Bhante Pañña is the first melanated American of Aboriginal descent to have ordained in the Thai Forest tradition. He is a Seattle native who has been a world traveler since the age of nineteen, living extensively throughout northern Africa and the Arabian gulf, beginning in 1998. He has been a student of religious knowledge and a practitioner of many paths within the field of Islam and esoteric knowledge. Through these rich experiences, Bhante deepened his spiritual understanding. He eventually ordained as a Buddhist monk in Angkor Wat, Cambodia.

He took up higher ordination as a full-time monk (Bhikkhu) in Siam Reap’s mountain jungle temples. He is currently living in northern Thailand, furthering his development of meditation and cultivation of the mind, and factors that trigger the actions we engage, in the way of the Forest Monk practice.

Taking dependency within the Dhammayut order, Bhante’s vision is to create healing in the heart and mind using the art of Vipassana meditation as taught by the Buddha. Bhante aims to establish a community of practitioners and those that have taken ordinance to create the first forest monastery for people of color who are healing from the disparity of discrimination and social injustice based on exclusion from being able to heal in a way that we see fit to heal, without intervention from traumas, past or present.

Use of the triple gem, love, kindness, mercy, compassion, and the establishment of traditional formal meditation will be the driving force to which Bhante Pañña would like to apply our healing transformation.

Bhante can be found on Instragram at https://instagram.com/bronthepath, on TikTok at https://www.tiktok.com/@bhantepanna, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/brotheronthpath.

Bhante Pañña Dana:

Dana for Bhante Pañña can be made via this link: https://wise.com/share/nathanb1344