Oldest US Buddhist monk at 100 (10/11)

• RSVP (FREE to attend):
• Disclosure Project, Los Angeles
• PasaDharma, Foothills
• Nature Center, Valley

Long ago, despairing of authentic Early Buddhism in Los Angeles, I found the closest thing to it in my own hometown, Hollywood. That's where Ven. Dhammarama was abbot on Beachwood Drive, under the Hollywood sign between one of Sunset Gower Studios and Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

I had left the pre-Coming West Temple, which had a thriving Taiwanese Mahayana Buddhist community in a small out-of-the-way LA County industrial quarter (barrio/ghetto) called Maywood. It was a strange place for an Asian Buddhist temple, but what did I know?

C;'mon, everyone, let's go find Buddhism in LA

It's LA, I had a car. Nobody walks in LA. Every Sunday I'd get on the freeway from Highland Park and head over for a vegetarian/vegan feast and a sermon in Taiwanese or Mandarin Chinese or some Asian language I could make neither heads nor tails of.

WHAT HAPPENED?

Some of the most popular videos now playing on Mindfulness Meditation TV USA

Sri Lankan art of Buddhism's arrival

The event is still going on at 9:00 pm, with many speeches and felicitations, the announcement of a new app (iPhone and Android) for the Mindfulness Meditation Center (mmctvusa.com) to watch these sorts of events and other inspirational (often Sinhalese language) material remotely and throughout the world, broadcasting from one whole floor of a medical center a stone's throw from MacArthur Park near downtown Los Angeles.

• The best presentation was by the Nepali monk who resides at the MMC, announcing the publication of new academic journal. It will feature a commemoration of the old monk, a retrospective of his life. Its publication was delayed because it is being published on the Island. It will now be distributed at the Temple's Kathina ceremony in a few weeks. Wisdom Quarterly will follow up when it comes out.

This tower also houses a magical Buddhist relic in a shrine on the roof, which we have seen with our own eyes thanks to knowing the owner, one of the Center's few multimillionaire donor doctors and real estate magnates. (Devas and magic are very real even if Westerners will not stand for it but try to "prove" that to anyone). About 300 gathered with 30-40 monks and a couple of Korean nuns accompanying some venerable Mahayana well-wishers in a hall/church full of Theravada Buddhists. Speeches, awards, photo ops, more speeches, tasty island food and snacks, more speeches...it went on for almost four hours, with many in attendance dressed in all white.

This is the largest and one of the oldest Theravada Buddhist temples in the USA. The next public event is Oct. 17, 2026, for a free full-day mindfulness meditation retreat. Call or text: (626) 364-7497: mindfulnessmeditationcenter.org

How Wisdom Quarterly came to be

When our dharma (duty) meets samsara (cycle)

But I found a book in the library that looked vintage and full of philosophy. I loved it. I was like Lisa Simpson onto something. I went from that book to the Bodhi Tree Bookstore, a famous New Age boutique in upscale West Hollywood. That book and the feast kept me coming back to learn more.

I was a new vegetarian, having learned the compassionate diet from Raja Yoga, and felt at home with other vegetarians, practicing what the famous Indian Siddhartha had practiced.

From the sky, Hsi Lai is a bodhi tree leaf.

There was a model of some pie-in-the-sky dream temple they were going to build on a mountain top in Los Angeles once they could get the money together and find the land. It was a nice model, but I thought they were naive to think they could build a giant golden bodhi tree leaf in LA's San Gabriel Valley.

(They proved me wrong by soon gathering enough donations from here and abroad to build Coming West Temple, the largest Buddhist temple in the Western hemisphere with its own accredited Buddhist college, University of the West.

I would eventually enroll to finish writing an adventurous Buddhist book about the 37 Requisites of Enlightenment. The dean at that time was former US Ambassador from Sri Lanka Dr. Ananda W. P. Guruge, Ph.D.

Faith in Mahayana, worship of maha-bodhisattvas

Dismayed that "Mahayana" Buddhism was all worship, food, rules, and culture, I returned to Bodhi Tree Bookstore to see if there might be another Buddhism. Of course there is! It became clear in the big Buddhist section of the store.

Most books were glossy and fancy, but there were these other pamphlet-like titles tucked in everywhere Bodhi Leaves and Wheel. I started collecting them, noticing that the publisher was BPS.lk.

