Rugged Interdependency - Amaravati Buddhist Monastery

Rugged Interdependencyshe was an active member of a group opposing the death penalty and wanted toknow if I had heard of the case or met Jay, as he was a Buddhist. As it transpired wegot a call asking if we could help only days before the execution was due.One of the main sources of support since my early visits to the Bay Area hasbeen Ajahn Maha-Prasert, of Wat Buddhanusorn in Fremont, in the southeastcorner of the Bay [www.watbuddha.iirt.net]. When we first met, back in 1990,he surprised me by his wholehearted enthusiasm for our plan to found a forestMonastery.In Thailand there is often a lot of antipathy between town monks and forestmonks – the latter gaining more praise, as being meditation monks, than theformer.He was delighted, and said, “Can I help you? I cannot start a meditationMonastery here, that’s not what the people have invited me for, but I can help youto do it!” I was delighted and a firm friendship was formed. I also found out thenthat he had studied with Ajahn Chah when he was a young monk in northeastThailand.In 1995 my surprise was compounded when I told him about the new landwe’d been given in Redwood Valley, north of Ukiah. “I know that place, I have beenthere,” he said. Assuming he couldn’t really mean this obscure little valley and thathe meant he had been to see the giant redwood trees elsewhere in the County, Ipointed to the map and said, “It’s here in this little town…”“Yes, I know that place,” he replied again. “That’s where my friend DoctorPeter lives, and…. Mary, that’s right, his wife is called Mary.”Just the day before I had managed to track down the name of the neighbor tothe immediate north of the land Master Hua had just given us: Dr. Peter La Rivière.“You know Peter La Rivière‽ But there are no Thai people at all in that wholecounty! What were you doing up there? How on earth do you know them?”It turned out that Mary and Peter were indeed the only people that he knewin Mendocino County, and they just happened to be our new next-door neighbors.Ajahn Maha-Prasert seemed surprised that we were surprised.He explained: “When my 90-year-old teacher came from Thailand he got sickon the plane, Doctor Peter was looking after the emergency room in the hospitalin LA at that time. By the end of the night we had become good friends. I go up totheir place every year…”Nowadays many younger Thais (and some older) have failed to encounter ordevelop any interest in Buddhism either in Thailand or, if they have grown up inthe West, here in the USA. Now, as they see so much interest in Buddhism here,they become intrigued and start to investigate their own heritage. They are alsomore urbanized (and therefore stressed) and are eager for some peace.So a lot of young Thais now practice Buddhism for the first time because ofhearing about places like Wat Metta, Abhayagiri, Birken and also Bhavana Society.130