Ajahn (Thai: อาจารย์, RTGS: achan, IPA: [ʔāː.tɕāːn], also romanized ajaan, ajarn, acharn and achaan) is a Thai language term which translates as "teacher". It is derived from the Pali word ācariya, and is a term of respect, similar in meaning to the Japanese sensei, and is used as a title of address for high-school and university teachers, and for Buddhist monks who have passed ten vassa.

This lattermost case is usually romanized ajahn. According to the Vinaya, any properly ordained monk can become an ācariya after ten vassa in the robes, thus a Thai monk becomes ajahn.

A senior monk may bear the honorific title phra ajahn (Thai: พระอาจารย์,"venerable monk"), or in more informal situations, than ajahn (Thai: ท่านอาจารย์,"venerable monk").^[1]

Some famous ajahns are:

• Ajahn Amaro
• Ajahn Maha Boowa
• Ajahn Brahm
• Ajahn Chah
• Ajahn Khemadhammo
• Ajahn Mun
• Ajahn Munindo
• Ajahn Sumedho

In Thai, such highly esteemed monks would very rarely be called simply ajahn chah, ajahn mun, etc., as there are much more respectful ways for addressing or referring to them.

See also[link]

• Bhante
• Sayadaw

References[link]

External links[link]

• Ajahn Chah homepage - Teachings and Biography

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Ajahn Brahm
Ajahn Brahm (front left)
School	Theravada
Personal
Nationality	British
Born	(1951-08-07) 7 August 1951 (age 60) United Kingdom
Senior posting
Based in	Bodhinyana Monastery
Title	Venerable Ajahn Brahmavamso Mahathera
Religious career
Website	http://www.ajahnbrahm.org/

Ajahn Brahmavamso Mahathera (known to most as Ajahn Brahm), born Peter Betts in London, United Kingdom on 7 August 1951, is a Theravada Buddhist monk. Currently Brahm is the Abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery, in Serpentine, Western Australia, the Spiritual Director of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia, Spiritual Adviser to the Buddhist Society of Victoria, Spiritual Adviser to the Buddhist Society of South Australia, Spiritual Patron of the Buddhist Fellowship in Singapore, and Spiritual Patron of the Bodhikusuma Centre in Sydney.

Early life[link]

Peter Betts came from a working-class background and went to Latymer Upper School. He won a scholarship to study Theoretical physics at Cambridge University in the late 1960s. After graduating from Cambridge he taught in high school for one year before traveling to Thailand to become a monk and train with the Ajahn Chah Bodhinyana Mahathera. Brahm was ordained in Bangkok at the age of twenty-three by the Abbot of Wat Saket. He subsequently spent nine years studying and training in the forest meditation tradition under Ajahn Chah.

Bodhinyana Monastery[link]

Brahm was invited to Perth, Australia by the Buddhist Society of Western Australia to assist Ajahn Jagaro in teaching duties. Initially they both lived in an old house in the suburb of North Perth, but in late 1983 purchased 97 acres (393,000 m²) of rural and forested land in the hills of Serpentine south of Perth. The land was to become Bodhinyana Monastery (named after their teacher, Ajahn Chah Bodhinyana). Bodhinyana was to become the first dedicated Buddhist monastery in the Southern Hemisphere and is today the largest community of Buddhist monks in Australia.^{[citation needed]} Initially there were no buildings on the land, and as there were only a few Buddhists in Perth at this time, and little funding, the monks themselves began building to save money. Brahm learnt plumbing and bricklaying and built many of the current buildings himself.

In 1994, Jagaro took a sabbatical leave from Western Australia and disrobed a year later. Left in charge, Brahm took on the role and was soon being invited to provide his teachings in other parts of Australia and South-East Asia. He has been a speaker at the International Buddhist Summit in Phnom Penh in 2002, and at three Global Conferences on Buddhism. He also dedicates time and attention to the sick and dying, those in prison or ill with cancer, people wanting to learn to meditate, and also to his Sangha of monks at Bodhinyana. Brahm has also been influential in establishing Dhammasara Nuns' Monastery at Gidgegannup in the hills north-east of Perth to be a wholly independent monastery, where the Sri Lankan trained, Australian nun Ajahn Sr. Vayama is currently abbess.