What the Buddha Taught (Ven. Walpola Rahula)

It became clear: There are two Buddhisms, a BIG one ("Great Vehicle," the gaudy big tent player representing 90% of Buddhists, an umbrella term for many popular schools), and a back-to-basics movement (the "Teaching of the Enlightened Elders" who knew the historical Buddha). This second kind of Buddhism was trying to do everything The Buddha Taught without changing or trying to "improve" it. This was Theravada, and it was the one for me!

By then I was attending the massive Mystic Dharma Temple in Highland Park, a strange and nearly empty place with lovely Chinese decoration but a Sri Lankan Mahayana abbot (Ven. Chao Chu) in charge. When I asked him about my suspicion that there were two Buddhisms, he said: "Nonsense! There's only one."

So I took to the phonebook and found Ven. Dhammarama's Beachwood Temple in Hollywood. I knocked on the door. He invited me in. But I wouldn't cross the threshold until he answered one crucial question: "What kind of Buddhism is this?" I didn't have the names of the two schools, so that was the only way I could ask it.

He didn't understand. So I asked a different way: "Are you familiar with the Buddhist Publication Society? They talk about the right kind of Buddhism."

He smiled broadly and opened the door, pointing at a rack of BPS titles. I was home. I came in, we meditated, drank tea, talked about why Chao Chu said there was just one Buddhism.

Ancient Buddhism exists in Sri Lanka because Indian Buddhist Emperor Ashoka sent his enlightened monastic children, Mahinda and Sanghamitta, to the island as missionaries.

.

The sacred island that saved ancient Buddhism

Ven. Dhammarama knew that monk, both being from the same country (the Buddhist island off the tip of India called Serendip, Ceylon, and Sri Lanka, where Buddhism survived when it vanished from the mainland subcontinent or Jambudipa).

Ven. Dhammarama explained how a Chinese missionary came and took Ven. Chao Chu from Lanka, the Island, to train him in China with the purpose of creating a new syncretic Buddhist tradition fusing the two big schools. That's why.

Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal exists because one day Ven. Dhammarama asked me to edit the defunct temple newsletter, which he had called Sarana (commonly mistranslated as "Refuge" but which really means "Going for Guidance").

I produced a newsletter, but one open to all kinds of Buddhisms (of which there are many more than two), spiritual ideas, Engaged Buddhism (sensitive to social justice issues), Dharmic cultures, and Asian art, punk rock, extreme metal, and "musick" in general, New Age, conspiracy theories, whistle blower accounts...

I was only my way to UC Berkeley, so it should have come as no surprise that I was interested in Truth, justice, rebellion, revolution, rock 'n roll, equality, EDM, the Sixties, and all that good Left-leaning stuff most Americans would agree with, even the fiscally conservative folks.

Most Americans, even Republicans, are liberal on most social issues. The historical Buddha certainly seems to have been. The world is not the most important thing; spiritual matters are. But in the meantime, we must correct injustices and love and help everybody.

What is "Buddhism"? It is "the marriage of wisdom and compassion." So Ven. Dhammarama assigned me a female co-editor to bring me back to a narrower vision of what a quarterly "newsletter" should be.

This caused the name change and an increase in outlets, with the other Buddhist temples in LA looking askance at any publication that did not glorify their particular view of things.

It had to become broader and broader to please everyone while failing to please anyone, any single view. That's when helpful Maya had an idea. It should go online if it was going to try to go in-depth in the things it was talking about.

Originally, we only really wanted to talk about sutras (discourses) and their deeper meaning, but so much was going on in the world. No one would understand sutras when they hadn't even understood life and how this society of ours really works. So the Wisdom Quarterly's mission became bigger, but simple, just trying to answer one BIG question: Why do things (really) happen? What's behind the surface, the narrative the media feeds us?

He liked it, but not for the temple. For the temple, it must limit itself just to temple matters, upcoming celebration days. He only wanted a newsletter to appease the committee that ran the vihara and glorify one cultural interpretation of the Buddha Dhamma. But the Dharma is bigger than the great Pali canon.

Ven. Dhammarama and I visited Sri Lanka together so I could find Bhikkhu Bodhi to ordain under him or get his personal advice on where to go to become the sort of Buddhist monk not involved in the world but dedicated completely to the goal the Buddha mentioned in his final words and exhortation to the countless disciples and devas present: "All things are hurtling towards destruction; work out your liberation with diligence."

