Date: 25 Jan 2019 (Fri)
Time: 7.30pm to 9.00pm
Venue: The Buddhist Library, Level 2 Auditorium
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The Buddha delineated four successive stages of awakening. We don’t have to awaken all at once, so its not too overwhelming. The Buddha also gave an analogy: just as the shore of the ocean slopes gradually, so his teaching also inclines gradually towards nibbana, awakening. Some Buddhist sects believe in instant enlightenment, not the gradual process of awakening. Maybe some people do have instant or spontaneous awakening, but I think that even if they do, that experience still requires a certain development and filling out. One can have moments of clarity and glimpses of truth, but unless the experience becomes really grounded in our whole being, its just a flash of insight and that’s about it. It’s like when we wake up in the morning. We can have an ‘insight’ into how the day might be, but we need to build our life around it. So even if we have an ‘awakening experience’, we still need to integrate it into spiritual practice, put it into our life and live it.

About Ven. Ajahn Tiradhammo

About Ven. Ajahn Tiradhammo

Venerable Ajahn Tiradhammo is one of the most senior monks in the tradition of Ajahn Chah. He was born in Canada in 1949 and became interested in Dhamma in his student years while travelling through Sri Lanka.

Coming to Thailand and meditating at Wat Umong, he took ordination at Wat Meung Man in Chiang Mai with Venerable Tong in 1974. In 1975 he moved to study with Ajahn Chah at Wat Pah Pong and Wat Pah Nanachat. He went on several tudong journeys through the northeast of Thailand and the mountains of Chiang Mai, visiting many famous forest meditation masters.

Ajahn Tiradhammo was invited to England in 1982 to help with developments there. He spent two years at Chithurst Monastery, and three years in charge of Harnham Vihara in Northumberland. In 1988 he helped establish Dhammapala Monastery near Bern, Switzerland and also later at its new location in the Bernese Alpine village of Kandersteg where he was the senior monk until 2005. In July 2005 he assumed the position of senior monk at Bodhinyanarama, Wellington, NZ where he remained as abbot for six and a half years.

He is currently of no fixed abode and travels widely.