About

Forest Dhamma Monastery

Forest Dhamma Monastery is a monastic community in the lineage of Ajaan Mahā Boowa whose primary focus is on the Buddhist practices of the Thai Forest Tradition.

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Forest Dhamma History

Forest Dhamma Monastery is the first monastery in the United States to be established by a direct disciple of Ajaan Mahā Boowa, a respected Theravāda Buddhist master of the Thai Forest Tradition.

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Ajaan Dick Sīlaratano

Ajaan Dick Sīlaratano was born at Winchester, Virginia in 1948. After graduating from the University of Texas in 1970, he became disillusioned with academia. Abandoning plans for graduate school, he began instead to travel the world in search of spiritual fulfillment.

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Forest Dhamma Training

In the realm of Dhamma practice, forests and mountains are tantamount to what we call graduate schools. Forests are where people who have thoroughly studied the Dhamma go to make the Buddha’s teaching their own. In doing so, they realize what we call Forest Dhamma.

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Forest Dhamma Books

Forest Dhamma Books has for many years been a charitable publisher of English translations showcasing the literary works and Dhamma teachings of Venerable Ajaan Mahā Boowa, an exceptional teacher and masterful exponent of the Thai Forest Tradition.

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Ajaan Paññāvaddho

Venerable Ajaan Paññāvaḍḍho was for forty-one years the senior-most Western monk following Ajaan Mun’s path of practice. Ajaan Paññā, as he was called, was a man of intellectual brilliance who, through his own efforts in meditation, was able to establish a strong spiritual foundation in his heart.

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Ajaan Mahā Boowa

Ajaan Mahā Boowa’s story in his own words:

My mother was a wonderfully patient and devoted woman. She told me that of all the sixteen children she carried to birth, I was by far the most troublesome in the womb.

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Thai Forest Tradition

Since the time of the Buddha, monks have retreated into the depths of the forests and mountains, seeking physical isolation to aid them in the development of meditation and realization of the truth of the Buddha’s teaching. Those monks lived a life of simplicity, austerity and diligent effort.

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Baan Taad Forest Monastery

Nearly 2,600 years ago in Northern India, a young prince left the luxuries of the palace and took up the life of a homeless wanderer in the forest in order to find freedom from the sufferings of the cycle of birth, ageing, sickness and death. After six years of searching, he awakened to that freedom while sitting under the Bodhi tree.

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The Logo

Forest Dhamma Monastery’s new logo was designed and executed by Mae Chee Melita, a nun resident at the monastery for the past five years and an original member of our sangha. A graphic designer by training, she explains the spiritual principles that form the basis of our logo in this way...

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