ABSTRACT
The forest monks had a forest but nowhere to live. So the following year the English Sangha Trust sold the Hampstead property and purchased a dilapidated Victorian house about a mile from the woodland in the village of Chithurst. Throughout its history Buddhism has regarded the establishment of a monastic sangha – of at least five bhikkhus – as the indispensable condition for a country to qualify as a place where the Dharma has taken root. At the root of Chithurst Monastery lies the encounter between Ajahn Chah and the straggling procession of disaffected Westerners who drifted into Thailand during the 1960s and 70s. The Thai community in Britain may have seen it as a mission of sorts and were proud to witness an aspect of their culture received with enthusiasm in the West. But while they provided a great deal of funding, money alone cannot account for the coherence, vitality and growth of a religious community.
