Ajahn Brahm @ Siam Society

Monday 6th December

Thai Society and the Teachings of the Buddha

by Venerable Ajahn Brahm,

Abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery, Perth, Western Australia

Venerable Ajahn Brahm was born in London in 1951.  In the late 1960s AjahnBrahm won a scholarship to study Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University.

Ajahn Brahm regarded himself a Buddhist at the age of 17 after he discovered Buddhism while browsing on the wrong shelves of a London bookshop. Buddhism, especially meditation, prevented him from wrecking himself through many popular indulgences of the time. After he graduated from Cambridge, he taught in high school for one year before travelling  to Thailand to become a monk.   He was ordained in Bangkok at the age of 23 by the Abbot of Wat Saket and subsequently spent nine years studying and training in the forest meditation tradition under Venerable Ajahn Chah in Ubon Rachathani.

In 1983 he was invited to help establish a forest monastery near Perth, Western Australia.  He is now the Abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery in Serpentine, Western Australia; the Spiritual Director of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia;  Spiritual Adviser to the Buddhist Society of Victoria; Spiritual Adviser to the Buddhist Society of  South Australia; Spiritual Patron of the Buddhist Fellowship Singapore; and Spiritual Patron of Bodhikusuma Centre in Sydney.

In 2004, Ajahn Brahm was awarded the John Curtin Medal for his vision, leadership and service to the Australian community by Curtin University.

Ajahn Brahm was granted the ecclesiastical title of Phra Visutisangvornthera on June 10th, 2006.

Ajahn Brahm is the author of Opening the Door of Your Heart, and Other Buddhist Tales of Happiness (later published as Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?) and Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond: A Meditator’s Handbook.

Free admission for the evening. [but see below – seems to be 200 baht for non-members.]

Date: 6 December 2010 (Monday)
Time: 6.30 p.m.
Place: The Siam Society, 131 Asoke Montri Rd, Sukhumvit 21

Non-members donation: B200. Siam Society members, members’ spouses and children, and all students showing valid student ID cards are admitted free of charge. For more information, please contact Khun Arunsri at 0 2661 6470-7 ext 126, fax 0 2258 3491, or e-mail info@siam-society.org. Office Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 9:00am. – 5:00pm.