In one sense, I am very lucky as a solitary practioner. Birken Monastery is a 2-hour drive away. When we are not in a time of pandemic, that means I can hope to visit for a couple of week-long retreats each year (budget, job, and family obligations permitting), and maybe add a couple of day visits. I have deep gratitude that Birken and Ajahn Sona are so close.
At the same time, I’ve heard Ajahn Sona say that Birken gets about 1,000 visitors a year. I’m not going to build an ongoing teacher-student relationship.
Also, I don’t know anyone in my personal life who is Buddhist, and there are no centers of any Buddhist tradition in town, let alone Theravada.
Are there online sanghas to join? With an ajahn to guide a student’s development and practice? Are there forums with the amazing quality of this one that focus primarily on practice?
Forgive me if my questions are lacking understanding of basic principles of how this works. What I’m looking for is a place like SuttaCentral that focuses on practice.
Thank you.
Please feel free to move this to Q & A if appropriate. I put it in Watercooler because I was thinking of it being a more general discussion of online groups and resources for solitary practioners.
Perhaps you should not overthink the statistics. If you are on a retreat with a teacher you will build a relationship. There are several teachers who, at various times, I saw every year or two, but who I still learned a lot from. [For example, Canadian Ajahn Tiradhammo, who lived in New Zealand for a few years, but is now in Australia, I believe.]
I know a few people in BC who have said the same thing. I keep saying y’all should start a ‘meetup’
I agree with Mike about forming a relationship with a teacher. At Dhammasara we have many more than a thousand visitors a year and yet there are people who we know and care about even if they don’t visit so often. If you are genuinely interested in a relationship with a teacher then don’t second guess yourself.
On and off I have been part of an online community called Student of the Path, started by @Bhikkhu_Jayasara. It is mostly a group of lay practitioners who support each other in there practice. Discussions on sila and meditation are the mainstay but there are also weekly sutta discussions with @Charlotteannun. The community is on an app called Discord. I think it’s invite only these days, but I can find out how to get an invite if you are interested.
Online is definitely OK! My own journey has been online only since the very beginning (I work in the Middle East ) - I started with googling for advice during a time of personal difficulty and encountered Ajahn Brahm on YouTube! ( )
Binge watching Ajahn Brahm’s Dhamma talks helped me tremendously. Then I discovered the Friday night meditations on the BSWA channel. I was hooked! Further inquiry led me to Dhamma talks and guided meditations by Ajahn Brahmali, Bhante Sujato, Ajahn Amaro, Ajahn Jayasaro, Ajahn Sona, Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu and a host of others - YouTube will soon figure out what you’re interested in!
Other good sources of Dhamma talks I have come across include audio dharma, Dharma seed (wide variety of teachers - searchable) and Dhamma talks (talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu).
You will definitely want to read the discourses/ writings of Lum por Chah and Lum por Buddhadasa at some stage in your journey!
Lots of good dhamma resources are directly available on the websites of monasteries such as BSWA or Amravati. Some good online Dhamma book repositories include Buddhanet ebooks, and the buddhist library.
PureDhamma.net is a useful (though sometimes a bit unorthodox/ controversial) site to get an understanding of various Pali words/ Dhamma concepts.
If you’re more into the Burmese/ Vipassana flavours then check out PureDhamma.org for the Sayadaw method or look at dhamma.org and pariyatti for the SN Goenka method.
There will be times when you run into doubts and controversies. That’s part of the process of learning, isn’t it? If you get too confused, you can always fall back on the gem in your backyard - Birken! With access to dyed in the wool monastics like Ajahn Sona, what more could you possibly need?
Please, don’t go by oral transmission, don’t go by lineage, don’t go by testament, don’t go by canonical authority, don’t rely on logic, don’t rely on inference, don’t go by reasoned contemplation, don’t go by the acceptance of a view after consideration, don’t go by the appearance of competence, and don’t think ‘The ascetic is our respected teacher.’ But when you know for yourselves: ‘These things are unskillful, blameworthy, criticized by sensible people, and when you undertake them, they lead to harm and suffering’, then you should give them up.