Other things happened, which are hard to state in brief within the story. So I'll list them here:

• Ven. Chao Chu and I stayed friends and went to the same college, while his American sidekick Dana went to UCLA to get his PhD.
• Then I went to study abroad at Oxford University in England and came back when I got accepted to
• UC Berkeley. Then I won a giant award to study at
• Yale University, to prepare for graduate school at the university of my choice.
• And wouldn't you know, karma being what karma is, karma brought me back to Los Angeles to get my PhD at UCLA.
• I needed to get to India to make real the place I read so much about in the ancient texts, like there's something magic about the philosophical East.
• I took Bhikkhu Bodhi's advice that there might be a better Buddhist country than Sri Lanka for the sort of serious Buddhist meditation I was interested in, one next to India.
• Then living in the SGV, my landlord revealed he was a Buddhist (culturally, not so much in practice) and that a very prominent Buddhist scholar was coming to talk about the Abhidhamma at a nearby temple, asking if I would be interested in attending.
• "Not 100 miles that way, that way, that way, or that way (North, East, West, or South), I said pointing, "is there a human more interested in this topic than I," I answered.
• I went, the scholar blew my mind, told me about a teacher, the greatest in the land, who practiced in accordance with the historical Buddha, was a vegetarian, talk women as well as men, attained and taught the absorptions, had people remember past lives in no long time, kept all the precepts (and Monastic Disciplinary Code), and... TO BE CONTINUED

• List of Buddhist temples in the USA (Wikipedia)
• VIDEO: Why Hinduism never caught on, whereas Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam all went global

Bhikkhu Bodhi greets Peace Walk monks

(CBS News) Ven. Pannakara recounts 15-week pilgrimage for peace

• The Walk for Peace with Aloka the Dog

Who is Bhikkhu Bodhi?

Social and Communal Harmony

Born Jeffrey Block (Dec. 10, 1944), now known as Bhikkhu Bodhi [a], is an American Theravada Buddhist scholar-monk, a major inspiration for Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal, educated in California, ordained in Sri Lanka, and now teaching in New York and New Jersey.

• Long ago at BPS, Bhikkhu Bodhi authorized our Dharma editor to promote his mail order Buddhist course called The Buddha's Teaching: As It Is, a ten-cassette set he recorded in the basement of the Washington Buddhist Vihara with glossary and notes. To reach a wider audience, we took it online with millions of views, our dhamma-dana.

He is a prolific Pali canon translator, author, and Buddhist commentator, long ago appointed the second president of BPS.lk (the Buddhist Publication Society) [2]. He is the current president of BAUS.org (the Buddhist Association of America), and the founder of the Buddhist charity Buddhist Global Relief [3].

(Buddhism Simplified) What if we don't want to believe in rebirth?

 

Early life

Whaddya mean ya wanna leave Jud'ism to JuBu?

Block was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1944 to Jewish parents. He grew up in Borough Park, where he attended elementary school P.S. 160 [4] and graduated from New Utrecht High School [5]. He then worked as a door-to-door salesman selling paintbrushes [6].

In 1966, he obtained a B.A. in philosophy from Brooklyn College, where he first encountered Buddhism in books at the bookstore [6]. In 1972, he obtained a doctoral degree (PhD) in philosophy from Claremont Graduate University [7, 8] in Southern California before deciding to move to Asia to ordain as a monk. More

• (ABC 7 News - WJLA) LIVE: Buddhist monks conclude 2,300-mile 'Walk for Peace' at the Lincoln Memorial (during Black History Month) in Washington, DC

The Life of a Forest Monk (word free)

Buddhist Lent: Kathina ceremony (10/27)

Golden Buddha from ancient Gandhara, modern Afghanistan (from Saving Mes Aynak)

Golden Buddha polished to brilliance in Burma

The Buddhist holiday season has just begun in the Theravada Buddhist world, as the Lent period comes to a close with a culminating ceremony called the Kathina ("Unshakeable") robe offering. It is a kind of Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) after the fast rather than before it.

It is said that this is the most meritorious ceremony lay people participate in, generating a great deal of beneficial karma (punya, kusala kamma).

What happened?

The new facilities can hold ~1,000 people

The Buddhist temple (Mindfulness Meditation Center) was never more crowded. Both lots were full with cars overflowing onto the neighboring suburban streets.

