From: https://youtube.com/watch?v=hLf2hIT4hms
Context: Throughout this transcript, Bhante Vimalaramsi is the speaker unless otherwise indicated.
in the heart of the user fountains and
new traditions being born the tradition
of American forest monks that will
follow the original practices of Buddha
after 25 years of meditation practice
Vontae Villa Ramsay has come back to his
home country of the USA and settled into
a rural area of Missouri that is to our
south from the city of st. Louis when I
got ready to go to Asia I quit my job
which I was very successful that and I
went to San Francisco and there I was
going to fly to Rangoon and the night
before the the plane flight I went to a
public shower at the YMCA and I took a
shower and I'd opened up my locker and I
forgot something in the shower there was
a towel that I forgot so I walked back
to get it and when I came back my money
and my passport and all of my ID was
gone so I had to start all over again
and saved up money and it took a little
while but eventually I got up enough
money to go back to Asia and there I
became a monk anyway while I was in
Burma I did many many 3-month retreats
between 12 and 15 of them I did an eight
month retreat in Burma and this was the
time in 1988 when they had their social
unrest and they kicked all of the
foreign monks out of the country and
then it took me two years to get back in
the country to get the visa and that
sort of thing then I did it two-year
retreat had
I ate with Sydow who Jonica at the end
of two years he told me that I was ready
to go out and teach but I wasn't
satisfied I didn't feel like I've gotten
as much as I I should have I went back
to Malaysia many people were very
interested in having me teach the
Burmese method of meditation but I
didn't feel like it led to what it talks
about in the suit this didn't lead to
Nirvana the way that I was explained
navona so instead of teaching the Epis
onna what I did was started teaching
loving-kindness meditation and that
became very popular in in Malaysia there
was some times I was giving huge
retreats many sometimes as many as 75
people and then at one point I was asked
to go to the largest monastery in kuala
lumpur by ke shridhama nando who has
just since died not too long ago it so
happens that there was a monk that came
from Sri Lanka
that was a meditation teacher and he
asked me how I talked so I explained to
him the way that I was teaching and he
told me you're teaching exactly right
but you're using the language of
commentaries why don't you put the
commentaries down and then go to the
sutras and just use your suta's as your
guide
so that's what I did and as soon as I
did that there were light bulbs going
off in my mind I was understanding
everything in the sutas because I didn't
have the overlay of the commentaries to
kind of cloud my thinking since then I
have developed a way of teaching where I
read the suta so you know that it's not
coming for me and explain what this it
does mean so this has been a very
practical and amazing path that I've
been on so this is a cootie and this is
a modern-day cootie and the that means
it is a meditation cabin for up to four
people so over the next two years what
kendama suka meditation center expectant
United International Buddha Dhamma
Society we will be sending Bonte to the
universities to do talks about the
compatibility for the different
traditions to come together and work
together for different peaceful
coalition projects in the United States
we're hoping that they will share what's
working for the layperson and we can
share what is successful with the
meditation practice for people to ease
suffering and then we will work and
continue to teach online and we will
continue to do reaching out for training
monastics to teach in English in the
United States no matter what their
tradition is to teach Dhamma English and
we will also expand our program for the
disability project where we have one
Kevin and we'll add two or three more to
that circle and that's pretty much what
will happen the dining hall and kitchen
will that be the first thing to be
finished so we'll have expanded some of
our meditation space inside up here and
then of course we're going to be
building a Dhamma village which will
start in another about a years
time that will pick up and start with
people moving into our Dhamma village
which is next door to the monastery and
that will help us to eventually be able
to have monastics who can go on
Penda pot from our ordination program in
the last few years we've been teaching
people online and we've been fairly
successful with that by using the
computer they can be at home they take
their 5 precepts in the morning they sit
and practice meditation then they can go
to work at lunchtime they take another
little period of time for meditation
then they can come home and listen to a
Dhamma talk and then write to me about
what's happening in their practice and
then they can sit a little while longer
so it's kind of a a new way of doing a
retreat but you get the chance to
practice all day long that way we found
this to be quite successful and people
do progress very nicely when they do
that well I've been a Buddhist for about
40 years practicing V+ meditation for
most of that and then a year ago a
little over a year ago I decided to
enroll in a retreat that was led by
Ponte Villa Marazzi a friend of mine
recommended that I do such and it
changed my life in wonderful ways having
been a Buddhist to really see the Dharma
unfold in front of me practicing this
tranquility Insight Meditation was a
revelation within a few days I had
experienced in meditation what I hadn't
been able to do in practicing a straight
B+ technique for maybe nearly 40 years
in an industrial traits so I'm very
grateful to Avante for doing that and as
a retreat went on I experienced even
deeper states of meditation one of the
most recent developments is Ustream
Ustream reaches out to the person and
they can see you while you are teaching
and they can email questions to you and
then you can answer them directly to the
people what we're trying to do is get
back to the original teaching of the
Buddha and the more that I read the
sutras to people the easier they
understand an awful lot of people are
looking for a path that they think is
very complicated but the Buddha's
teaching is very simple
not always easy but very simple to