Bhikkhuni ordination[link]

On 22 October 2009 Brahm facilitated an ordination ceremony for bhikkhunis where four female Buddhists, Venerable Ajahn Vayama, and Venerables Nirodha, Seri and Hasapanna, were ordained into the Western Theravada bhikkhuni sangha. The ordination ceremony took place at Ajahn Brahm's Bodhinyana Monastery at Serpentine (near Perth, WA), Australia. For his actions of 22 October 2009, on 1 November 2009, at a meeting of senior members of the Thai monastic sangha, held at Wat Pah Pong, Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand, Brahm was removed from the Ajahn Chah Forest Sangha lineage and is no longer associated with the main monastery in Thailand, Wat Pah Pong, nor with any of the other Western Forest Sangha branch monasteries of the Ajahn Chah tradition.^[1]

Achievements[link]

Whilst still a junior monk, Brahm was asked to undertake the compilation of an English-language guide to the Buddhist monastic code - the vinaya - which later became the basis for monastic discipline in many Theravadan monasteries in Western countries. Currently Brahm is the Abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery, in Serpentine, Western Australia,^[2] the Spiritual Director of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia, Spiritual Adviser to the Buddhist Society of Victoria, Spiritual Adviser to the Buddhist Society of South Australia, Spiritual Patron of the Buddhist Fellowship in Singapore, Spiritual Patron of the Bodhikusuma Centre in Sydney.

In October 2004, Brahm was awarded the John Curtin Medal for his vision, leadership and service to the Australian community by Curtin University. He is currently working with monks and nuns of all Buddhist traditions in the Australian Sangha Association.

Publications[link]

• Opening the Door of Your Heart: And Other Buddhist Tales of Happiness. Also published as Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties. (2005). Wisdom Publications. Also published in Indonesia as Si Cacing dan Kotoran Kesayangannya in 3 volumes, vol.1 (2010), vol.2 (2011), vol.3 (2012) ISBN 0-86171-278-1
• Mindfulness, Bliss, and Beyond: A Meditator's Handbook. (2006). Wisdom Publications. ISBN 0-86171-275-7
• The Art of Disappearing: Buddha's Path to Lasting Joy. (2011). Wisdom Publications. ISBN 0-86171-668-X

References[link]

Further reading[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Ajahn Brahm

• Brahm, Ajahn (27 March 2007). "Buddhism, the only real science". Daily News (Sri Lanka). http://www.dailynews.lk/2007/03/28/fea04.asp. 
• Egan, Colleen (18 June 2001). "Monk caught up in fire and brimstone". The Australian. 
• Franklin, Dave (11 May 2003). "Religion with a humorous twist". The Sunday Times (Perth, Australia). 
• Horayangura, Nissara (28 April 2009). "The bhikkhuni question". Bangkok Post. http://www.bangkokpost.com/leisure/leisurescoop/15800/the-bhikkhuni-question.  The full transcript from the 28 February 2009 interview is available on Buddhanet [1]
• Pitsis, Simone (27 July 2002). "Brahm's symphony is the sound of silence". The Australian. 
• Ranatunga, D. C. (4 February 2007). "Be good, be happy". Sunday Times (Sri Lanka) 41 (36). ISSN 1391-0531. http://www.sundaytimes.lk/070204/Plus/009_pls.html. 
• "Few minutes of meditation, good way to start". Sunday Times (Sri Lanka) 41 (40). 4 March 2007. ISSN 1391-0531. http://www.sundaytimes.lk/070304/KandyTimes/517_kt1.html. 
• Ranatunga, D. C. (9 December 2007). "Meeting Ajahn Brahm in a relaxed mood". Sunday Times (Sri Lanka) 42 (28). ISSN 1391-0531. http://www.sundaytimes.lk/071209/Plus/plus0008.html. 
• Smedley, Tim (3 May 2007). "What HR could learn from Buddhism". People Management 13 (9): 14. ISSN 1358-6297. 
• Wettimuny, Samantha (21 January 2007). "Sharing the Dhamma in his own unique style". Sunday Times (Sri Lanka) 41 (34). ISSN 1391-0531. http://www.sundaytimes.lk/070121/Plus/012_pls.html. 

External links[link]

• Ajahn Brahm's official website

Ajahn Amaro
With lay visitors in US, 2007
Religion	Theravada
School	Thai Forest Tradition
Personal
Born	1956 Kent, England
Senior posting
Based in	Amaravati Buddhist Monastery
Title	Ajahn
Religious career
Website	http://www.amaravati.org/

Ajahn Amaro (born 1956) is a Theravadin teacher and abbot of the Amaravati Buddhist Monastery at the eastern end of the Chiltern Hills in south east England. The centre, in practice as much for ordinary people as for monastics, is inspired by the Thai forest tradition and the teachings of the late Ajahn Chah. Its chief priorities are the practice and teaching of Buddhist ethics, together with traditional concentration and insight meditation techniques, as an effective way of dissolving stress.

