Aruna Ratanagiri

Aruna Ratanagiri Buddhist Monastery
Basic information
Location	Aruna Ratanagiri, Harnham, Belsay, Northumberland, NE20 0HF
Affiliation	Thai Forest Tradition
Country	United Kingdom
Website	ratanagiri.org.uk
Founder	Venerable Ajahn Sumedho Mahathera

Aruna Ratanagiri, Harnham, Belsay,

Aruna Ratanagiri Buddhist Monastery (Harnham Buddhist Monastery) is a Theravada Buddhist monastery of the Thai Forest Tradition in Northumberland, England. The community consists of monks, novices and postulants from a wide range of nationalities, usually numbering around eight Sangha members. The monastery includes an adjacent lay retreat facility known as Kusala House.

The monastery was founded in response to increasing interest, particularly in northeast England, in the Thai Forest Tradition, as it was being established by Ajahn Sumedho and disciples of Ajahn Chah in England in the late 1970s. When, in 1980, a group of local yoga students tried to find a suitable cottage which they could offer as a retreat facility to the Sangha, farmer John Wake of Harnham Hall, Harnham, near Belsay responded, and they agreed to rent one of his farm cottages. In 1981 Ajahn Sucitto (the abbot of Cittaviveka/Chithurst Buddhist Monastery 1992-2014) became the first bhikkhu to take up residence, and began initial renovations; on June 21, 1981 the monastery was officially opened by Ajahn Sumedho and in that same year the Magga Bhavaka Trust was established as a charitable trust in order to steward financial support for the new monastery (the monastery now has a new trust: Harnham Buddhist Monastery Trust).

The primary focus for Aruna Ratanagiri monastery is to provide and maintain a sanctuary suitable for the training and ongoing practice of Theravada bhikkhus, in keeping with the Pali vinaya and forest tradition of Northeast Thailand.

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