understand this is the path that does
lead to liberation
in the heart of the user fountains and
new traditions being born the tradition
of American forest monks that will
follow the original practices of Buddha
after 25 years of meditation practice
Vontae Villa Ramsay has come back to his
home country of the USA and settled into
a rural area of Missouri that is to our
south from the city of st. Louis when I
got ready to go to Asia I quit my job
which I was very successful that and I
went to San Francisco and there I was
going to fly to Rangoon and the night
before the the plane flight I went to a
public shower at the YMCA and I took a
shower and I'd opened up my locker and I
forgot something in the shower there was
a towel that I forgot so I walked back
to get it and when I came back my money
and my passport and all of my ID was
gone so I had to start all over again
and saved up money and it took a little
while but eventually I got up enough
money to go back to Asia and there I
became a monk anyway while I was in
Burma I did many many 3-month retreats
between 12 and 15 of them I did an eight
month retreat in Burma and this was the
time in 1988 when they had their social
unrest and they kicked all of the
foreign monks out of the country and
then it took me two years to get back in
the country to get the visa and that
sort of thing then I did it two-year
retreat had
I ate with Sydow who Jonica at the end
of two years he told me that I was ready
to go out and teach but I wasn't
satisfied I didn't feel like I've gotten
as much as I I should have I went back
to Malaysia many people were very
interested in having me teach the
Burmese method of meditation but I
didn't feel like it led to what it talks
about in the suit this didn't lead to
Nirvana the way that I was explained
navona so instead of teaching the Epis
onna what I did was started teaching
loving-kindness meditation and that
became very popular in in Malaysia there
was some times I was giving huge
retreats many sometimes as many as 75
people and then at one point I was asked
to go to the largest monastery in kuala
lumpur by ke shridhama nando who has
just since died not too long ago it so
happens that there was a monk that came
from Sri Lanka
that was a meditation teacher and he
asked me how I talked so I explained to
him the way that I was teaching and he
told me you're teaching exactly right
but you're using the language of
commentaries why don't you put the
commentaries down and then go to the
sutras and just use your suta's as your
guide
so that's what I did and as soon as I
did that there were light bulbs going
off in my mind I was understanding
everything in the sutas because I didn't
have the overlay of the commentaries to
kind of cloud my thinking since then I
have developed a way of teaching where I
read the suta so you know that it's not
coming for me and explain what this it
does mean so this has been a very
practical and amazing path that I've
been on so this is a cootie and this is
a modern-day cootie and the that means
it is a meditation cabin for up to four
people so over the next two years what
kendama suka meditation center expectant
United International Buddha Dhamma
Society we will be sending Bonte to the
universities to do talks about the
compatibility for the different
traditions to come together and work
together for different peaceful
coalition projects in the United States
we're hoping that they will share what's
working for the layperson and we can
share what is successful with the
meditation practice for people to ease
suffering and then we will work and
continue to teach online and we will
continue to do reaching out for training
monastics to teach in English in the
United States no matter what their
tradition is to teach Dhamma English and
we will also expand our program for the
disability project where we have one
Kevin and we'll add two or three more to
that circle and that's pretty much what
will happen the dining hall and kitchen
will that be the first thing to be
finished so we'll have expanded some of
our meditation space inside up here and
then of course we're going to be
building a Dhamma village which will
start in another about a years
time that will pick up and start with
people moving into our Dhamma village
which is next door to the monastery and
that will help us to eventually be able
to have monastics who can go on
Penda pot from our ordination program in
the last few years we've been teaching
people online and we've been fairly
successful with that by using the
computer they can be at home they take
their 5 precepts in the morning they sit
and practice meditation then they can go
to work at lunchtime they take another
little period of time for meditation
then they can come home and listen to a
Dhamma talk and then write to me about
what's happening in their practice and
then they can sit a little while longer
so it's kind of a a new way of doing a
retreat but you get the chance to
practice all day long that way we found
this to be quite successful and people
do progress very nicely when they do
that well I've been a Buddhist for about
40 years practicing V+ meditation for
most of that and then a year ago a
little over a year ago I decided to
enroll in a retreat that was led by
Ponte Villa Marazzi a friend of mine
recommended that I do such and it
changed my life in wonderful ways having
been a Buddhist to really see the Dharma
unfold in front of me practicing this
tranquility Insight Meditation was a
revelation within a few days I had
experienced in meditation what I hadn't
been able to do in practicing a straight
B+ technique for maybe nearly 40 years
in an industrial traits so I'm very
grateful to Avante for doing that and as
a retreat went on I experienced even
deeper states of meditation one of the
most recent developments is Ustream
Ustream reaches out to the person and
they can see you while you are teaching
and they can email questions to you and
then you can answer them directly to the
people what we're trying to do is get
back to the original teaching of the
Buddha and the more that I read the
sutras to people the easier they
understand an awful lot of people are
looking for a path that they think is
very complicated but the Buddha's
teaching is very simple
not always easy but very simple to
understand this is the path that does
lead to liberation