Members Bios - please contribute yours

Introduce yourself to others at Dhamma Wheel.
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marc108
Posts: 463
Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2012 10:10 pm

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by marc108 »

great thread, its really neat to read about the people i see posting here.

I'm Marc, 31 years old.

I started practicing Yoga & Meditation as a spiritual discipline around the age of 18. 2 or so years ago I became interested in Buddhism after I read Mindfulness in Plain English and realizing that the Buddha's approach to meditation, and spiritual practice in general, was superior to anything I had done previously and have since immersed myself in the Dhamma. I love this forum as it's the only place I've found, on or offline, to have serious discussion about the Dhamma with seasoned practitioners.

In the unreal world I'm a student, finishing up a degree in nutrition & i work for a vitamin company doing product demos and education. I enjoy olympic weight lifting, anything in nature, playing with my cats & gardening. I grew up in New York & New Jersey, and 4 or so years ago moved to Northern California.
"It's easy for us to connect with what's wrong with us... and not so easy to feel into, or to allow us, to connect with what's right and what's good in us."
Sutiro
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri Aug 31, 2012 9:48 am

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by Sutiro »

My life in the Sangha (also see http://www.fourwindslao.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

I was an angry, restless young man. I started to take stock of myself after the premature death of my older brother in 1975. I took a course at university on Comparative Religions of which Buddhism was one and began reading anything of Hermann Hesse that I could get my hands on. I closely related to Harry Heller in the "Steppenwolf" but it was after reading "Siddhartha" that I first realized that the Buddha was a real person not a demi-God and I imagined being alive in the 6th Century BCE and able to sit with Him and listen to Him. I could also have slipped over to China and sat with Confucious, then back to Persia to be with Zoroaster, then to Israel and the desert Prophets and so on back to India to listen to Mahavira. I set my mind upon travel to Asia as so many of us were doing back then.

When doing the section of the course on Buddhism I was wrapped to have Pra Khanti Palo come to our class and outline the basic tenets of Buddhism. He was the first bhikkhu I ever saw. It all made so much sense and he explained much of what had been inexplicable. He invited students to come and see him later that afternoon in his rest room. I was late and thought there would a big queue waiting. It turned out that I was the only one of about 200 students at the lecture who had bothered, so I was lucky really.

I worked two jobs for a year and saved up $3000 and took off overland to Asia in early 1977. After some hedonist adventures in Bali, Phuket and Koh Samui, I met a Lao refugee who lived in Australia. He had just returned from a trip to NE Thailand. I asked him if there was some place a Westerner could go and learn about meditation. He recommended Wat Bah Pong. I had bought a one way ticket to Kathmandu but, luckily, had a few days before I could fly and I hated being in Bangkok in Summer so I caught the night train to Warin, Ubon Province. I arrived in the morning and found my way to Wat Bah Pong.

It was like falling into a well. Set in a quiet and serene re-growth rainforest the huts and buildings were camouflaged even hidden amongst the trees. There were very few people around, not many monks and just one Westerner, Pra Arranya Bo. How lucky I was.

Loom Por wasn't there. He was in England with Ajahn Sumedho on his first trip overseas that would eventuate in the transference of the Western Sangha to England. I was lucky that Arranya Bo was there. He was perfect for what I needed. He explained the practice and the dhamma in the most clear, compelling and humble way. He talked at length about Loom Por's 'Five Year Plan'. Five years is an eternity when you are twenty-four. After talking with him all day I said I had better find a hotel somewhere. He said I could stay there on the floor of the sala. It would be almost six years before I returned to normal life again out of the Sangha.

I started at he bottom at Wat Bah Nanachaht which had been established about eighteen months before. Everything happened in stages, little renunciations that would go on for years. After a week I shaved my head and took eight precepts and became a Pa Kao and spent the pansah of 1977 at Nanachaht. I cleaned spitoons, cleaned toilets, washed monks feet, drew water from the well and sat at the end of the queue for food distribution. I hated the place and was desperate to get out into the Lao sahkahs (branch Wats) where I could really practice and learn the language:) I knew nothing about practice.

