About the Monastery

Welcome.

Nigrodharama Forest Monastery seeks to develop relationships with Buddhist groups and individuals in rural Victoria, and serves Buddhists in rural towns such as Seymour, Kilmore, Nagambie and Shepparton, who often have to drive two to three hours to reach a Buddhist temple in Melbourne.

The Forest Monastery welcomes all visitors and aims at encouraging, counseling and guiding visitors in navigating the complexities of modern life.

For over 2,500 years, the monastic tradition has survived solely through the generous support of the lay community. Theravada monks and nuns must refrain from growing, cooking or storing their own food, and are prohibited from handling money. To this day, lay communities in countries around the world generously provide monastics with their basic requisites of food, clothing, lodging and medicine. In return, monastics offer laypeople the highest gifts of Dhamma teachings and spiritual mentorship.

Monastics in residence

  • Ajahn Sudhammo

  • Ajahn Khao

  • Ajahn Sumangalo

The monastic way of life

Forest monks live a life of poverty, celibacy and obedience, they keep the 227 monastic precepts and eat one meal a day between dawn and noon. They wear the simple robes of a Buddhist renunciant, limit their possessions, and don’t distract themselves with TV, newspapers and magazines, music, internet and idle chatter. Their simple and disciplined lifestyle and high standard of religious life, scriptural learning and meditation sets an example for junior monks, and teaches lay people the spiritual aspect of life, namely, that happiness and contentment is not dependent on consumerism and materialism.

Material wealth can alleviate mental suffering only to a very limited extent and our journey as human beings is a threefold one: the outer, physical journey from birth, via old age and sickness to death, the material journey towards safety and security and the inward journey towards purity and unshakeable peace. And this inner journey must dominate and penetrate through every aspect of our outer journey in this fast moving and ever changing world.