Page "Thai Forest Tradition" Paragraph 15

Chithurst Buddhist Monastery was the first English monastery.

In 1976, Ajahn Sumedho met George Sharp, Chairman of the English Sangha Trust.

The Trust had been established in 1956 for the purpose of establishing a suitable residence for the training of Buddhist monks in England.

By the 1970s, the Trust possessed a property in Hampstead that was not yet deemed suitable for what was desired.

During a brief stay in London in 1978, Ajahn Sumedho, while undertaking the traditional alms round of Theravada monks ( on Hampstead Heath ), encountered a lone jogger who was struck by the Bhikkhu's outlandish attire.

The jogger had, by chance, just acquired a piece of overgrown woodland in West Sussex.

After expressing an interest in Buddhism, the gentleman attended a ten day retreat at the Oaken Holt Buddhist Center near Oxford after which he offered the forest as a gift to the Sangha.

In 1979 George Sharp purchased Chithurst House ( a property adjacent to the wood ) on behalf of The English Sangha Trust.

Chithurst House gained legal recognition as a monastery in 1981.

The monastery was named Cittaviveka, a Pali word meaning " the mind of non-attachment ".