Nearly everyone was dressed in white just like at the time of the Buddha. There were giant tents and chairs set up near the bodhi tree (a descendant of the original tree wandering ascetic Siddhartha sat under to become the Buddha, the "Awakened One"). Snack boxes were being given out, and monks were gathering in the hall.

Two Vietnamese Theravada nuns were filming the abbot, who is said to be over 100 years old. Abbot Ahangama Dhammarama may not be a centenarian yet, but he does hold the record for the longest person (more years in robes) than anyone in America. Although he may have committed defeat offenses as some say, he is still credited with the longest ordination period or years of seniority (more than 80).

The nuns gathered around him to take selfies as the monks assembled in the pews before lining up to go outside and take their seats at long tables under a giant tent. They chanted (having chanted until midnight the night before) blessings (parittas). Then the parade (perihera) began on the boulevard in front of the temple complex. We lined up to give offerings (dana) to the monastic who walked by with bowls and robes and large gift bags.

The monastics were then served delicious foods, both hard and soft, and devotees offered them their fill so they could return to their meditation. But this day marks the end of the intensive retreat period ("Lent"), so it was on to the awarding of the ceremonial "durable robe" for the temple's monastic resident who had best adhered to the Discipline in the preceding three months of the Rains.

• PHOTOS; Mindfulness Meditation Center - Covina Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara | Facebook

Marvels of monumental Chinese Buddha statue

• Mindfulness Meditation Center - Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara | Covina, San Gabriel Valley, LA, California
• All night chanting begins Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024, at 4:30 pm with dinner served at 7:00 pm
• Full day ceremony: Ancient Buddhist Ceremony: Kathina Robe Offering, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024, 9:00 AM | Meetup
• 1023 N. Glendora Ave., Covina, California
• San Gabriel Valley, Los Angeles County
• Note that each temple celebrates on its own schedule throughout the month. It is not a single day event but will go on at different viharas usually on weekends. The celebration day is usually preceded by all night paritta and sutta chanting in Pali (Magadhi), one of the languages the Buddha spoke. It is customary but not mandatory to wear all white.

Knowing Our Festivals 005: KATHINA

International Buddhist flag with Dharma wheel

(HARMONICO) 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗙𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘀: 𝗞𝗔𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗡𝗔. Kathina is a Buddhist festival, which comes at the end of the Rains Retreat (Vassa), the three-month rainy season retreat for Theravada Buddhists.

Let’s watch this episode from the KNOWING OUR FESTIVALS series to understand more about the festival.

This looks at Malaysia, but this holiday festival is celebrated around the world in every country with a Theravada Buddhist population (Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos, India, Malaysia, Singapore, America, Germany, England, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Australia, Vietnam...)

• The Buddha in Sri Lanka (flickr.com/Yim Hafiz)

Penang Harmony Corporation (HARMONICO) would like to thank the Malaysian Buddhist Meditation Centre, Nandaka Vihara, Bukit Mertajam, and Dr. Li Feng for contributing to the production of this video, Oct. 30, 2021.

• Bhante Dhammarama Maha Thero, Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara (MindfulnessMeditationCenter.com); Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Dhr. Seven, Jen Bradshaw (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Back to Bihar, India: Enlightenment Grove

HIDDEN GEM IN BIHAR, INDIA! 🇮🇳 Magical Bodh Gaya

(Let's Meet Abroad) March 31, 2024: Join us in Bodh Gaya (aka Buddha Gaya), a hidden gem in Bihar, India.🌟🇮🇳 We explore the Mahabodhi ("Great Enlightenment") Temple, walk around the Japanese Great Buddha, and enjoy delicious vegetarian and vegan Tibetan food.

• Budh (or bodh) is the root of Buddha ("Enlightened One") and bodhi ("enlightenment, awakening"), and gaya is grove, so this place is Enlightenment Grove or the Place of Awakening.

Bodh Gaya is really worth a visit during any trip to India. We highly recommend hiring an e-rickshaw to get around to all the famous sights. #bihar #india #bodhgaya

First time exploring Bihar: MY FIRST TIME IN BIHAR! 🇮🇳 Exploring...

