Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery

Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery
View from the Bhikkhu Commons (Monks' Utility Building, or MUB) (Photo by Reginald White)
Basic information
Location	Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery 16201 Tomki Road Redwood Valley, CA 95470, United States
Affiliation	Thai Forest Tradition
Country	United States
Website	http://www.abhayagiri.org/
Completed	1988

Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery 16201 Tomki Road Redwood Valley, CA 95470,

Abhayagiri, or Fearless Mountain in the canonical language of Pali, is a Theravadin Buddhist monastery of the Thai Forest Tradition in Redwood Valley, California. Its chief priorities are the teaching of Buddhist ethics, together with traditional concentration and insight meditation techniques, as an effective way of dissolving stress.

About 16 miles (26 km) north of Ukiah, the monastery has its origins in the 1980s when the UK-based Ajahn Sumedho, foremost western disciple of the Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah, started getting requests to teach in California. Visits by Ajahn Sumedho, as well as other senior monks and nuns, resulted in the Sanghapala Foundation being set up in 1988. The monastery's first 120 acres (0.49 km²) were given to the foundation by the devotees of Chan Master Hsuan Hua, founder of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Talmage, before he died in 1995. Currently, the monastery rests on 280 acres (1.1 km²) of mountainous forest land.

Until 2010, Ajahn Pasanno and Ajahn Amaro served as co-abbots. In 2010, Ajahn Amaro accepted an invitation to serve as abbot of Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in England. Ajahn Pasanno is now the sole abbot of Abhayagiri.