternoon program is suspended, it will resume in the spring when the retreat is over. We will continue to offer a Dhamma talk as usual on Lunar Observance days at 7:00PM.

Happy Winter!  – Khemako… Read the rest

Peter’s ordination: 15 Dec 2017 –  email message from Luong Por Viradhammo:

The ordination took place in Chennai, India with Luong Por Sumedho as preceptor.

In our monastic training tradition a monk spends his third year “abroad”. Tan Khema completed his 3rd rains retreat (Vassa) in October. Today he left to visit family and friends before heading to Bodhivana Monastery near Melbourne, Australia, where Ajahn Kalyano is the abbot.  The community at Tisarana wishes safe travels and good faring for Tan Khema.… Read the rest

Abhayagiri’s Firefighter Stories: From Ajahn Jotipalo:

About the “Loop Trail”  I asked the crew from New Mexico how it was fighting the fire.  They had been on the property for about 5 days.  They said it was the weirdest thing, like the monastery refused to burn.  They said one evening (probably the day Timothy Luke was forced to leave Mt Tabor, and he reported seeing 200 foot tall flames on the ridge)  that 10 battalions (20 to a battalion) were out on the loop trail fighting the fires coming down from the ridge.  They reported that the fires got down to the loop trail but the fire wouldn’t cross the trail.  They said it was like the monastery refused to burn, and none of them could explain it.  They reported their hair sanding on it’s end and then the fire reversed itself and went back up the mountain.  Everybody was kind of freaked-out, as they had never seen anything like this.  I asked several of the other crews about their experience and they all reported about this.

Ajahn Jotipalo of Abhayagiri Monastery in California posted this news tonight after having visited the property today and talking with the fire crews there:

“We just got back from the property.  About as good of news as we could have hoped for.  There are still about 100 personnel on the property, as fires are still smoldering, but it appear no structures were damaged, except maybe a bridge or two on the “loop trail” – which we should rename the “Sacred Loop Trail” Or “Dhamma Protectors Trail”  more on that later.
More soon about stories talking to the fire fighters.  We are staying at CTTB (City of Ten Thousand Buddhas) tonight, LP Pasanno is giving a talk,  S Tissaro is staying at the monastery, to look after water and be of service if he firefighters need answers.” 19:45 16Oct2017

… Read the rest