• 00:00 Bodh Gaya in Bihar, India: Center of the Buddhist World
• 00:35 Marasa Sarovar Premiere, Bodhgaya
• 01:43 Vegetarian Tibet Om Cafe, Bodh Gaya
• 04:45 Mahabodhi Temple, Bodh Gaya
• 07:17 Great Buddha (80 foot) statue, Bodh Gaya
• 08:58 Exploring Bodh Gaya in Bihar
• 10:40 Tibet Om Cafe, Bodh Gaya again
• 12:25 Bihar road trip

Subscribe for more travel videos. 💛 Hope you enjoyed it. Thumbs up if you liked it and want to help YouTube notice us 👍🏼 • Subscribe to channel to help us keep creating videos bit.ly/lmasub • IG: Say hi and follow our daily adventures. bit.ly/lmainsta 🔥 Learn to create videos like a pro. Adi is an online videography teacher. Ready to learn how to create amazing videos? Try it out here: skl.sh/3JRNbDu. 📸 Gear we love • video camera: https://amzn.to/3OlAZym • photo camera: https://amzn.to/499t6nt • Insta360: https://amzn.to/3vKD9kw • backpack Myra: https://amzn.to/3HwjlUR • Little backpack: https://amzn.to/3Sdj4es 📮 Say hello. • Any business inquiries? Get in contact at hello@letsmeetabroad.com. • We also work as freelance videographers and photographers. Can we create something for you? Please leave any tips, ideas, or questions in the comments. 😙 Lots of love, Adi & Myra

Then, the allegory goes, the wandering ascetic, having eaten and regained his bodily health thanks to the lady Sujata and her maid, wandered on in search of enlightenment. He realized that he had blamed the body for the faults of the mind/heart, punishing it needlessly.

He determined to try another approach, abandoning austerities and self-mortification. What, he wondered, if he were to allow himself the supersensual pleasure of meditative absorption (jhana). Such bliss is blameless. He wondered if this might be the way to awakening.

An inner-knowing came over him that it was. He went to the river to bathe, using his alms bowl to predict if he would succeed. Then he found another tree, having left behind Sujata's banyan.

He entered a wondrous grove and found a marvelous fig tree (Ficus religiosa) under which to sit. There he enjoyed the bliss (piti) of letting go, simply mindful of his in-and-out breathing until it became soft then still, as he entered into single-pointed focus and samadhi, purifying heart/mind.

He remembered past lives and continued to ponder the question that had prompted his spiritual quest: Why do we suffer? He followed the chain of causation (Dependent Origination), realizing that the root of present disappointment and pain (dukkha) was in the past, affecting the present and setting the future.

He broke through the 12-links to understand that, "With this, that comes to be, and without it, it ceases." He understood those factors that had led to everything and saw a means of escape from this round (samsara, simulation) of countless rebirth.

He went back and back through past lives (reappearances, relinkings, rearisings), further exploring all that had happened, with great gratitude for the tree that sheltered him.

Our journey to India

A few years after in San Francisco

Like the video above, we were two Americans traveling through the whirlpool of humanity that is India, she a blond, I blending in. But our Tevas gave us away. Everyone knew we were foreigners and were surprised to find out we were Americans. There were people from all over the world here and extraordinary temples in a little town that represented the whole world. My favorite was not the great Mahabodhi Temple at the center, nor the Sri Lankan vihara, not the Thai wat, nor the Japanese zendo and massive Butso Buddha. It was the wooden Bhutanese shrine room, with woodcut devas on the wall. It was dark and like being in a tiki wood treasure house. What was this? We never knew Bodhgaya, near the Patna Airport, was this jewel. Everyone else it. It was the off-season, but Tibetan monastics were everywhere doing 108,000 prostrations on smooth planks of wood to increase their devotion. Hindus were in control of the walled area around the Bodhi tree, wearing orange and panhandling, exploiting the devotional feelings of pilgrims on entering. We sat next to the stone "throne" slab under which Siddhartha is alleged to have sat. Could it be that very gilded stone? One could imagine this was the exact spot, although there is room for doubt. A monk in Los Angeles I know very well got his Ph.D. in Asia on the archeology of the exact site and the Mahabodhi tower/pagoda cetiya. They were discovered by a British scholar and rebuilt on the site from fragments all around the area. The site had been leveled by Muslim crusaders passing through, cutting down the tree so many honored, thinking that people were praying to it in violation of their religious views. Yet, here it was. We could hardly take in the vicinity and its international air, as we focused on the area around the tree. A sanctuary is more precious for the busy-ness all around.

• TEXT: Wisdom Quarterly

Adventures in Church: Full Moon Day

What is Theravada Buddhism? — Theravada Buddhist Council of Malaysia (squarespace.com)

Marching in front of the temple grounds at the LA consecration (srilankafoundation.org)

.

