Bhante Sujato is an Australian Buddhist monk. He was ordained in Thailand at Wat Pa Nanachat in the forest tradition of Ajahn Chah. He spent several years in Thailand, lived with Ajahn Brahmavamso in Perth for three years and spent over a year in Sukhavana cave monastery in Ipoh, Malaysia.

The Venerable was recently in Penang to give a series of seven talks from 7 to 13 November 2005 at Than Hsiang Temple in Bayan Baru and Peace House in Island Park. His first talk was on Loving Meditation. Bhante taught that loving kindness is actually a feeling that is experienced in the mind. By doing metta meditation, we could focus on that feeling and would know very clearly and exactly what it was. Eleven benefits could be gained by doing metta meditation, but most important of all, the mind would become concentrated very quickly because of the happiness arising in the mind.

Venerable Ajahn Sujato's second talk was titled “White Bones and Red Dust”: How the Bhikkhuni Order Came and Went. The Bhikkhuni Order is a controversial subject in Theravada Buddhism. According to the suttas, the Lord Buddha was persuaded by Ven. Ananda to allow Mahapajapati Gotami to become a Bhikkhuni, thus instituting the Bhikkhuni Sangha. Bhante raised a number of anomalies found in the suttas regarding the establishment of the Bhikkhuni Order, which has since mostly died out in the Theravada tradition of Buddhism

Satipatthana: The Way of Unification was Bhante Sujato's third talk in the series. Bhante encouraged his listeners to go beyond thinking good thoughts by doing meditation or Satipatthana – establishing mindfulness. He said that deciding to choose to focus the mind would lead to abandoning of hindrances.

On Thursday, 10 November 2005 Ajahn Sujato talked on “War and Terror”. Now you might well ask what a man of peace knows about war and terror. Bhante said it is worrying that we are breeding a culture of violence; where violence is seen to be the answer. He gave a couple of examples of how conflicts could be solved. It is important that one side do not act with violence and the other side, energetically and diligently, tries to recognize the real problem and to solve it.

In Bhante's talk titled “In the Beginning…” Bhante talked “on the beginning of things the ending of things and some of the in-between of things as well”. Bhante said in Buddhism, there are cycles with no absolute beginning and no absolute ending. It is also the Buddhist belief that Buddhism would die out in some point in time and when causes and conditions are ripe, a new Buddha would appear.

“Did you hear the one about Brahma? Humour in the Pali Canon” was a departure from most Dhamma talks. Bhante Sujato said we must not take ourselves too seriously. We should learn to be practicable and relaxed in our practice of the Dhamma. Bhante imparted quite a bit of humour in this talk, quoting from the suttas and from his experiences. He had the audience in stitches almost throughout this talk.

Ajahn Sujato's last talk in the series was titled “Connections: Friendship, Relationships, and the Power of Harmony”. This talk was centred on Right Speech. In keeping the fourth precept, Bhante said it is not just refraining from speaking falsehood. The positive aspect of this precept is one should speak “the word that is true, meaningful, and at the right time; word of Dhamma and Vinaya; word that goes to the heart, that is pleasing to the ear, that is delightful to many people, that reunites those who are divided, and promotes concord and harmony”.

In all but the last of his talk, Bhante Sujato guided the audience in a half hour meditation session. Bhante seems to have a wry sense of humour and imparted this in all of his talks making them “pleasing to the ear”. This is not to say his talks were frivolous in nature. On the contrary, all of Bhante's talks carried meaningful and important messages of the Dhamma. It was his way of imparting the word of the Dhamma that made it delightful to the listeners and because of this, the Dhamma goes to the heart and stays there.

Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu!