#13 – SOF Cast - The Venerable Paññobhāsa Bhikkhu, Theravāda Traditionalism

The Venerable Paññobhāsa Bhikkhu seriously began considering himself a Buddhist, although a sloppy one, at around 19, on reading the book Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, and began favoring Theravada maybe two years later after reading an old translation of the Sutta Nipata. Around 1988 he began searching for a Buddhist monastery in America in which to be ordained, and after being unimpressed by a Zen place near Mt. Shasta he settled on Taungpulu Kaba-Aye Monastery in Boulder Creek, near Santa Cruz, which was in the Burmese Taungpulu Forest Tradition. He was ordained there in 1991, on the day before the full moon of Visakha (usually May but this time April), the traditional anniversary of the Buddha’s enlightenment.

After two months as a white-robed attendant and almost two years as a monk, deteriorating conditions at the monastery (typical California craziness) inspired some of the senior monks to advise him to go to Burma for a little while till things got better. He planned on maybe two and a half years, but things didn’t get better at TKAM and he wound up living in Burma for altogether over twenty years.

Living in various forest caves (largely to better endure the blazing heat of upper Burma), and mostly avoiding other monks, Paññobhāsa Bhikkhu became pretty much a recluse, spending lots of time meditating. He acquired a reputation for being very strict, and also controversial in his interpretations of Buddhist philosophy. After burning out on Burma and wanting to come back to the USA, his first attempt at living as a free-range monk in America was in 2011.

He has found that living as a monk in America is very different from living as one in a Buddhist country like Burma. After some years of back and forth between America and Asia he wound up where he is now, at a Burmese monastery in French Camp, California.

Paññobhāsa Bhikkhu is a prolific blogger and YouTuber, with a tonne of useful material, elaborating on subjects as diverse as St John of the Cross, Pali textual interpretation, Julius Evola and even the various social ills that assail the West as Present.

Co-hosted this week with “Gods Own Fool”, @Godsfool3

URL Links for Paññobhāsa Bhikkhu current blog (mostly philosophy and caustic critiques of Marxism): https://politicallyincorrectdharma.blogspot.com/ old website: nippapanca.org Minds page: https://www.minds.com/Pannobhasa_Bhikkhu/ YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChQJMvdH3Is-fw7rVhYd4uA/videos SubscribeStar support page: https://www.subscribestar.com/philosophical-dharma my old, more Buddhist blog: https://thebahiyablog.blogspot.com/ (Bitchute is in the works, as it is the video platform of the thought-liberated future)

(also lots of my videos, too politically incorrect for YT, are on Brian Ruhe’s Bitchute channel under the rubric of Buddhist Monk Truthers: but it is malfunctioning at present and Herr Brian is currently scratching his head over it)

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