The first pansah was hell, constant pain in my knees as we sat forever on concrete floors with knees up under my armpits, listening to boring talks. I committed for three months, then a year. I ordained as a Samanera after 5 months and then Loom Por sent me to famous Wat Tum Saang Pet where I stayed more than a year. I took full ordination with Loom Por as my Uppacchaya just prior to the 1978 pansah. Loom Por gave me a new name to signify my rebirth in the Sangha, Sudhiro or Sutiro in Thai.

I spent the first pansah as a monk at Tum Saang Pet, where I was the only Westerner for a 100 kilometres. Malaria struck during that retreat. There were five monks and novices and one Pa Kao, a 10 year old brother of one of the novices. Sadly he died an agonizing death when the dreaded virus went to his brain. Everyone on retreat at Tum Saang Pet went to hospital for treatment except me who took the least care to avoid mosquitoes, (as an addhitthana I slept without a net for the pansah. The "Mad Falung" they called me.) How lucky I was!

I spent future pansahs at Suan Goo-ay, Nanachaht, and another remote Wat of forgotten name. Loom Por always sent me to the roughest places, including a sala in a paddy field near Dorn Muang Airport, right under the flight path of the Jumbos. Try meditating there! It was the 1980 pansah that I was able to spend with Loom Por at Wat Bah Pong. I had enough language, spoken and written, a tape recorder, dictionaries and I was the second most senior Western bhikkhu there. How lucky I was that Loom Por would be at the top of his teaching prowess before he was gradually overcome with creeping diabetes. I taped and translated everything I could. I sat under his kuti with him every opportunity. He took ill towards the end of the retreat and had to go to Bangkok. But it was still the most rewarding experience of my spiritual life.

That year I also returned to Australia for six months. I spent time with Pra Khanti Palo at Wat Buddha Dhamma in 1981 before returning to Ubon for my 4th pansah as a monk. My final and fifth retreat was at Nanachaht. Big things were happening in the West. The Western Sangha at Chithurst in England had been a success. There was an invitation from Perth to set up a Wat in Western Australia and other places around the world.

I completed my fifth pansah and the famous 5 Year Plan and went Toodong (dhutanga) as is the tradition when a bhikkhu is released from dependence and becomes an Acariya (or Ajahn). It was during this time that I decided to disrobe and return to a new life in Australia. I made arrangements and then returned to Bah Pong to do the deed. Loom Por was now just a shell of the great man that we knew and loved. It was sad to see him that way but such is the lot of all condition things. He never taught again and finally died in 1992.

I had to go and face Ajahn Liam which was something I wasn't looking forward to, as I always found him mysterious. But I was lucky. He was very pleasant and asked me if I was sure, which I was. He wished me all the best and with a few short words my Sangha life was over.

I had many excuses for disrobing : I'd done my five pansahs, life in the Sangha had one purpose only that was to seek enlightenment, I didn't want to become a career monk in the West, Loom Por would never teach again, I could do wonderful things with my life now that I had my stuff together. The mind can throw up some very compelling arguments when you let it but there was really only one reason. I knew that I just wasn't up to the task. I marvel when people say they cannot see Kamma at work in their lives. I now see it as luck.

That was nearly thirty years ago. I have great marriage, have raised a family, and have had a good career but it leaves a strange feeling inside as you get older and realize that you did the most important thing you will do in your life when you were only 25.
Sadhu.
Sutiro
http://www.fourwindslao.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Last edited by Sutiro on Tue Sep 11, 2012 3:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Ben
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Location: kanamaluka

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by Ben »

Thank you Sutiro for your very interesting bio. It sounds like your experience in SEA during the 70s to 80s were incredibly formative. I would hesitate to say the most important thing you've done was when you were 25. Every step on the path we take is important regardless of our status at a particular point in time.
kind regards,

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
Sutiro
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri Aug 31, 2012 9:48 am

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by Sutiro »

Thanks Ben

That time in the Sangha laid a foundation for the rest of my life and made me a better person. I retained some valuable tools that have assisted in my working life. But that's not the end of it of course. I have a duty to give something back to the Sangha and honor the teacher with practice as I move into the next phase of life. Have a nice night.

