He finished his BA degree in Jazz Piano Performance at the Berklee School of Music in Boston in 1996. He first came to Abhayagiri Monastery in 1998 where he was introduced to the Ajahn Chah tradition. He arrived in Thailand at Wat Pah Nanachat late in 1998 and received bhikkhu ordination in 2000 at Wat Nong Pah Pong, Ajahn Chah's main monastery. Since then he has lived with many of the senior disc
iples of Ajahn Chah such as Ajahn Jayasaro, Ajahn Jundee, Ajahn Dtun, and Ajahn Anan at Wat Marp Jan. After 10 years of living in Thailand, he returned to California and lived at Abhayagiri from May 2009-June 2011. Ajahn Guna is a student of Ajahn Pasanno and Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi's charity Buddhist Global Relief, as the BGR representative for northern California, organizing BGR events such as Walk to Feed the Hungry. He currently resides at Berkeley Buddhist Monastery and teaches regularly at Karuna Buddhist Vihara (Compassion Monastery). Sister Santussika, in residence at Karuna Buddhist Vihara (Compassion Monastery), ordained as a samaneri (ten-precept nun) in 2010 and as a bhikkhuni (311 precepts) October 2012 at Dharma Vijaya Buddhist Vihara in Los Angeles after having spent five years as an anagarika (eight-precept nun). She has trained in large and small communities of nuns, including Amaravati and Chithurst monasteries of the Ajahn Chah tradition in England. She began traveling in Asia in 1999, staying in different monasteries and learning from master teachers, particularly in Thailand. It was these experiences, along with her many visits to monasteries in the West, especially Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery in Redwood Valley, California that caused her faith to develop to the point of choosing to live and practice as a nun. She has deep respect for and has learned greatly from the teachings of Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi, Ajahn Pasanno, and her son Ajahn Guna. She is currently serving on the Board of Directors for Buddhist Global Relief. Sister Santussika was born in Illinos in 1954 and grew up on a farm in Indiana. While being a single mother, she received BS and MS degrees in computer science and moved with her two children to the San Francisco Bay Area. She worked as a software designer and developer for fifteen years. Her search for deeper meaning and ways to be of service led her to train as an interfaith minister in a four-year seminary program that culminated in an Masters of Divinity degree and a brief period of practice as a minister before ordaining as a Buddhist nun.
