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A weekend Insight meditation retreat with Ajahn Dhammanando [Residential]
April 19 @ 6:00 pm - April 21 @ 12:30 pm
PLEASE NOTE: RETREAT IS FULLY BOOKED, PLEASE DO NOT APPLY
Beginning on Friday evening at 6:00pm and ending on Sunday lunch time.
Booking (by filling out the booking form) is essential as there are limited number of spaces available.
This retreat is offered on a Dana (donation) basis only.
To participate it is necessary to attend the entire retreat.
Ajahn Dhammanando
Growing up in London, England, Ajahn Dhammanando came from a family largely uninterested in religion and thoroughly sceptical in spiritual matters. Consequently he never regarded himself as a “spiritual seeker”, nor did he feel the need to make any spiritual commitments in his early years. However, a two year period in his twenties as a volunteer teacher of English in Thailand changed that. It brought him into contact with Buddhism and its outer forms, although he didn’t, by any means, as yet understand it.
It was after meeting Ajahn Sumedho and other western monks in London, a few years later, that the relevance of the Buddha’s teachings to his own life became more apparent to him. This was especially the case following a ‘baptismal’ ten day retreat in a house not far from Chithurst Monastery, which convinced him that somehow or other he must be “a Buddhist”.
From that time onwards he either pursued the path of practice in everyday life (helping to set up a Buddhist group in Northampton, England) or else he trained as an anagarika (postulant) for two years with the Sangha in Amaravati and Chithurst. Not yet ready for monkhood, he returned to the lay life as a teacher in South London and pursued a higher degree. However, four years later, having abandoned those more worldly ambitions, he returned to re-join the Sangha and took bhikkhu ordination (Upasampada) with Luang Phor Sumedho in 1993.
Since ordination he has trained in most of the UK monasteries, as well as spending time in monasteries outside the UK (Switzerland, Italy, Australia and New Zealand) where he gained useful experience. More recently he has resided at Amaravati Monastery in the UK, where he has taken a special interest in receiving school and other educational groups on visits and in meeting inmates in a local prison, at least up until the onset of Covid.
He has also paid regular visits to both Hungary and Ireland, teaching in Buddhist Centres in those countries and encouraging an interest in the theory and practice of Buddhism.