Bhante Bodhidhamma assisted by Tisara
Bhante Bodhidhamma and Carl Fooks
Sayalay Vajiranyani
Sayalay Vajiranyani was working as a computer programmer in 1980 when shefirst heard about insight meditation. She attended a 7-day retreat at Insight Meditation Society, Barre, MA USA, under the guidance of Mrs. Ruth Denison. She continued going on retreats there and joined the staff in 1984.
While on staff, she met Sayadaw U Pandita. She started practicing under his guidance in 1987 and in 1991 ordained as an 8-precept nun at IMS under his preceptorship. She travelled to Yangon in 1993 after spending a year and some months at Amaravati and Chithurst.
From 1993 until 2020, she lived at Panditarama Shwe Taung Gon Sasana Yeiktha in Yangon. She practiced, studied, taught Pali and supported the work of Panditarama in various ways, including translating for Sayadaw U Pandita and others.
In 2015 she was invited to teach at Dhammaramsi Meditation Centre (Rivière, Belgium). She has also taught a course for children at the Saraniya Dhamma Meditation Centre in Manchester.
Ven.Obhasa
Venerable Obhasa is a Hong Kong-born Bhikkhuni in the Zen tradition originally. She has also ordained as a Theravada Bhikkuni. She has done postgraduate studies of Buddhism in Taiwan, Buddhist & Pali studies in Sri Lanka, and Buddhist Counselling study in Hong Kong. She met Bhante Vimalaramsi in 2015 in Indonesia. Bhante Vimalaramsi was an American monk who was trained in the Mahasi tradition but developed his own approach to teaching which he called Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation (TWIM). See https://www.dhammasukha.org/about-us
Venerable has done seven years of intensive meditation practice and many hours of teacher training in the USA and Asia with him. She was approved to be a qualified meditation teacher in the Dhamma Sukha Meditation Centre (DSMC) in Missouri in 2018 by Bhante Vimilaransi.
Venerable has also done voluntary work in South East Asia where she designed a series of meditation workshops for students, teachers, and parents in Hong Kong schools.
She currently resides in the UK and conducts online and in-person retreats in the UK and Asia. Her UK activities can be found at https://www.twimuk.org/
She runs a TWIM group in Greenwich and will soon be opening a meditation centre in Newport (South East Wales). She may be reached at Ven. Obhasa <[email protected]>
Guus Went
Guus Went (Netherlands, 1952) started practicing Dhamma in 1980 (Mahasi tradition). The immediate effect on his life was immense, seeing fundamental changes in his relationship to study, work, family and friends.
From 1990 to 1994 he lived as a monk in the then flourishing Buddhayana Centre (Ven. Dhammawiranatha) in his home country, and as a staff member until the centre’s closure in 2001.
Societal life afterwards, however, didn’t prove to be too satisfactory to him.
In 2007 Guus discovered on the internet the newly founded Satipanya Buddhist Retreat. After practicing under the guidance of Bhante Bodhidhamma, Bhante referred him to the German monk Sayadaw U Vivekananda, in whose center - Panditarama Lumbini - he met Sayadaw U Pandita in 2011. Since 2012 Guus has spent every Winter at Panditarama Forest Meditation Center Burma on 60 day retreats.
In 2011 Guus started to conduct 5-day retreats in the Netherlands. In 2015 Bhante Bodhidhamma invited him to conduct an annual weeklong retreat at Satipanya. Since 2016 he conducted around ten 10-day retreats in the Netherlands too.
See for more info: his website (English version).
Carl Fooks
Carl has been practising in the Mahāyāna and Theravāda traditions for just over 30 years. He was first introduced to Buddhism in 1989 by a close friend who guided him through a programme of kōan study from the Rinzai school of Zen. He has now settled on the Mahāsi system of vipassanā as his primary practice after meeting Bhante Bodhidhamma at Gaia House in 2010.
Carl started teacher training with Bhante Bodhidhamma in 2011. Since then, he has been leading weekly and fortnightly sitting groups, helps out occasionally at Jamyang in London, and leads weeklong and weekend retreats at Satipanya. He is a member of the Buddhist Teachers in Europe, and a Gaia House visiting teacher, assisting and teaching there since 2014.
Carl has a Master's degree in Buddhist Studies from the University of South Wales.
Hannes Huber
Hannes Huber is
an experienced Austrian Dhamma teacher. He started practicing meditation in 1985, first for several years with Godwin Samararatne in Sri Lanka, who encouraged him to teach in 1996.
Later the wish to deepen his practice led him via IMS (USA) in the year 1999 to Myanmar. He became a close student of Sayadaw U Pandita (who later asked him to teach) as well as of Sayadaw U Vivekananda in Nepal. With both teachers he sat many long retreats, each of a duration of up to 6 months.
