I met Amaranatho the English Buddhist monk in Malaysia

Buddhist monk from England travels to Malaysia

an English Buddhist Monk

An English Buddhist Monk

I never thought in my wildest dreams I would meet an English Buddhist monk, of all places, here in Malaysia. English? Yes, really, really English. I have meet many Buddhist monks over the years and many are short or at least shorter than me. I would be considered almost tall for an Asian so I was not expecting to meet someone taller. When I met Amaranatho I was really surprised to meet someone much taller then me.

 

He was tall, lean and jovial. In his email, he had mentioned that he was on a tight schedule and could spare me half an hour to meet me. You see, after years of living like a recluse in front of a computer,  I was going through a phase in my life where I liked to meet as many of my blog readers as possible. I have met quite a few of them and mostly at the teh tarik stall or a mamak restaurant.

 

Coffee and Tea with a Buddhist monk

I am a self confessed coffee addict and when Amaranatho suggested that we meet for tea, I panicked. I wondered how I could steer him away from tea to coffee. This was before I found out that Amaranatho was a robed Buddhist monk. We had arranged to meet in SS2, Petaling Jaya and had not finalised the location when he informed me he was a robed Buddhist monk. Until that moment, I had been thinking that I was going to meet someone for Spain or Italy. My God, I was going to meet a robed Buddhist monk, the Venerable Amaranatho. I emailed him back saying that meeting a robed Buddhist monk was not a problem for me as I had followed a Reverend Buddhist  monk for two years and that we will have tea.

 

As you can see from the picture above Amaranatho, dressed in the  traditional Buddhist monk robes, had a tea and I had a coffee, actually two cups each.

 

Attended the same Buddhist monastery

We met in one of the better places in SS2 shopping center and he explained that he was from England and was in Malaysia for a while before going down to Australia. I explained I had followed a Reverend Buddhist monk for two years and almost every weekend would go up to Gopeng, Perak to meet my Master. The training and discipline one gets from the Buddhist monks is very good. They teach you to be compassionate to all living creatures and there is much discipline in their ways. Many of the teaching Buddhist monks are truly enlightened. That was when I found out that he too was in Gopeng. Imagine that, both of us had been to Gopeng. I was there many years earlier when the place was still a temple on the hill.

 

Amaranatho, as a Buddhist monk, does workshops, gives lectures, helps out, in Malaysia , Australia and UK. He is very interested in running retreats, training and seminars for anybody anywhere. You do not have to be a Buddhist to invite him to give lectures and motivation talks. My suggestion is that you can invite him to even run retreats for your high flying corporate staff. Change and improvement is the essence of life and looking at the world from a different perspective is always motivational for corporate staff. And as with all Buddhist monks do donate generously for their time and effort.

 

 

The videos by the Buddhist monk

 

Do take the time to watch both the videos. They are really interesting and enlightening. Buddhist monks have a lot to tell you about the world around us and their experiences because they see the world differently from most of us.

 

I quote the the Buddhist monk “The first principle is to find out who you are then you can achieve anything”

A Buddhist monk says “You are the solution looking at the problem”

 

“Your presents makes a difference”

 

 

I must tell you that in all my years mixing with Buddhist monks, I have really enjoyed the experience and the learning.

 

 

 

Discussions with the Venerable Amaranatho

You would not believe it but we talked about almost everything under the sun. We talked about bread making. He knew how to make bread, even French Baguette, and it was at his finger tips. We talked about the European economy and why I disagreed with the austerity measures as they would deepen the recession in Europe.  We talked about remedies. We talked about the property bubble and economics. And yes, a Buddhist monk was interested in my theory of economics. I found out he had an engineering background. Just like me, he was a Computer Engineer / Computer Scientist. Wasn’t that amazing? Here we were, a Buddhist monk and a lay person, out of the blue, meeting in a coffee shop having both been to Gopeng, both had computer backgrounds and both knew how to make bread.

 

You know, we ended up talking for 3 hours. Amaranatho really had a very broad base of knowledge. I do hope you get the opportunity to attend one of his seminars, or any other knowledgeable Buddhist monk’s seminar because the Lord Buddha explained many things which can help us in this hectic modern world.

 

Just to let you know, the Lord God brought me to Christianity, after my training by a Buddhist monk and not before that.

Do visit his website / blog at playfulmonk.net

 

 

This article I met Amaranatho the English Buddhist monk in Malaysia was researched and written by Peter Achutha


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

One response to “I met Amaranatho the English Buddhist monk in Malaysia”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Protected by the Bad Bot Exterminator Pro