Sutiro
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Ben
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Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by Ben »

You too.
with metta,

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
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Mr Man
Posts: 4016
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2011 8:42 am

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by Mr Man »

Sutiro
Are you conected with The vinyana group/Four winds Lao?
Mr Man
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marc108
Posts: 463
Joined: Wed Jan 18, 2012 10:10 pm

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by marc108 »

Sutiro wrote:My life in the Sangha
awesome story! Sadhu! :anjali:
"It's easy for us to connect with what's wrong with us... and not so easy to feel into, or to allow us, to connect with what's right and what's good in us."
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BubbaBuddhist
Posts: 640
Joined: Sat Jan 03, 2009 5:55 am
Location: Knoxville, Tennessee
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Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by BubbaBuddhist »

Greetings my Buddhahomies,

About me:

I am the seventh son of a seventh son, born with a caul, eight planets in Aquarius and according to family rumor, a di-rect descendant of the illegitimate offspring of Voodoo queen Marie Laveau and Privateer Jean Lafitte, born under a full moon with the wolves a-howlin and the banshee a-wailin. Therefore, I see all, know all, and tell a great deal more.

Facts: Born and grew up in Knoxville Tennessee, the Armpit of the Southern US. Moved to Bloomington Indiana, where nothing exists except Indiana University where I am currently their oldest student. Oh yeah, the Mongolian Cultural Center and Tibetan Buddhist Temple is here. I'm Theravada, so I've been there twice. It's nice, very pretty and I don't understand a thing that goes on there, or what those big bells and spinning wheels are for, why there are dragons and big colorful banners, but it is pretty. The nearest Thera center is a four hour drive from here. I have three college degrees: A bachelor of Fine Arts, in oil painting, a degree in Mechanical Engineering, and one I'm currently working on finishing in Creative Writing, expected matriculation Spring 2013. I started taking piano lessons two years ago at age fifty and I'm awful at it. I have been married four times, have a grown son and two cats. I retired from engineering circa 1994 and went into the entertainment business, where, according to the suttas, I'm assured rebirth into Hell. I'm a professional stage Hypnotist and Magician, which undoubtedly casts me down into hell's lowest circles.

In addition to school and operating my own business I'm currently working on a five-novel series of supernatural horror/murder mystery and have completed the first two books in the series. I'm vacillating between shopping for an agent or going the self-publishing route. I don't know if being a fiction novelist is condemned somewhere in the suttas but it probably is, as pretty much everything I enjoy seems to guarantee rebirth as something awful. Nevertheless I practice with reasonable diligence hoping to offset my hedonistic lifestyle and lusty appreciation for women, cognac, opera, chocolate, coffee and other of Samsara's sensual pleasures too plentiful to enumerate here for fear of overloading the server. Suffice it to say as a libertine I make Oscar Wilde look like Saint Augustine, and practice Buddhism in the hopes it will keep me from toppling over completely into the heresy that yes, happiness can found right here, right now in this here old world and that people are basically capable of their own salvation.

No one is more surprised than I that I made it past the half-century mark and I feel every day beyond this milestone is free and a gift, and when I awake each morning not dead I try to make the most of it. This is because I'm an idiot who hasn't realized what an awful place the world is. I attribute this moronic POV to the fact I don't watch Fox news, a habit many of my acquaintances see as a sign of mental aberration. I've done the research and discovered they are correct: Happiness, it turns out, is a symptom of an electrochemical imbalance in the brain and according to the DSM-IV there is both a diagnosis and a prescribed drug for Dyseuphoric Hedonia-presentation Maladjustment Disorder, or inappropriate contentment. My more down-to-earth friends howl: "What the hell's wrong with you--can't you see the world's about to end? The economy's in the crapper, terrorists are going to blow us up, and the Mayans are going to rise from the tombs in December 2012 and eat us all!" Buddhism offers a non-psychiatric take: "Well, you know all this happiness isn't actually happiness at all. It's really suffering, you just don't realize it because it's on a subtle level. All that giggling you're doing is just an illusion." In other words, if you're happy now you'll suffer later, so suffer now so you'll be happy later. My grandparents believed the same thing I think. They were the grimmest people I ever met but always talked about heaven like it was Branson Missouri, another place they hoped to visit one day but never did.

