Dhammagiri Hermitage, Kholo (Brisbane), Queensland, Australia

My time here at Dhammagiri Hermitage has been very enjoyable but is quickly coming to an end. The external conditions are exceptionally comfortable and supportive. The weather in Brisbane is one of the most pleasant in Australia. During my five-week stay it was almost monotonous, with still, sunny 20C mornings and partly-cloudy, breezy 30C afternoons. A few times the temperature reached mid-30's or dropped to a chilly 18C after some sporadic showers.

The monk's lodgings up on the hill are exceptionally quiet and undisturbed from after the meal until the following morning, allowing for a long uninterrupted period of personal practice. The quiet and solitude allows for some very deep and peaceful meditation. The back part of the property adjoins Brisbane City Conservation Reserve and the water catchment reserve for Lake Manchester, part of the drinking water supply for South East Queensland. Almost every morning I walked out the back gate and onto a series of tracks and trails through the reserves, with views over the lake and surrounding bush-clad mountains.

Lake Manchester through the eucalyptus trees.

Conditions were suitable for me to keep up my usual balance of physical, mental and spiritual practice. In contrast to Poo Jom Gom in Thailand, where I focused more on physical and spiritual practice, here I devoted more time to mental practice. Besides my special emphasis on book-writing, I also did quite a bit of talking during the after-meal discussions. Fortunately, many of the monastery supporters are keenly interested in meditation, so we had some very rewarding discussions. Unfortunately, the book-writing took up a lot more time than I had expected. I don't think that the slowness of the work was directly caused by the fact that I was working mostly on the chapter on Lethargy and Drowsiness! It is just that this chapter is the longest one in the book, but hopefully not the most boring.

Towards the end of my stay we took an excursion through the surrounding countryside. We first journeyed westwards through increasingly drier areas to the main water supply reservoir for Brisbane, Lake Wiwenhoe. This area was very dry, although the lake was almost full. In the nearby farms surprisingly fat cattle were grazing on only scattered patches of wilted grass in parched, dusty fields. The famous Australian 'outback' begins a further 1,000 km west. On the route we passed a sign noting Darwin, in the next state, is 3423 km away! Queensland is a BIG place, about five times the size of the UK, but with only 4.2 million people, most of them living along the coast.

We then turned eastwards on the Tourist Route through D'Aguilar National Park, climbing up to 680 meters through wet eucalypt forest into the Queensland subtropical  rainforest. Even though we were only some 20 km away, the dense, humid forest was in marked contrast to the sparse open dry eucalypt forest around Dhammagiri. Massive trees over one metre in diameter towered to 50 metres in height. Strangler fig vines draped over branches and exotic palm trees unfurled their fronds in any slight opening in the canopy. This happened to be the rainiest day of my stay, so it was a true 'rainforest experience' with some heavy rain showers, swirling mists and cool winds.

Due to the incessant showers we managed only one short walk through the forest, and as we were admiring the diversity and density of the rainforest, noticed that we were providing lunch for the thirsty leeches! Further along the Tourist Drive at lower elevations, the clouds thinned out and we made a number of stops at well-provided lookout picnic grounds. On one side of the ridge we could look west over tree-covered hills towards the Great Dividing Range, and the other side gave vistas of the coast all the way to Moreton Bay and Moreton Island. One lookout, Camp Mountain, on the site of former gold-mining camps, offered a spectacular view through a tunnel between tall trees direct to the skyscrapers of the Brisbane Central Business District, flanked by two tree-covered hills. It almost seemed to be an optical illusion, as we stood surrounded 300° by tall trees, with a 60° degree tunnel opening to miniature concrete towers in the distance!

I will soon be spending a day with John and Hanna in northern NSW, just south of the Queensland border. John spent time as a monk in Thailand and England, and Switzerland when I was there. He is now a psychologist with a practice in North Sydney and has been a pioneer in mindfulness-based therapy in Australia. John and Hanna have an idyllic property on top of a ridge between Cabarita Beach and Murwillumbah. Looking out the east side of the house one can see the sun rise over the Pacific Ocean, and on the western side, beside the mango trees, watch the sun set over the sugar cane fields of the Tweed valley and the very prominent Mount Warning, or 'Cloud Catcher' to the Aborigines. And just a few hundred metres down the road lives another ex-monk whom I knew in Thailand. Steven, formerly Tan Pamutto, was a monk in the early years of Wat Nanachat. As a former brick-layer, he was responsible for a number of building projects, including the hospital hut where LP Chah spent the last ten years of his life lovingly cared for by his disciples. Tan Pamutto and I spent one Rains Retreat together at Wat Pah Pong, where LP Chah got the Western monks to help finish work on the stone railing around the Bell Tower and the Uposatha Hall.

Sunset over Mt. Warning, NSW. Photo by John Barter.

On Tuesday I will travel with John to his practice at Well-Awareness in North Sydney, where he has invited me to give several talks to meditation groups before I return to Bangkok on Friday. After that I begin a trip to Europe, visiting a number of the monasteries there. My first stop will be Santacittarama Monastery in Italy, and then in mid-April I will visit Dhammapala Monastery in Switzerland. There I have several teaching engagements, including a weekend retreat in Thai for the dedicated Thai supporters.

Wishing you all well-being, peace and continuity in the practice to awakening.