Sunday, November 15, 9:25am to 2:30pm
IMC is hosting a benefit for the Saranaloka Foundation. All dana for this Sunday will be donated to the Foundation.
Regular sitting: Ajahn Anandabodhi and Ajahn Metta will be guest speakers
11 am: Meal offering to the monastics
12:30-2:30 pm: Saranaloka supporters’ meeting
Saranaloka Foundation was established in 2004 to support nuns from Chithurst and Amaravati monasteries in England to come to the United States to teach. Since that time, and numerous visits later, enthusiasm for the presence of women monastics has been tremendous and is the driving force behind an invitation to the nuns’ community to set up a permanent monastery here in the United States.
With the blessing of the Forest Sangha monastic communities in Europe, an intention to establish a branch monastery for training women in the United States has been set. Three nuns, Ajahn Anandabodhi, Ajahn Metta and Ajahn Santacitta will return to the vihara this December with the intention of establishing a monastery in a more rural nearby setting in the coming years.
Ajahn Metta was born in 1953 in Germany. She has been practising meditation since 1984 and has experience of living in other spiritual communities in Europe and Thailand (Wat Suan Mokkh). She became an Anagārikā in 1993 at Amaravati and took higher ordination as a Sīladhāra in 1996. She is one of the group of senior nuns leading the Sīladhārā community. For the past few years she has been teaching meditation workshops and retreats.
Ajahn Anandabodhi was born in Wales in 1968. She trained in catering and also worked in environmental conservation, all the while looking for spiritual direction. Visiting Amaravati in 1990, she experienced a sense of ‘coming home’ and in 1992 joined the community, taking ordination in 1995. She particularly enjoys ‘tudong’ – walking on faith and taking the sign of the samana out into the world.