Greetings from the
Aloka Vihara Community

December 26, 2011

Dear Friends,

Warm greetings from Aloka Vihara.

It is now two years since we arrived in this house in the Sunset District in San Francisco and began to transform it into a living monastery. These have been two very rich years of transition; culminating in our bhikkhuni ordination last October. We thank you all for supporting and being part of this journey and enabling us to finally align the outer manifestation with our inner intention. There is a sense of expansion and greater potential since joining the international Bhikkhuni Sangha and we are grateful to connect with Buddhist women around the globe.

On a day to day basis there are no great changes. We are no longer able to pick flowers or dig the earth and there are more restrictions around the length of time we can keep medicinal allowances (such as juice, soya milk and cheese) but these are quite easily managed. The standard we kept as siladhara was very close to bhikkhuni vinaya standards, so it has been a relatively easy transition.

We will end 2011 with our annual New Year Retreat at the Angela Center in Santa Rosa. This year we are experimenting with an option of one or two weeks to accommodate people's requests for a longer retreat, while also respecting that for many, it is not possible to take a longer time off work. Over the past almost 20 years, we have had the good fortune to greet the New Year consciously, by letting go of unnecessary burdens and opening to our fuller potential. It is a great joy to be able to share this with all who will take part in our New Year Retreat and we look forward to seeing many friends and supporters, as well as new faces.

On January 9th, just after we return from the New Year Retreat, we will begin our 2 month Winter Retreat here at Aloka Vihara. Winter is the perfect time to enter more deeply into the silence. We welcome this opportunity to dedicate our time to meditation and study; continuing to investigate and deepen the Dhamma in our lives. Shirley Waldock will be the Aloka Vihara steward during our Winter Retreat. Having known her for many years, both as an anagarika and retreat center manager at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in England, we feel we will be in excellent hands during this precious time. Shirley has taken over from Sarah Bean, who was a kind and steady support to us over the past 2 months. We look forward to seeing Sarah again later in 2012.

In April we will teach the 10-day Monastic Retreat at IMS on the East coast. Ayya Santacitta will visit Vajra Dakini Nunnery in Vermont prior to the retreat, returning to the vihara mid-April. Ayya Anandabodhi will travel with Mindy Zlotnick and teach a daylong at New York Insight and also visit Ven Bhikkhu Bodhi at Chuang Yen Monastery after the retreat. She will return to the vihara at the end of April.

On December 19th we went with the Saranaloka board and our stewards to look at a property in the Santa Cruz Mountains, which we first saw in early 2009. We really like this property and feel it would make a suitable location for our future monastery. You will hear more on this from our board. From March onwards two new board members will join the Saranaloka Foundation; Dongshil Kim and Dennis Crean. This is very timely, as we move into what feels like a new era in the development of this project.

We wish you all blessings for the New Year!

With much metta and warm wishes -
Ayya Santacitta & Ayya Anandabodhi