A locally based Vernon mediation group recently completed a weekend retreat at Birken Forest Monastery.
Birken Forest Buddhist Monastery (‘Birken’) is a Canadian Theravada Buddhist monastery following the Thai forest tradition of Ajahn Chah. In 1994, Canadian-born Abbot Ajahn Sona returned from monastic training in Thailand and established a primitive shack monastery in the coast mountains of British Columbia, naming it “Birken” due to its proximity to the Birkenhead Lake Provincial Park. As the community of monastics and lay supporters grew, Birken was reborn in its second, larger location near Princeton, B.C. In 2001, Birken relocated to its current and final resting place in a secluded forest location just south of Kamloops, B.C. The monastery is also known by its Pali name ‘Sītavana’, translated as ‘cool forest grove’.
Sister Mon, a Thai Buddhist nun at the Birken Monastery near Kamloops, BC, was ordained 20 years ago by Ajahn Sona. She was born in Thailand and joined the monastic life with the goal of taking care of her parents and contributing to the community. The Birken Monastery offers silent retreats and is a place of solitude and spiritual practice.
At the heart of Mon and the quiet Birken Monastery practise is the contemplation of the great perfection, the absolute simplicity of our situation. Although there are many improvements that could be made in our lives there is also, nothing to improve. This is the paradox. The idea is that you are ‘always good’ or ‘always already good’. That is to say, the basis of our experience is a presence, an awareness, which is already shining and clear. Within that clarity many different forms of experience arise, some of which are not so clear. The clarity of the mind reveals the dullness of some of the contents of the mind.
The ultimate teaching is to simply be in your own situation. Sometimes it is explained as seeing yourself or seeing your own nature. It impossible to see your own face; you can see a reflection of your face in a mirror and other people always see your face but you yourself cannot see your own face. Therefore, when the teacher says, seeing your own face or in the Zen tradition they talk about seeing your original face, it means finding the way to see the thing that can’t be seen.
Another key point is not to remain in doubt. This means not to inhabit a state of confusion that lingers. In particular, that means having got some experience of the open nature of the mind and how the energy moves, we often feel a need to correct our experience, to prepare ourselves more or to try to find a way of developing ourselves in a better way. That is not necessarily useful. However, it is habitual, because, as we have touched on before, there is a double move here.
All this is easy to say but difficult to achieve: It is simply to continue in this way. Day and night, waking and sleeping, whatever is arising is the energy of the ultimate reality; it is just the unborn energy that manifests in its myriad ways, whatever your activity is. Not taking it too seriously is at the heart of it.
The Birken experience provides a unique place to contemplate the meaning of life.
The Emily Dahl Foundation
June 2025