Sorry about bumping an old thread, because I’ve started to seriously look around for an online or preferably face-to-face contact in this regard and I’ve already contacted a few Buddhism monasteries in India.
Though what are the chances that a Westerner monk would misunderstand or misguide a novice student/follower, compared to an Asian monk?
I can’t help but feel that just like how a typical Christian priest based in America is well versed in Christian doctrine compared to a typical Japanese one, the same could very well hold true for Buddhism.
If you think about it, a Western buddhist monk is certainly a statistical anomaly compared to a Thai monk. As such, it’s likely that they’ll be probably more enthusiastic and devoted - it takes a greater leap for a western to turn into a buddhist monk, compared to a thai person.
A western monk might be more inclined towards scriptural analysis and intellectual side of things. An asian monk might be more culturally inclined towards the “living religion”, which might at times be at odds with the actual scriptural doctrine.
But of course, these are just hypothethical assumptions and are likely going to vary extremely on a case-by-case basis. But it’s just a perspective that’d help you break your own assumptions hopefully.
I see what you mean, but then there is the important cultural inter-connection of any cultural phenomenon. It just can’t be seen as an out of context phenomenon. You can see how this is significant when the Western translators struggle to define words such as Sankhara or even Dhamma whereas a trustworthy and wise Asian monk knows ins and outs of such things, and would be the best of both worlds in my opinion.
Edit- By the way, such monks I believe show you the way based on cultural heritage and experience, more than teaching to read materials that are fundamentally from another world because languages define worlds.
Also keep in mind, just because a person is unable to translate something to a target language, doesn’t mean they don’t actually understand it in the native language. In places where Buddhism has a historical stronghold, these translations have been in place for at least two millenia, so giving Dhamma talks in their native language is easy.
Understanding what Sankhara means doesn’t mean knowing how to actually convey it in English. Those two are different skillsets, and these western languages didn’t develop a language to convey Dhamma natively which makes translators jobs even harder.
Even then, I’ve seen excellent works by western translators who go in depth explaining these concepts.
I think I’m biased from my perspective from Islam - I’ve hardly if ever seen native muslims who’re as knowledgeable about actual Islam as foreigners, whereas local imams have a blend of traditions, some very paganic and such in their practice, completely unrelated to Islam but just old folk superstitions. Foreigners seem to have a more pure view of actual history and doctrine.
This has generally been my experience with Buddhism as well. Again, when barrier to entry is high, only the high performers are likely to convert to a foreign religion. Those people seem to have a strong zeal with their practice.
That can be a double edged sword. In many cases religions adapt to local customs and stray out of their origins to gain a socio-political stronghold. Such pragmatic attitudes are the strongest where X is the given religion of a region. It means they’re successfully adapted to local customs the highest.
Case in point, both Zen buddhism in Japan and Thai Mainstream buddhism have millenia behind their traditions. They’re also almost completely different practices, with wildly varying doctrines. How would you know which cultural heritage and experience is correct?
A thai monastery will be very much a Thai cultural product, whereas a monastery in for example Germany will likely have neither Thai and little German cultural influences (since it already is a den of people signaling a departure from the mainstream germanic culture).
That has not been my experience of Western teachers. The list that @faujidoc1 presents are all wonderful teachers. I’ve interacted with Bhante Sujato and Bhante Brahmali on this site, and I’m a student of Ajahn Sona and do regular retreats at Birken, his monastery. I don’t feel misguided or misunderstood with any of them.
My gentle suggestion is not to make your search harder than it has to be by ruling out classes of teachers based on a theory of how you think it might work. Go on retreats, attend Dhamma talks, meet teachers, and then proceed from your experience of how actual teachers fit your needs.
EDIT TO ADD: And to clarify - I was mistaken in my original post. You do build relationships. You are known. After a number of retreats at Birken I feel very known and welcome there.
