CHAPTERS

0:00:00 Intro

0:00:21 Welcome

0:00:35 Luang Por Vajiro’s Biography

0:01:45 Luang Por’s Current Practice and Teachings

0:03:42 The Influence of Ajahn Chah and Luang Por Sumedho

0:09:45 Contrasting the Goenka/U Ba Khin and Forest Traditions

0:14:00 “Joy at Last to Know There Is No Happiness in the World”

0:15:55 The Most Sustaining Element for Remaining as a Monastic

0:20:23 From Luang Por’s Book: “Be Grateful for Gratitude”

0:23:11 Bringing the Practice of Gratitude to a Lay Practitioner’s Life

0:28:51 Luang Por Dtun: “Mind Seeing the Mind”

0:30:57 Guidance for Remaining Grounded as Bhikkhus While Creating a Monastery from the Ground Up

0:37:47 How Kalyāṇa Mittā (Spiritual Friendship) Matures Over Time

0:40:36 Stories of Gaining Faith in Luang Por Chah

0:42:44 How Does One Judge One’s Spiritual Progress?

0:45:50 Anecdote About the Sand Dunes That Caught on Fire

0:50:04 Chanting as a Practice

0:53:42 Everyone Finds Their Own Truth… Not!

0:57:13 Lessons the Sangha Has Learned in Accommodating a Wide Variety of Personalities Through the Robes Over Many Years

1:00:42 Gratitude to Luang Por Vajiro

1:01:15 Outro

Description

In this interview, Ajahn Kovilo and Ajahn Nisabho speak with Luang Por Vajiro, abbot of Sumedharama Monastery in Portugal, about his path to robes, the pursuit of a happiness apart from the world, the Eight Worldly Winds, the value of spiritual friendship, sustaining a monastic life, how to extinguish the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion, and much more!

SOURCE REFERENCES

Daniel M. Stuart: Insight in Perspective - https://www.projektverlag.de/Insight-in-Perspective

Luang Por Vajiro: Allowing Intuition, Revelation, and Insight - https://cdn.amaravati.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/26/allowing-intuition-desktop-2023-04-12.pdf

The Eight Worldly Winds - https://www.lionsroar.com/buddhism/eight-worldly-concerns/

Luang Pu Dune Atulo: Mind Seeing the Mind - https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/dune/giftsheleft.html?t

Bio

Luang Por Vajiro was born in Malaysia in 1953 and has been a buddhist monk for over 40 years. In 1979, he met Luang Por Chah and Luang Por Sumedho when they made a visit to Hampstead Vihara in Oakenholt, England. He received higher ordination from Ajahn Chah personally in Thailand in 1980 at Wat Nong Pah Pong. After helping with the opening of Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in the UK, he participated in the running of both Harnham Buddhist Monastery and Chithurst Forest Monastery. In 1993 he moved to New Zealand to lead the Bodhinyanarama community in Wellington for five years. Following this he entered a three-year retreat in Australia before returning to Amaravati in 2001. In 2012 he moved to Portugal to establish Sumedharama Monastery, near Lisbon, where he now serves as abbot. To learn more, visit https://sumedharama.pt/home-en/

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