Ajahn Punnadhammo Q&A, I - Dragons, Fairies, and Bear Awareness
Channel: Clear Mountain Monastery
Date: 2022-01-17

Part 1: https://youtu.be/AMwsYTgXYys
Part 2: https://youtu.be/OEvLRe_kBgs

Find our more about Ajahn Punnadhammo and the Arrow River Hermitage here: https://www.arrowriver.ca

Chapters
0:00 - Introduction

2:20 - After reading your books and listen to your talk, we’d assume that you have extensive Pali knowledge. Can you tell us how you have learned Pali?

4:00 - How and in what way does the Pali study support your practice?

5:17 - Can you give us an example of problematic Pali to English translation?

7:03 - How do you find reading Buddhaghosa's commentaries or Abhidhamma commentaries support your practice?

9:01 - When you read commentaries, do you simply read topics that you are interested? Or do you read from the beginning to the end?

10:03 - Have you ever translated full commentarial excerpts?

11:06 - Do you study the Abhidhamma to get an intellectual understanding as it is one of the three Pitakas? Or do you study Abhidhmma in support of your practice?

12:36 - Can you elaborate how Abhidhamma and Vipassana go hand in hand?

15:10 - Can you think of specific examples of how Abhdimma and Vipassana go hand in hand?

17:01 - What is your process when you write Dhamma fiction or Dhamma narrative? How that support your own practice? If you feel that it can support, how might one go about that writing process?

18:33 - Do you find the process of writing helping your thinking process and your meditation process? 

19:09 - In your Buddhist cosmology book, there are spiritual beings that are also present in other cultures’ mythology such as native american’s thunderbirds and the garuda. What other resonants have you seen across culture’s mythology that interested you?

21:53 - Supernatural beings are unproven. How do you find this inform your practice? What would you say to the skeptics? 

23:37 - Can you elaborate how you practice Devanussati (recollecting of the devas)?

24:44 - Do you have images associated with the Devanussati practice? Or is it whatever image that comes to mind?

25:09 - We had a conversation with Ajahn Sona about Buddhist’s resonance and influence in history. Apart from mythology, where else do you see Buddhist’s resonance and influence?

26:47 - Outro


In this interview, Ajahn Punnadhammo answers questions on Buddhist Cosmology, Abhidhamma, the "Commentaries", studying Pali, writing Buddhist fiction, consilience between Buddhist, European, and other cosmologies, stream entry, the bardo, and the practice of "recollection of the devā."

Ajahn Punnadhammo is the abbot of Arrow River Forest Hermitage in Northern Ontario, Canada. Born in Toronto in 1955, at the age of 23, he began studying Buddhism under Kema Ananda, the founder and first teacher of the Arrow River Center. In 1990, at the age of 35, Ajahn Punnadhammo ordained into the Ajahn Chah forest tradition in Thailand and stayed there for the next five years largely based at Wat Pah Nanachat, the International Forest Monastery. After his fifth year in robes, his first teacher, Kema Ananda, contracted lung cancer and, with death imminent, he asked Ajahn Punnadhammo to return to Canada to assume management of the Arrow River Center. Ajahn Punnadhammo returned with the blessing of his seniors in the order in November of 1995 and was able to spend time with his beloved teacher before his death. Since its founder's passing, Arrow River Forest Hermitage has continued as a place of practice and refuge for both monastics and lay visitors with Ajahn Punnadhammo as its abbot.
Ajahn Punnadhammo is the author of extensively researched The Buddhist Cosmos: A Comprehensive Survey of the Early Buddhist Worldview; according to Theravāda and Sarvāstivāda sources, Letters from Māra - an insightful and creative allegory in the spirit of C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters, and many other writings which can be found at https://www.arrowriver.ca/dhamma.html

To learn more, visit https://linktr.ee/clear_mountain_monastery
Tune in with fellow practitioners every Wednesday evening from 6 - 6:45 pm or Saturday morning from 9:30 - 11 am for a Dhamma Talk and Q&A with Ajahn Kovilo or Ajahn Nisabho. Saturday mornings begin with a thirty-minute meditation. Wednesday evening Q&A's are followed by a discussion on Zoom from 6:45 - 7:30 pm. See https://www.clearmountainmonastery.org/ for details. Welcome!