Venerable Viradhammo was born in Esslingen, Germany in 1947 to Latvian refugee parents. They moved to Toronto when he was four years old. He studied engi-neering at the University of Toronto but became disillusioned with acade-mic life and left in 1969 to see the world and experience other cultures. Later, while living in India, he encountered Buddhism, meeting the late Samanera Bodhesako, who introduced him to the teachings of the Buddha. He eventually travelled to Thailand to become a novice at Wat Mahathat in 1973 and took bhikkhu ordination the following year at Wat Pah Pong with Ven. Ajahn Chah. He was one of the first residents at Wat Pah Nanachat, the international monastery in north-east Thailand.
Having spent four years in Thailand, he went back to Canada to visit his family in 1977. Instead of returning to Thailand, he was asked by Ajahn Chah to join Ajahn Sumedho at the Hampstead Vihara in London. Later, he was involved in the establishment of both the Chithurst and Harnham monasteries in the UK.
In 1985, invited by the Wellington Theravada Buddhist Association, he moved to New Zealand, accompanied by Venerable Thanavaro, where he lived for 10 years, setting up Bodhinyanarama monastery.
In 1995 he came to the UK to assist Ajahn Sumedho at Amaravati and stayed for four years before returning to New Zealand, where he lived until 2002. Since then he has been living in Ottawa caring for his mother.
Glossary of Terms
Pali is the scriptural language of the Theravada tradition and several Pali words (printed in italics) are used throughout the book. This glossary defines some of those words.
Ajahn: Teacher. A Thai term. From the Pali "acariya."
anapanasati: Mindfulness of in-and out-breathing. A core meditation technique for mental concentration.
anatta: Non-self, impersonality. Absence of any personal essence. The central Buddhist doctrine.
anicca: Impermanent, inconstant – the nature of all experiential phenomena.
Bhante: Venerable Sir.
bhavana: Mental development, cultivation.
bhikkhu: Monk.
dana: Almsgiving, liberality, generosity. A virtue practised to counter greed and egoism.
dhammavicaya: Investigation of the natural Law (dhamma).
dukkha: Pain, suffering, stress. It may be physical or mental. The term is quite broad and includes: pain; the suffering due to change and instability; and the unsatisfactoriness or unreliability of all formations.
Four Noble Truths: The most concise synthesis of the Buddhist teaching: Suffering, its cause, its end, the Path to the end.
khandhas: Groups, heaps, aggregates (of clinging). Five aspects summarising physical and mental experience. Rupa (form), vedana (feeling), sañña (perception), sankhara (formations), viññana (consciousness).
kamma: (skt. karma) (intentional) Action (of body, speech and mind). These actions ripen as result (vipaka).
magga: Path. The last of the Four Noble Truths. Right: view (understanding), thought, bodily action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, concentration.
metta: Loving-kindness. One of the four Sublime Abodes.
nirodha: Ending, cessation (of the cause of suffering). The Third Noble Truth. See "Nibbana."
Nibbana: (skt. nirvana) Extinction, cessation, unbinding, liberation (of the passions; greed, aversion, delusion). The ultimate goal of Buddhist aspirations.
parajika: Defeat. Four rules for monks requiring disrobal if any one is transgressed. The monk is "defeated."
pañña: Wisdom, knowledge.
precepts: Moral (or renunciate) standards. The basic five are to refrain from: killing, stealing, sensual indulgence, wrong speech and intoxication.
refuges: Buddha (Enlightenment), Dhamma (Truth), Sangha (community). These are sometimes referred to as the "Three Jewels" or the "Triple Gem."
samudaya: Arising, origin (of suffering). The Second Noble truth. Opposite of "nirodha."
samsara: The repeated "Round of Rebirth" – birth, growth, aging and death – that chains beings to existance. Literally: perpetual wandering.
sankhara: Fabrication, formation. Referring both to the volitional activity of "forming" things, and the things formed. As the fourth khandha it is primarily mental.
sukha: Pleasant, happy, joyful. One of the three kinds of feelings. Opposite of "dukkha."
tanha: Craving, desire (literally "thirst"); the cause of suffering, as defined in the Four Noble Truths.
Theravada: The Southern School. (literally "The Way of the Elders.") Generally found in S.E. Asia. and Sri Lanka.
vipassana: Insight, intuitive wisdom. Penetration (of Truth).
