Venerable Ajahn Jayasaro: "Moving Smoothly Along a Bumpy Road"

Date
Monday October 21st 2013, 7:30 - 8:30PM
Event Sponsor
Buddhist Community at Stanford, The Ho Center for Buddhist Studies at Stanford
Location
Sanctuary, The Circle, Old Union, Third Floor
Venerable Ajahn Jayasaro: "Moving smoothly along a bumpy road"

6:45 p.m., Guided Meditation (optional)

7:30 p.m., Talk 

Venerable Ajahn Jayasaro will speak about applying Buddhist principles in daily life.

Bio:

Venerable Ajahn Jayasaro (Shaun Michael Chiverton) was born on the Isle of Wight, England in 1958. In 1978, he became a disciple of Ajahn Chah, one of Thailand’s most renowned Buddhist monks and meditation masters, at Wat Nong Pah Pong in Northeast Thailand. He took full ordination, with Ajahn Chah as his preceptor, in 1980. 

After his initial five-year monastic training, Ajahn Jayasaro went on extended solitary retreat before taking on teaching and administrative duties. Over the next several years, he alternated between periods of retreat and service to his monastic lineage. During this period, he was entrusted by the elders of his order with writing the official biography of his teacher, Ajahn Chah. In 1997, he assumed the position of abbot of Wat Pa Nanachat, the international monastery of Ajahn Chah’s lineage, where he remained until the end of 2002. 

Since early 2003, Ajahn Jayasaro has been living alone in a hermitage at the foot of Khao Yai Mountain national park. The Dhamma teachings and meditation retreats he gives at regular intervals at a nearby retreat center offer inspiration to both lay Buddhists and monastics. He is also a key figure in the movement to integrate Buddhist developmental principles in the Thai education system. Many of his Dhamma talks are broadcast on radio and television.

Ajahn Jayasaro has written many books on Buddhist themes in the Thai language, a number of which have been translated into other languages, including Chinese, French, Italian, and Portuguese. His latest English work, Within and Without, is a general introduction to the Theravāda Buddhist tradition.

Ajahn Jayasaro spends one month each year outside of Thailand. His most recent teaching engagements have been in Qatar, China, and Bhutan. In 2011, Ajahn Jayasaro was granted an honorary doctorate in Buddhist Pedagogy by Mahachulalongkorn Rajavidyalaya University.