Ajahn Khemadhammo

Who is Ajahn Khemadhammo?

Venerable Ajahn Khemadhammo, OBE is a Theravada Buddhist monk.

He was born in England in 1944. In 1971, after training at the Central School of Speech and Drama and Drama Centre, London and practising as a professional actor, working for several years at the Royal National Theatre in London with Laurence Olivier, he travelled to Thailand via the Buddhist holy places in India. In December 1971 in Bangkok he became a novice monk and about a month later moved to Ubon to stay with Ajahn Chah at Wat Nong Pah Pong. On the day before Vesakha Puja of that year, 1972, he received upasampada as a bhikkhu, a fully ordained Buddhist monk.

In 1977, Venerable Khemadhammo returned to the U.K. and, after staying in London and Birmingham, set up a small monastery on the Isle of Wight. In 1984, at the invitation of a group of Buddhist meditators that he had been visiting monthly for some years, he moved to Banner Hill near Kenilworth and formed the Buddha-Dhamma Fellowship. In 1985, he moved to his current residence, the Forest Hermitage, a property in Warwickshire; in 1987, with considerable help from devotees in Thailand, this land was purchased by the Buddha-Dhamma Fellowship. A stupa was built there in 1988, known as the 'English Shwe Dagon'.