TEDxOkanaganCollege - Ajahn Sona -Green Monasticism

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TEDxOkanaganCollege - Ajahn Sona -Green Monasticism

Ajahn Sona discusses the interaction with global monastic practices with sustainability matters. The Birken Forest monastery is highlighted.

Born in Canada, Ven. Sona's background as a layperson is in classical guitar performance. His encounter with Buddhist wisdom as a young man initiated a spiritual journey that led him to become a lay hermit for several years. He subsequently ordained as a Theravada monk under Ven.

Gunaratana, at the Bhavana Society in West Virginia, where his first years of training took place. Ven. Sona further trained for over three years at monasteries following Ajahn Chah in northeast Thailand, especially Wat Pah Nanachat. Upon his return to Canada in 1994 he helped found Birken Forest Monastery near Pemberton, BC. As its spiritual guide, Ajahn ("teacher") Sona has led the monastery through each stage of its growth. He established Birken (or, Sitavana, 'cool forest') in its final location south of Kamloops BC in 2001.

For more than forty years inspired by the pioneering dialogues of the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and the Zen master Daisetz T. Suzuki Buddhist and Christian monastics have been engaged in interfaith colloquies about the similarities and differences between these two great spiritual traditions.

In 2008, practitioners from Catholicism and various Buddhist traditions met at Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky, the home of Thomas Merton. The theme was the Buddhist and Catholic response to the environmental crisis. In addition to covering a wide range of Catholic thought, the essays come from both the Theravadan and Mahayana traditions and cover both North American and international monastic orders.

Ajahn Sona attended the Gethsemani 3 Monastic conference in May 2008. The topic of the conference was "Monasticism and the Environment." A book entitled "Green Monasticism" was recently published featuring environmentally-themed essays by the some of the attendees of the conference, including Ajahn Sona.

NPR - Gomo Tulku: The Rapping Lama

Interesting - another Tibetan lama has left the monastery for a more secular life - and there is not much that is more opposite of monastic life than life as a rapper. Admittedly, he was an American by birth, until being recognized at age 6 as the reincarnation of his grandfather, the high Tibetan Buddhist lama Goma Rimpoche.

Gomo Tulku: The Rapping Lama

Audio for this story from Weekend Edition Saturday will be available at approx. 12:00 p.m. ET

Enlarge Courtesy of the artist

Gomo Tulku, on the set of the music video for "Photograph."

July 23, 2011

Weekend Edition once did a story on a 6-year-old boy in Utah who was about to embark on a remarkable journey. Here's how that story began:

Among the rows of small cornsilk-blond and haystack-brown heads squirming through reading lessons in Mrs. Bigler's first-grade class at the Oak Hills Elementary School in Bountiful, Utah, one small boy stands out among all the Ashleys, Cassies, Laurens and Chrises.

Tenzin Dhongha's hair is as black as coal. His eyes are Asian. But in all important respects, he is one with his classmates, fidgeting if the classroom clock ticks too slowly towards recess.

But Tenzin Dhongha draws occasional visitors to Bountiful because he has been proclaimed by Tibet's spiritual and temporal leader, the Dalai Lama himself, as a tulku, a miracle being — the reincarnation of his grandfather, the high Tibetan Buddhist lama Goma Rimpoche.

That was 16 years ago. Tenzin Dhongha had just learned that he would soon be sent to a monastery in India to study and fulfill his destiny to become a Tibetan spiritual leader. Tenzin became a monk — Gomo Tulku, as he is now known — and settled in Italy among a community of his followers. He spent 12 years in a monastery, and finished the equivalent of a bachelor's degree.

But now, there's been a detour in Gomo Tulku's spiritual journey. He's about to release his first rap recording.

The single "Photograph" comes out this month. Gomo Tulku sat down with Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon — whom he has no recollection of meeting 16 years ago — to talk about his new career.

"I decided to follow a different route," Tulku says. "Definitely, I have my religious side in me, and my whole — my past influence. But that's something personal, you know. And then I have this thing that I'm doing as a musician — or you can call it a business, you know."

Tags: Buddhism, Music, Tibet, monastic, NPR, Weekend Edition, Tenzin Dhongha, Tulku, monk, reincarnation, Gomo Tulku, The Rapping Lama, secular life, monastery, Scott Simon, grandfather, Tibetan Buddhist lama, Goma Rimpoche