There's a lot more about me but I'm starting to feel narcissistic and besides, it's a nice day to sit on the balcony with a cognac. :toast:

BB
Author of Redneck Buddhism: or Will You Reincarnate as Your Own Cousin?
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Kim OHara
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Joined: Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:47 am
Location: North Queensland, Australia

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by Kim OHara »

Thanks for that, BubbaBuddhist.
:smile:
If you can write like that for a few hundred thousand words, you'll do okay with the novels. Just make sure to tell us when they come out and some of us (Tilt and me, for starters) will risk lower rebirths for the fun of reading them.

:namaste:
Kim
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puppha
Posts: 160
Joined: Sun Oct 02, 2011 8:56 pm
Location: London, UK

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by puppha »

Dear Frank,
frankinnc wrote:Hi, my name's Frank...and my bio is gonna read alot different than most others, lol. Here goes: Grew up poor, did drugs, broke laws, smoked crack, broke more laws, went to prison ( 5 and 1/2 years), discovered Zen second year of prison, sat zazen almost everyday thereafter, went on "community passes" to a zendo last year of prison, got out of prison and continued to practice..still sober and sane and breaking no more laws. there ya go.
Sadhu! I am very happy for you! :twothumbsup:

Metta
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jasonfei
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 1:55 am
Location: ningbo, China; Calgary, Canada
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Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by jasonfei »

Hi, everyone!

Here is my brief background:

I am from China and began to learn Buddhism in graduate school about 8 years ago, and my major is law. I have learned both Mahayana and Theravada tradition, and have tried meditations like Goenka, Mahasi, and Pa-Auk, and the Thai Action Meditation. Besides, I have taken psychology courses, and studied for about 4 years.

I think the legal mechanism a state to harmonize the conflicting interests and ideologies are similar to the psychological process an individual balancing his or her thoughts, which means an equal, humane system can achieve happiness both in social and personal aspect.

I will take the Action meditation which is a kind of Vipassana to achieve an ultimate liberty. However, as a husband and father, it is also my duty to support families and do job I don’t like very much as a law teacher.

I do like to share thoughts and experiences with you guys, and hopefully we will support each other and finally achieve Nirvana.

Metta to you all!
TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE
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Ben
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Joined: Wed Dec 31, 2008 12:49 am
Location: kanamaluka

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by Ben »

Greetings Jason and welcome to Dhamma Wheel!
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
User avatar
jasonfei
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat Sep 08, 2012 1:55 am
Location: ningbo, China; Calgary, Canada
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Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by jasonfei »

Ben wrote:Greetings Jason and welcome to Dhamma Wheel!
:),thank you, Ben!
TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE
kilgoretrout83
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2012 11:17 pm

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by kilgoretrout83 »

I have taught US and World History for 19 years now. Prior to that I was and am a musician. When I moved to this town I noticed lots of churches and explored Christianity for a few years. I was never really a very religious person, but kept getting invited to different churches. What I have been searching for was not in those churches. About 6 years ago I began taking a form of Okinawan karate and my Sensei had a certain presence about him. I began to explore Buddhism just recently, but it was something that has always been in the back of my mind. To be honest, I found Buddhism less "stressful" than anything else I have tried. However; I am a beginner, and as far as I know, there are not a lot of Buddhists around this area. Most of what I am learning is from reading and conversations with my Sensei. He is actually not a Buddhist in name, but has many of the qualities.
So...I am new and am very open to this way of life. Buddism makes sense to me.
We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves
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cooran
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Joined: Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:32 pm
Location: Queensland, Australia

Re: Members Bios - please contribute yours

Post by cooran »

Welcome kilgoretrout83!
It's an interesting journey.

with metta
Chris
---The trouble is that you think you have time---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
---It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---
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