Hannes has taught more than 200 Vipassana (and several Metta-) Retreats in 10 different countries. His concern is to share the approach of the Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw, yet in a way that is suitable and helpful for people of western culture.
The development and integration of loving kindness (metta), as embodied by his first teacher Godwin takes also an important role in Hannes´ approach to teaching.
His interest in eastern and western approaches of working with the mind led him to take a 3-year training in Pychosynthesis in Switzerland.
Since 2022 he serves as the spiritual guide of Pian dei Ciliegi Vipassana Meditation Centre in Italy.
Besides teaching he still takes time for his own retreat practice between 1 and 3 months every year.
This is my website
Hui Hui Ng
Hui Hui Ng
Hui (pronounced Way) started meditating in 2003, initially focusing on Metta Bhavana meditation. She met Bhante Bodhidhamma in 2006, with whom she started practising Vipassanā in the Mahasi tradition. Some years later, she also started practising with Sayadaw U Vivekananda and Sayalay Daw Baddamanika at Panditarama Lumbini Meditation Centre, Nepal.
She continues to spend 3-4 months a year on intensive Vipassana retreat either at Satipanya Buddhist Retreat Centre, or in Nepal at the Panditarama Lumbini Meditation Centre. She also attends teachings with Tibetian teacher Yongye Mingyur Rinpoche.
Hui is a Hatha Yoga teacher, and has been teaching since 2006.
Hui can be contacted at [email protected]
Pierre Gallaz
Pierre sat his first meditation retreat in 2004 while travelling in India. He explored various approaches to practice, including Tibetan traditions and S.N. Goenka’s Vipassana, before attending a retreat with Bhante Bodhidhamma in Switzerland in 2009. From then on, he committed to the Mahasi Sayadaw tradition.
A psychologist by training, Pierre became a certified mindfulness teacher in 2010. Since then, he has taught Jon Kabat-Zinn’s 8-week MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) course to many newcomers to meditation, and regularly leads silent mindfulness retreats in Switzerland for those wishing to deepen their practice.
While his teaching has been rooted in a secular framework, his personal practice continues within the Buddhist tradition. He attends regular retreats with Bhante Bodhidhamma and with other teachers, including Uffe Damborg, Carol Wilson, and Shaila Catherine."
Mark Arthur
Mark started meditating in 2003 when he sat his first Vipassana retreat at Gaia House. Shortly afterwards he spent two months on a working retreat there and met Bhante Bodhidhamma while he was a resident teacher. For three years afterwards he travelled out to Thailand during the summer attending retreats with Steve and Rosemary Weismann at Wat Kow Tahm. One year he could no longer afford to fly and it happened to be the same year that Satipanya opened in 2007. He has been regularly going to retreats at Satipanya ever since.
Mark works as a children’s mental health worker for CAMHS in the NHS, and took a year’s sabbatical in 2021 to commit to more intensive practice. In that year he spent four months in the winter and two months in the summer at Satipanya, including a remote online retreat with Ven. Sayadaw Vivekenanda and Ven. Sayalay Bhaddamanika from Panditarama, Nepal. He then managed to find a secluded cabin near Findhorn, The Highlands, and spent five weeks alone there.
Mark has been rekindling his love of nature in response to the climate emergency and has recently conducted a wilderness vigil alone in Dartmoor.
Tisara
Tisārā became interested in spirituality as a teenager, but did not discover the teachings of the Buddha until she was in her thirties.
She quickly devoted herself wholeheartedly to these teachings and undertook intensive retreats in Europe and Asia, notably under the guidance of Bhante Bodhidhamma.
Between 2005 and 2020, she was part of the community of nuns at Amaravati and Chithurst, in the lineage of the forest monks of Ajahn Chah. Now based in Brussels, she continues on her path of practice and teaches in Switzerland, France and elsewhere.
Josephine Mangenot
After eight years working in the digital industry and living an active life in Paris, she experienced burnout in 2014. This led her to travel for nine months across Asia, from Indonesia to Iran. During this journey she encountered meditation for the first time in Wat Pah Nanachat in Thailand (Theravada Forest Tradition). She then attended a month-long Vipassanā retreat at Panditarama Lumbini Meditation Centre, Nepal. This retreat had a profound impact on her, inspiring her to make it a central priority. The following year she returned for a three-month retreat, which was a challenging experience and showed her the impact of expectations in practice. This led her to step back for a while.
In 2020 she discovered Satipanya Buddhist Retreat Centre, where Bhante Bodhidhamma’s vision of “curing of the heart” gave inspiration and depth to her practice. Since then, she has spent two to three months each year at Satipanya, continuing practicing and serving as an assistant.
Outside of retreat periods, she lives in France where she works as a ceramic artist and teaches Yin Yoga. She is also engaged in the study of trauma psychology and is particularly interested in exploring new approaches to healing.