Santi

With deep gratitude to all who supported me during my life as a monk, and with reverence for the vehicle of monastic Buddhism, I recently disrobed and returned to lay life. For now, my onward path of dharma lies in the secular world. I’ll have more to say about this, and more to share from my changing perspective, in the coming weeks and months. I’ll also be further updating this site — please stay tuned! (For now, please understand references to “Bhikkhu Santi” as “former bhikkhu Santi.”) And check out my old homepage for a before-and-after comparison.

I was a monk (bhikkhu) in the Thai forest tradition, a meditation-centered branch of Theravada Buddhism. Prior to ordination, I lived a varied adult life of writing, teaching, and plenty of miscellaneous jobs; travel and settling down; relationships, marriage, and singleness; fatherhood. I lived for eight years as a monastic, and six as a fully-ordained monk in monasteries, as a wanderer, and in traditional and Western lay-Buddhist communities. All of these experiences will continue to bear on my developing understanding as I continue to teach and write.

I teach meditation, offer talks, and write on the intersections of Buddhism, modernity, and personal life; on renunciation and monasticism; on the conscious use of technology; and on other spiritual and practice-related themes.

Santi means “peace.” It was given to me as a monastic name — an encouragement to myself and others to value and foster peace. I’ll be keeping it as a middle name as I move forward.