It is good to keep the fasting day

The Buddha commended an ancient practice on the subcontinent (proto-India), and that was the lunar observance days (the Sabbaths which includes the Buddhist "Sabbath").

Just as the Abrahamic faiths keep the "Lord's Day" (which had always been Saturday not Sunday, given the very word Sabbath means "Saturday," like the pagan, pre-Christian, Wiccan, Jewish Shabbat, the holy or rest day for spiritual stuff.

The Buddha could see back in time that this custom was very good and should be continued. He gave it a Buddhist spin -- like previous buddhas, observing the Eight Precepts rather than the ordinary daily Five Precepts, fasting (eating only between dawn and noon), practicing intensive meditation, hearing and studying the Dharma and Discipline, the path to liberation pointed out by the Buddha.

He taught a path-of-practice that includes calm and insight meditation (shamatha, the jhanas, satipatthana, and vipassana). These are the practices of:

• serenity (silence and stillness)
• the meditative absorptions (samadhi)
• systematic mindfulness (of the four foundations or domains)
• insight ("clear-seeing") and the Seven Factors of Enlightenment.
• The Buddha taught that the fasting day is for "the cleansing of the defiled mind/heart," resulting in inner calm and joy. On this day, Buddhists intensify their practice, deepen their knowledge, and express communal commitment through millennia-old acts of lay-monastic reciprocity. More

Rains Retreat (Vassa) schedule lists weekly Dharma
talks and monthly Poya or Lunar Observance Days.

One need not be a wandering ascetic, an austere monastic, a celibate (anagarika), nor a "little nun or monk" (samaneri/samanera) to practice for insight.

It would be nice and could be very helpful to speed things up to fruition, but it is not necessary. That means a normal, ordinary householder (workaday family person with possessions and worldly obligations) can practice what the Buddha taught and advance in this very life. There's no need to wait.

What are the Four Enlightening Truths, particularly the fourth, which is known as the Enlightening Eightfold Path?

Buddha-Vajrapani-Herakles in art Uposatha

The lunar observance day (Uposatha) is the day to find out. It is observed in Los Angeles at many Theravada Buddhist temples of Southeast Asia. One in particular is the Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara. Instead of practicing weekly, it does so monthly on the full moon day or an approximation of it.

Due to scheduling constraints, September's lunar observance day is being conducted today, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024, beginning at 8:00 am with a day of scheduled sitting and walking meditations, Dharma talks, lunch, and question and answer periods.

Lunar observances during the three-month Rains Retreat period

We're spiritual seekers in LA looking for Truth

The Rains Retreat continues in Los Angeles, so we trekked over to visit the Mindfulness Meditation Center of the Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara in the suburbs of LA's San Gabriel Valley:

• Mindfulness Meditation Center
• 1023 N. Glendora Ave.
• Covina, CA 91724
• INFO: (626) 364-7497

The Center has a vision. It is to bring people to a depth of realization of the Buddha’s path to liberation through direct experience.

Why would anyone be a monk? We should ask.

The Mindfulness Meditation Center – Covina (LABV) is a Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhist spiritual center dedicated to the study and practice of Buddhist teachings (Dharma) and meditation (bhavana) and is committed to the possibility of liberation for all beings from pain, disappointment, and unsatisfactoriness (collectively called dukkha or "suffering").

American Col. Henry Olcott in old Sri Lanka

The Center welcomes diverse populations. It supports and encourages the development of compassionate action towards everyone for a community based on the ideals, teachings, and practices in the tradition of Theravada Buddhism.

• What happened last week? Rains Retreat Sunday Dharma talk, Los Angeles

Mission

The Citadel of Sigiriya atop a massive rock in Sri Lanka, once a Buddhist monastery

Maha Moggallana̞, Sri Lanka

Its mission is to provide practitioners with Buddhist teachings to manifest wisdom and compassion in all aspects of life for the benefit of all beings.

It is a spiritual center and a sanctuary dedicated to the study and practice of mindfulness meditation according to the Theravada Buddhist lineage. It provides Los Angeles and neighboring communities with opportunities to practice meditation, study Buddhist teachings, and apply those teachings in the context of daily life.

August's lunar daylong retreat

There are weekly sitting groups, monthly (lunar observance) daylong retreats, and weekly study courses. Invited guest speakers from other Buddhist centers in the United States and around the world supplement the offerings of dedicated local teachers.

