Portland Friends of the Dhamma | Welcoming Ajahn Jayanto and Ajahn Chaganando (10:00 am – 5:00 pm; PT, US)

Join Portland Friends of the Dhamma in welcoming Ajahn Jayanto and Ajahn Chaganando of Temple Forest Monastery on Friday, Sept. 19 from 4:30 to 6 p.m. for tea and Dhamma conversation. This event will be in person and on Zoom.

Born in Boston in 1967, Temple co-abbot Ajahn Jayanto grew up in Newton, Mass. and attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison, during which time a period of world travel kindled a great interest in the spiritual life. A meditation class at the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center led him to live for a while at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, where he made plans to join the monastic community of Ajahn Sumedho as a postulant at Amaravati Monastery in England in 1989. Taking bhikkhu (monk) ordination at the related Cittaviveka Monastery in 1991, he trained there and at Aruna Ratanagiri Monastery until 1997, at which point he embarked on a period of practice in Thailand and other Asian Buddhist countries. He returned to the UK in 2006, where he lived at Amaravati until moving to Temple in 2014. Since 2009 Ajahn Jayanto has helped to lead the efforts to establish a branch monastery in New England, and he now serves as co-abbot of Temple Forest Monastery.

Ajahn Chaganando was born in New York. After receiving a degree in physics he worked in solar and wind energy research. Interest in meditation and the roots of Buddhism led to extended practice in several Buddhist monasteries in India and Thailand. Living on staff at the Insight Meditation Society for five years, he met Western monks from the Ajahn Chah lineage. He went to Wat Pah Nanachat in Thailand in 2002, taking bhikkhu ordination in 2004 with Luang Por Liem as his preceptor. He joined Abhayagiri Monastery from 2007–2010, and helped establish the first branch of Abhayagiri, the Pacific Hermitage, from 2010–2015. He spent the Vassa of 2013 with Ajahn Jayanto at the fledgling Boston Vihara, and he has been part of the Temple Forest Monastery sangha since June 2015, now serving as primary assistant to the abbots.

PFOD event