Qualla: The Fearless Mountain https://qualla.com/abhayagiri-buddhist-monastery en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:11 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/r/abhayagiri-buddhist-monastery-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: The Fearless Mountain https://qualla.com/abhayagiri-buddhist-monastery The Fearless Mountain: Introduction https://qualla.com/abhayagiri-buddhist-monastery/ Photo credit Michelle, CC BY 2.0. The name means "fearless mountain" in Pali, and the first thing you notice is the silence. Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery sits on 280 acres of forested hillside about sixteen miles north of Ukiah, California, where the oaks give way to Douglas fir and the cell signal drops to nothing. This is not a retreat center or a meditation spa. It is a working monastery in the Thai Forest Tradition, where roughly twenty monastics live under a set of rules that have remained essentially unchanged since the time of the Buddha. They own almost nothing. They eat one meal a day, finished before noon. They sleep in small wooden huts scattered through the trees. And they have been doing this in Mendocino County since the mid-1990s, when a remarkable act of interfaith generosity gave them the land to begin.

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Image: Michelle | CC BY 2.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/r/abhayagiri-buddhist-monastery-wp/9qbr-the-fearless-mountain-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full The Fearless Mountain: A Gift Between Traditions https://qualla.com/abhayagiri-buddhist-monastery/ Photo credit Michelle, CC BY 2.0. Abhayagiri's origin story is one of the more unlikely episodes in American religious history. In the 1980s, Ajahn Sumedho, a British-born monk and the foremost Western disciple of the revered Thai meditation master Ajahn Chah, began receiving invitations to teach in California. H...

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Image: Michelle | CC BY 2.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/r/abhayagiri-buddhist-monastery-wp/9qbr-the-fearless-mountain-a-gift-between-traditions.mp3 0:06 2 full The Fearless Mountain: Two Abbots and a Mountain https://qualla.com/abhayagiri-buddhist-monastery/ Photo credit Brcar, CC BY-SA 4.0. When Ajahn Amaro settled at the new monastery, Ajahn Pasanno arrived six months later to join him as co-abbot. The two would lead Abhayagiri together for over a decade, an unusual arrangement that reflected the Thai Forest Tradition's emphasis on collaboration over hierarchy. Und...

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Image: Brcar | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/r/abhayagiri-buddhist-monastery-wp/9qbr-the-fearless-mountain-two-abbots-and-a-mountain.mp3 0:06 3 full The Fearless Mountain: A Day Measured in Bells https://qualla.com/abhayagiri-buddhist-monastery/ Photo credit Brcar, CC BY-SA 4.0. Life at Abhayagiri follows a rhythm that would be recognizable to a monk from the fifth century. Residents rise well before dawn. Morning puja begins at 5:00 a.m. with chanting in Pali and English, followed by an hour of silent meditation. A half-hour of chores precedes a simple ...

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Image: Brcar | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/r/abhayagiri-buddhist-monastery-wp/9qbr-the-fearless-mountain-a-day-measured-in-bells.mp3 0:06 4 full The Fearless Mountain: Fire and Resilience https://qualla.com/abhayagiri-buddhist-monastery/ Photo credit Brcar, CC BY-SA 4.0. In October 2017, the Northern California wildfires tore through Mendocino County with devastating speed. Abhayagiri lay directly in the fire's path. The monastery survived undamaged -- a fact that residents attributed less to luck than to the years of careful forest management th...

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Image: Brcar | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/r/abhayagiri-buddhist-monastery-wp/9qbr-the-fearless-mountain-fire-and-resilience.mp3 0:06 5 full The Fearless Mountain: The View from Above https://qualla.com/abhayagiri-buddhist-monastery/ Photo credit Brcar, CC BY-SA 4.0. From the air, Abhayagiri is a dark patch of forest on a hillside that looks like every other hillside in the Coast Ranges -- which is rather the point. The Thai Forest Tradition holds that the wilderness is the proper setting for contemplative life, and the monastery's 280 acres ...

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Image: Brcar | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/q/b/r/abhayagiri-buddhist-monastery-wp/9qbr-the-fearless-mountain-the-view-from-above.mp3 0:06 6 full