The Center supports and encourages compassionate actions locally and globally to help people who are in need of support materially and spiritually around the globe. mindfulnessmeditationcenter.org

• Information: Mindfulness Meditation Center - Covina Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara | Covina | Facebook
• Formerly in Pasadena, now in Covina, CA
• Hsi Lai Temple, 3456 Glenmark Dr., Hacienda Heights, California (Yelp)

Mission: The "Buddha's Lost Children" (film)

David A. Taylor, Tricycle Magazine, Winter 2007; Crystal Q., CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Tough Love Maverick Buddhist monk Khru Ba gives a novice Buddhist monk Thai kickboxing lessons in Northern Thailand, from Buddha's Lost Children.

.

Monk on a Mission Saving the Orphans of Northern Thailand (full doc)

Buddha's Lost Children: full documentary

(Dhamma Source) June 26, 2023: Buddha's Lost Children is a feature-length documentary film about a Thai Theravada Buddhist monk named Phra Khru Bah Neua Chai Kosittowho -- armed only with his Buddhist faith and skills and master Thai kickboxer skills -- wages an inspirational battle to help save orphaned children, fight drug (meth) abuse, and preserve a vanishing way of life. Director: Mark Verkerk. Learn more and support here: buddhaslostchildren.com

Buddha’s Lost Children is a Dutch film about Theravada Buddhist Thailand, directed by Mark Verkerk, EMS Films, 2006.

As the lights go down, the sound of a stream is heard. The first images show a bare-chested man cross-legged on a tall stone spur in the forest, limbering up his arms and neck in what looks like a cross between meditation and martial arts.

His face is calm, but his body wears a wild constellation of tattoos: calligraphy wriggles down his arms, and a winged horse flies across his chest.

The man is a Thai Theravada Buddhist monk. In the next moment, he’s egging on two boys who are kick boxing. “That’s it!” he cries.

“Kick into his neck.” The documentary Buddha’s Lost Children tells the story of the maverick Buddhist monk and former pro kickboxer Khru Ba and his mission to save forgotten souls at the edge of Thai society — drug-infested communities in the mountainous region of northern Thailand along the Burmese border, near Laos, known as [the drug dealing haven] the Golden Triangle.

“Look at the things they do,” Khru Ba says of the addicted. “Who’ll forgive them? The law of the land doesn’t forgive them, nor does the law of karma....

Only a crazy fool of a monk like me is willing to forgive them.” The hill-tribe ethnic groups of that region — including the Akha, Karen, Yao, and Lisu — have for much of their history been at the mercy of larger forces: drug barons, corrupt Thai officials, disease, and poverty.

They have always lived at the margins: They dress differently from mainstream Thais, speak in different tongues, and hold animist (rather than Buddhist) beliefs. They don’t fit in.

At Khru Ba’s Golden Horse Monastery, he takes their orphaned and abandoned children under his wing and gives them lessons in, among other things, Buddhist Dharma and Thai kickboxing.

“Thai boxing means having a free heart and body; it means not being enslaved to desire or to drugs,” he tells his novices. “Do you understand?”

The boys shout, “Yes!” The young Buddhist novices ride into a village on horseback, saffron robes flapping in their wake, like a gang in a spaghetti Western.

The ritual of receiving alms food from villagers looks almost like a holdup. Khru Ba shouts out his version of karma: Be good, good things come to you, but “if you’re not good, the [animist] spirits will break your neck.”

Mark Verkerk, the Dutch filmmaker who spent three years making the film, says it is about more than an itinerant monk.

“It was important that the film communicate something universal,” Verkerk said by email, “something people could relate to from other cultures — and there’s nothing more universal than raising kids.”

Khru Ba left his own wife and two children after a close friend’s death and a vivid dream that commanded him to open a Buddhist monastery in the mountains of the far north, where one in five youths who turn up for national service are addicted to cheap Western methamphetamines.

Like a spiritual 007, Khru Ba has special permission from the Supreme Patriarch in Bangkok to use whatever methods he deems necessary to address the problems at the kingdom’s edge.

“He’s the only monk to have found a way to operate in this border region,” says Verkerk.

The film, with cinematography that combines sweeping landscapes and intimate views of the region’s culture, has taken honors at various festivals in Europe and North America, and in August (2007) it had its American theatrical pre-release in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is now available on DVD.

• Monk on a Mission - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review