The community broadcasts a Lunar Year practice from the dining room, the only space currently equipped for teachings and ceremonies.
Photos by: Courtesy of  Sravasti  Abbey

Sravasti Abbey, a Buddhist monastery near Newport, Washington, turns 20 this year. Having nurtured a community of ordained sangha and spread Buddha’s teachings for two decades, the monastery continues to evolve and grow.

Just this year the monastics welcomed a third resident teacher, Geshe Dadul Namgyal, and ordained two novices, bringing the monastic community to 22. Meanwhile construction of the new Buddha Hall continues steadily, with completion expected in 2024.

Buddhist nun, teacher, and author Venerable Thubten Chodron established Sravasti Abbey in 2003, to offer English-speaking practitioners an opportunity to study, train, and live as Buddhist monastics. Dharma education, practice, and service are pillars of the training.

Geshe Dadul Namgyal does the ceremonial head-shaving before ordaining a new monk, Venerable Thubten Konchog.

New resident teachers

That the monastery has both female and male monastics opened the way for Geshe Dadul Namgyal to join the community. A monk in the Tibetan tradition for over 40 years, he said, “I have for a long time known Sravasti Abbey, its founder and abbess Ven. Thubten Chodron, and the community of genuine practitioners under her guidance. I have long developed a sincere admiration for the integrity and transparency by which the community lives, practices, and conducts their day-to-day administration.”

An esteemed scholar in the Tibetan tradition, Geshe Dadul studied at the Institute of Buddhist Dialectics in Dharamsala, India and attained the prestigious Geshe Lharampa Degree at Drepung Loseling Monastic University in South India. He also holds a master’s degree in English literature from Panjab University, Chandigarh, India. He has been a regular guest teacher at the abbey, and supported Venerable Chodron as she worked on The Library of Wisdom and Compassion, a 10-volume series she co-authored with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

The presence of a second new teacher, Venerable Sangye Khadro, is another sign of the abbey’s vitality. Ordained in 1974, she studied with many great Tibetan masters and has taught Buddhism since 1979, mostly under the auspices of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT). This included 11 years as a resident teacher at Amitabha Buddhist Centre in Singapore.

Venerable Sangye Khadro and Venerable Thubten Chodron have been dharma friends and monastic colleagues for over 45 years.

Author of the best-selling book “How to Meditate,” Khadro joined the Sravasti Abbey community in 2020. “I love it,” she said. “I’ve been to a lot of Dharma centers, and this is the most conducive situation I have encountered, especially for monastics, and for Dharma in general.”

Venerable Chodron was the abbey’s sole resident teacher for many years, and is delighted with the two additional teachers.

“Most places just have one resident teacher,” she said. “I think what we have here, with excellent teachers like Geshela and Ven. Khadro, is extraordinary.”

The three teachers instruct on practical topics such as working with afflictive emotions, as well as teaching classical Buddhist texts. All teachings are posted on the Sravasti Abbey YouTube channel, where more than 7,000 videos are freely offered. These include the popular Bodhisattva Breakfast Corner talks, and short teachings on a huge range of topics, given by all monastery residents and posted daily.

Venerable Thubten Samten and Venerable Thubten Tarpa lead the Sravasti Abbey team that oversees construction of the Buddha Hall.

New Buddha Hall

Another sign of the abbey’s vitality is its current construction project, the 17,000-square-foot Buddha Hall. It’s a long-awaited temple and library facility, which will be the center of religious activity in the monastery.

Venerable Chodron and advisers foresaw the need for the Buddha Hall as far back as 2006, but the original meditation hall—a remodeled garage—was sufficient for a long time. However as the community expanded, the meditation and teaching space provided by the former garage filled up.

Planning for the Buddha Hall began in 2019, only to be stalled for three years by the pandemic. At last construction began in the summer of 2022, and the hall should be ready for occupancy early in 2024.

An architectural rendering of the future Buddha Hall. It will provide plenty of space for teachings and practice.

Sravasti Abbey has commissioned beautiful images for the Buddha Hall, so it will be both inspiring and functional. The Buddha Hall will expand meditation hall capacity for teachings and events, will offer a dedicated room for monastic rites, and will house the growing collection of dharma books in English, Tibetan, and Mandarin.

Abbess Venerable Thubten Chodron is pleased with how the monastery has evolved. “Of course, there are lots of things I’d still like to do,” she said. “But I’m quite satisfied with what has happened so far. I think we have a great community. People are sincere; they’re dedicated and serious about their practice.”

Has it turned out the way she planned?

“I’ve always said that what the abbey becomes, how it grows, depends on the karma as well as the talents and interests of the people who come,” she said.

Dharma study is a cornerstone of monastic training. The dining room serves as a classroom to hear teachings from Tibetan masters via Zoom.

Dependent arising

The wisdom of that view has revealed itself over the years.

“Our prison work is an example,” Chodron said. “In the beginning, I was the only one involved in it. Now the program has blossomed, and we reach well over a thousand incarcerated people every year. That growth depended on the monastics who came here, and who wanted to join in.

“The same is true for the outreach we do in town—the inter-religious dialogues, talks to hospice groups and at environmental events, and so on,” she said. “Those all depend on monastics willing to speak to different groups. And we couldn’t have built the various buildings, without the monastics who have led those efforts.”

The Sravasti Abbey resident community as of June 2023—22 monastics and two trainees.

“On the other hand, we could have attracted a group of scholastics who wanted to study the “Abhidharmakosha,” she said. “If that’s who had come, you’d have a very different Sravasti Abbey!”

Sravasti Abbey is the first of its kind in the Tibetan tradition in the United States, and is unique in many ways. For one thing, it was founded by a woman. Also it’s a monastery with both nuns and monks that espouses gender equity; hence the name “abbey.”

Looking ahead

What do all these changes bode for the future of the abbey? Venerable Chodron is philosophical.

“How the abbey grows going forward will follow the same principle we’ve always had, unfolding as people deepen their practice and as karma ripens,” she said. “We’ve had a strong fully ordained nuns’ community for nearly 12 years, giving the abbey a solid foundation. Now there are five monks as well.

“We are one community dedicated to transforming our minds and sharing Buddha’s teachings,” she said. “As long as we cultivate compassion and bodhicitta, I’m confident the abbey will grow and benefit not only individuals, but also society as a whole.”

Sravasti Abbey’s birthday celebration is scheduled for October 15, 2023. A date for the 2024 Buddha Hall consecration is yet to be set.