Biography[link]

Ajahn Amaro was born Jeremy Charles Julian Horner in Kent, England. He was educated at Sutton Valence School and Bedford College, University of London. Ajahn means teacher. He is a second cousin of I.B. Horner (1896-1981), late President of the Pali Text Society.

Apart from a certain interest in the theories of Rudolf Steiner—to which he had been introduced by Trevor Ravenscroft, later perhaps best known as author of the 1970s cult volume The Spear of Destiny (after which a post-punk band named itself)—Amaro's principal enthusiasms on leaving university were, by his own admission, pretty much those standard-issue among sceptical students of the day: sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.

Having completed his honours degree in psychology and physiology, in 1977 he went to Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand on an undefined "open-ended" spiritual search. He somehow found himself in northeast Thailand, at the forest monastery of Wat Pah Nanachat. Ajahn Chah's charismatic impact and the encouragement of the senior American monk Ajahn Pabhakaro were decisive. It changed his life. Having become a lay renunciate, four months later he became a novice and in 1979 he received upasampada from Ajahn Chah and took profession as a Theravadin bhikkhu. He stayed in Thailand for two years. Amaro then went back to England to help Ajahn Sumedho establish Chithurst Monastery in West Sussex. With the blessing of his abbot, in 1983 he moved to Harnham Vihara in Northumberland. He made the entire 830-mile journey on foot, chronicled in his 1984 volume Tudong: The Long Road North.^[1][2]

Ajahn Amaro in California with Franklyn, organiser of the 2007 Buddhist Bicycle Pilgrimage

Origins of California's Abhayagiri Monastery[link]

In the early 1990s Amaro made several teaching trips to northern California. Many who attended his meditation retreats became enthusiastic about the possibility of establishing a permanent monastic community in the area.

Amaravati, his mother house back in England, meanwhile received a substantial donation of land in Mendocino County from Chan Master Hsuan Hua, founder of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Talmage. The land was allocated to establish a forest retreat. Since for some years Ajahn Sumedho had venerated the Chinese master, both abbots hoped that, among its other virtues, the center would serve as a symbolic bond between the otherwise distinct Theravada and Mahayana lineages.

Care for what became Abhayagiri was placed in the hands of a group of lay practitioners, the Sanghapala Foundation.^[2] Ajahn Pasanno was appointed founding co-abbot of Abhayagiri with Ajahn Amaro. The latter announced on 8 February 2010 that he would be leaving Abhayagiri and returning to England, having accepted a request from Ajahn Sumedho to succeed him as abbot at Amaravati.^[3]

Bibliography[link]

• Tudong: The Long Road North (1984, English Sangha Trust)
• Silent Rain (1994, Amaravati Publications)
• Words of Calm and Friendship - by Ajahn Pasanno & Ajahn Amaro (1999, Abhayagiri Monastery)
• The Pilgrim Kamanita: A Legendary Romance - by Karl Gjellerup, Ajahn Amaro ed. (1999, Amaravati Publications)
• The Dhamma and the Real World - by Ajahn Pasanno & Ajahn Amaro (2000, Abhayagiri Monastery)
• Broad View, Boundless Heart - by Ajahn Pasanno & Ajahn Amaro (2001, Abhayagiri Monastery)
• Food for the Heart - by Ven. Ajahn Chah; Introduction by Ajahn Amaro (2002, Wisdom Publications)
• Small Boat, Great Mountain: Theravadin Reflections on the Natural Great Perfection (2003, Abhayagiri Monastery)
• Who Will Feed the Mice? (2004, Abhayagiri Monastery)
• The Sound of Silence - by Ven. Ajahn Sumedho; Introduction by Ajahn Amaro (2007, Wisdom Publications)
• Rugged Interdependency (2007, Abhayagiri Monastery)
• Like a River - by Ajahn Pasanno, Ajahn Amaro et al. (2008, Patriya Tansuhaj)
• The Island: An Anthology of the Buddha’s Teachings on Nibbāna (2009, Abhayagiri Monastery) - by Ajahn Pasanno & Ajahn Amaro
• Rain on the Nile (2009, Abhayagiri Monastery)

References[link]