I encounter Buddhists at the Spiritualist church but the chats are generally them talking/ asking about their spiritual experiences ( which I can only answer from a Spiritualist perspective) … or how much they love Thich Nacht Hahn (that’s a frequent one lol) … but I don’t have any actual real world Buddhist friends. Lots of Spiritualist ones tho I can talk about my weird stuff with. They just can’t help with answers tho when my weird stuff is half in Buddhist territory.
A lot of the temples/ monasteries within a hour of me cater to immigrants and don’t speak English so I don’t bother going to them coz I’d have no idea what was going on lol.
I do live 1/2 a hour from NBM, but unless they have finished building recently, I don’t think they actually run any classes or courses. I don’t think I can go to retreats tho when they do open for that tho, coz I’m pretty sure I saw something on the BSV website about being a member for retreats- but joining is being on par with declaring yourself a Buddhist …. and the Spiritualist Union I’m a member of also has the same clause - so red tape doesn’t allow me to join both - and I’m not willing to lie to either one of them I would go to classes at NBM tho if they had them and let me.
So I’m kinda stuck with you tube and here. I don’t like how people behave on Fakebook, so even the few Buddhist pages I looked at on there I decided were not for me either. I visited DW twice, never posted, but quickly retreated considering it almost as bad as fakebook. Maybe I just stumbled in to some particularly narky topics/ comments - it turned me off tho anyway.
Oh well, it’s ok, I’ll just free range where I can.
Thank you, … I think I better give them a call and suck up to someone and see if I can get in.
I dived in to a 11 day one on my first Spiritualist retreat …. but that’s way less intense a scene than a Buddhist retreat. I’ll see if I can get in to the 1 day one for now and if not I’ll just go to opening day
Buddhism is not different from christianity and islam in how different people can think about the goal, the practice, the meaning, the doctrine. This is going on from the deep past until now. It is not started in modern times.
This is all not easy to accept and digest, i have felt, but it is just reality. There is no consensus on anything in buddhism worldwide. Even about basic things like…what are khandhas, what is Nibbana, what does it mean to be awakened, what is ignorance, you can hear in buddhism all kinds of explanations. And there you are as person…confused…what is true, what is hineininterpretiert, what is reliable?
As as result of this wilderness of views, i believe people grasp strongly at: 1. a particular interpretation of a practicular teacher, 2. seek it in some specific tradition with a specific interpretation of Dhamma, 3. rely heavily on scriptural study to find some reliable consistent doctrine.
This is not to discourage you but this is just how it is. I know it is a platitude but, i believe, we can only see what resonates within, and even then we can be mistaken. But we also can learn from mistakes and try to be open-hearted.
EBT present a Buddha who says that the whole holy life is about spiritual friendship.
I tend to understand this as: The holy life relies fully upon such qualities as truthfulness, sincerity, uprightness, a desire to have a clear understanding and not to deceive oneself and others. If a teachers embodies that, then that is the greatest teacher. I feel such is the rea ; (inner and outer) teacher and teachings.
I feel this is also real Dhamma practice. One must work through ones own doubts, wavering, hunger for certainty (only this is true mentality). One can always avoid or hide everything forcefully; ones doubts, ones passions, ones insecurities etc. i have no faith in this.
We can see that we are full of doubts, insecurity, feel unsafe, find it difficult to have trust in ourselves and others, find it difficult to see what is reliable etc. And i feel there is really nothing wrong with this. It may be uncomfortable but not wrong. One must be alert when people are not like this!
I believe that when our hearts long for uprightness, sincerity, truthfulness, goodness, purity (reliable), a desire to be always open and not deceiving ourselves and others, without hidden agenda, we are practicing Dhamma. It does not matter if one is called hindu, christian, muslim, buddhist. Those are all not real identities.
What I’m looking for is a place like SuttaCentral that focuses on practice.
) - I started with googling for advice during a time of personal difficulty and encountered Ajahn Brahm on 
I would go to classes at NBM tho if they had them and let me.
