OUR TEACHERS

Sakula, Spiritual Director
In 1996 Mary Reinard (Sakula) came into contact with Buddhism through an internet search that led her to a beginners course at Dharma Rain Zen Center. One year later she met Luang Por Pasanno and then co-abbot of Amaravati, Ajahn Amaro, for the first time and immediately felt at home. Luang Por accepted her as his lay student, eventually giving her the Pali name Sakula meaning One of Good Family. In 2001, Sakula was invited by the venerables to join eleven others in a three-year training. The group graduated in 2004 as Community of Abhayagiri Lay Ministers, or C.A.L.M.
Sakula co-founded Portland Friends of the Dhamma in 2000 and leads the Sunday Sila Program.

Jessica Swanson, Lay Teacher
Jessica Swanson is a Theravada Buddhist meditator in the lineage of Luang Por Chah and Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery. In training since 2003, Jessica is a board officer of the Sanghata Foundation, the stewarding organization of the Pacific Hermitage, a small Buddhist monastery in White Salmon, Wash., which she helped found.
Jessica has taught several classes at PFOD, including Introduction to Meditation, Introduction to the Five Precepts, Brightening the Mind: How to Practice with the Six Recollections, and The Friendly Heart: A Practical Approach to Loving Kindness. For three years, she co-led a weekly meditation class for inmates at Portland’s Columbia River Correctional Institution and offered meditation workshops for domestic violence survivors at the YWCA. Today, she co-leads Sunday Sila and leads the Upasika Training Program at PFOD.
Jessica lives in Vancouver, Wash., with her husband and two children.

Matthew Grad – Lay Teacher
Matthew Grad has practiced in the Theravada lineage for more than 25 years. Before joining our community, Matthew taught an ongoing course in sutta study for Spirit Rock Meditation Center. When teaching from the suttas (discourses of the Buddha) he emphasizes their direct application in daily life. His practice is rooted in the teachings on intuitive awareness, and the teachings of Ajahn Chah and Ajahn Thanissaro on training the mind and heart.
Matthew leads the Investigations class on Friday nights from 7:00 to 9:00 pm.
In Matthews words; “The expression dhamma vicaya means using the Buddha’s teachings to investigate all that we experience—sights, sounds, thoughts, emotions—so that we may come to understand the true nature of things. This sort of investigation is a factor of awakening, according to the Buddha, and on Friday nights, we’ll put it to work.”
Lay Minister

Ruby Grad – Certified Lay Minister
Ruby was trained as a Buddhist chaplain at the Sati Center’s Buddhist Chaplaincy training, which she completed in 2014. Simultaneously, upon graduation she was also ordained as a lay Theravada minister by Gil Fronsdal. She served as the volunteer Buddhist chaplain at the Multnomah County jail, Inverness, for several years. She has been practicing Vipassana meditation in the Theravada tradition with both monastic and lay teachers since 1988. Lunag Por Pasanno is her teacher.
Ruby worked as retreat manager for Spirit Rock Meditation Center for 13 years where she also partook and graduated from several trainings including Spirit Rock’s Dedicated Practitioner’s Program (she also served as administrator), and the Community of Dharma Leaders.
Currently, she practices with Portland Friends of the Dhamma and the Pacific Hermitage. Ruby retired from her profession as a trained lawyer where she worked in litigation and legal publishing.
Visiting teachers

Luang Por Pasanno, Senior Spiritual Advisor
Ajahn Pasanno took ordination in Thailand in 1974 with Venerable Phra Khru Ñāṇasirivatana as preceptor. During his first year as a monk he was taken by his teacher to meet Ajahn Chah, with whom he asked to be allowed to stay and train. One of the early residents of Wat Pah Nanachat, Ajahn Pasanno became its abbot in his ninth year. During his incumbency, Wat Pah Nanachat developed considerably, both in physical size and reputation. Spending 24 years living in Thailand, Ajahn Pasanno became a well-known and highly respected monk and Dhamma teacher. He moved to California to found Abhayagiri Monastery with Ajahn Amaro.

Ajahn Thanissaro (Ajahn Geoff)
Ajahn Thanissaro (also known as Ajahn Geoff; born 28 December 1949) is an American Buddhist monk. Belonging to the Thai Forest Tradition, for 10 years he studied under the forest master Ajahn Fuang Jotiko (himself a student of Ajahn Lee). Since 1993 he has served as abbot of the Metta Forest Monastery in San Diego County, California — the first monastery in the Thai Forest Tradition in the US — which he co founded with Ajahn Suwat Suvaco.

Ajahn Sudanto and The Pacific Hermitage
Portland Friends of the Dhamma was established in large part to bring Theravada Buddhist monks from the Ajahn Chah tradition to the Pacific Northwest. Nestled in the Columbia River Gorge, along a forested stretch of White Salmon’s Jewett Creek, the Pacific Hermitage was established in 2010, as a branch of Abhayagiri Monastery after lay Buddhists expressed a strong interest in and willingness to support monastic teachers for this region.
The Hermitage is a small monastery, intended to be a place of solitude where several monks can devote much of their time to meditation, study and simple living. The monks walk daily through the nearby town of White Salmon, Washington to accept food offerings for their daily meal and make themselves available as spiritual resources for the community. Ajahn Sudanto, a senior monk trained in Thailand and at Abhayagiri, has been the abbot since its inception.

Ayya Santussika
Ayya Santussika entered monastic life as an anagarika (eight-precept nun) in 2005, then ordained as a samaneri (ten-precept nun) in 2010 and took full bhikkhuni ordination in 2012 at Dharma Vijaya Buddhist Vihara in Los Angeles. She has trained in large and small communities of nuns, including Amaravati and Chithurst monasteries of the Ajahn Chah tradition in England.