New Year reflection offered by Venerable Ajahn Sucitto, former abbot of Wat Cittaviveka in England, a monastery in the Thai forest tradition of Ajahn Chah
https://www.cittaviveka.org

‘Come Back, Sīladhamma. Please Come Back!’
New Year 2016 message by Ven. Ajahn Sucitto
Recorded on 10th January, 2016

To realize the real cause of nowadays turbulent situations and help preserve World Peace, the words by Buddhadāsa translated as “Come back, sīladhamma, please come back!” are the theme of practice at the Buddhadāsa Indapanno Archives (BiA) for the whole year of 2016. When Ajahn came to teach at the center, Ajahn kindly agreed to BiA’s request and generously offered some reflections about the theme.

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About Ajahn Sucitto:

Ajahn Sucitto was born in London in 1949. Before entering monastic life, he graduated from England’s University of Warwick with a degree in English and American Literature in 1971. He spent a few years following the lifestyle of the alternative culture of the time, before heading overland to India in 1974 on a spiritual quest. This eventually landed him in Thailand in 1975, where he was inspired by a meditation class in English in Wat Meung Maung given by an English monk, Phra Alan Nyānavajīro. Sensing an important turn in his spiritual journey, Sucitto entered the monastery where Phra Nyānavajīro lived: Wat Kiriwong in Nakhon Sawan. On 25 September he took samanera precepts and on 22 March 1976 he was ordained as a bhikku, both in Wat Potharam in Nakhon Sawan.

A chance sojourn at Wat Umong in Chiang Mai in December 1976 brought Ajahn Sucitto into contact with (now) Luang Por Sumedho, who was passing through Chiang Mai at the time. This was an auspicious encounter, as it prepared the ground for Ajahn to visit Luang Por in Hampstead when he visited England in 1978. Luang Por had taken up residence in the Hampstead Buddhist Vihara in 1977, and readily accepted Ajahn Sucitto as a disciple. Ajahn trained under Luang Por for much of the ensuing fourteen years.

In 1979, Ajahn Sucitto was part of the group that established Cittaviveka Forest Monastery in Chithurst, West Sussex (http://www.cittaviveka.org/). He lived there for the greater part of his monastic life and was its abbot from 1992 to 2014. He began teaching retreats for laypeople after the Rains Retreat of 1981 and has continued to teach retreats in Britain and overseas ever since.