The Pluralism Project at Harvard University

This article is one of several reports on Sravasti Abbey. The other reports include Daily Life at Sravasti Abbey, Generosity in Action: Dana at Sravasti Abbey, and Venerable Chodron.

As explained in the article on generosity, Sravasti Abbey does not charge for any of the services it provides. Instead, it relies completely upon the support of a network of volunteers and donors. This article will explain the network of supports who help to sustain Sravasti Abbey, and will focus upon three main groups of people: Friends of Sravasti Abbey (FOSA), a group of lay students of Ven. Chodron who have organized to help support her vision; the international network of people who offer financial support; and finally, the local community that provides food and in-kind services to the abbey.

Friends of Sravasti Abbey (FOSA)

FOSA was founded in 2002 as a way to provide additional structure to help support Sravasti Abbey. The group itself is largely sustained by the efforts of its board members, who are each responsible for supporting Sravasti Abbey in a different way. For example, one person is in charge of the Four Requisites—food, clothing, medicine, and shelter—the traditional list of the four items that all Buddhist monastics needed. This job covers a range of responsibilities, as the person in charge of the four requisites does everything from securing clothes for residents and guests to tending the vegetable garden and maintaining the physical plant of the Abbey.

Other FOSA board positions help to connect the Abbey to a larger audience. One person is responsible for disseminating the Dharma, and creates free CDs with talks by Ven. Chodron that are then distributed to supporters of the Abbey or to local visitors. Although the webmaster does not have a board position, Sravasti Abbey also maintains an extensive website, which contains additional information about Buddhist teachings, monasticism, and events at Sravasti Abbey.

Another FOSA board member is responsible for what they Abbey calls “Inviting Generosity.” Although this board position originally had the more traditional title of fundraiser, the board changed the name of the position in order to reflect the Abbey’s emphasis upon generosity. The responsibility of this person is therefore to create the opportunities for people to be generous. The Abbey emphasizes an attitude of generosity as much as possible, modeling it in its interactions with guests and visitors, and inviting it from people who find a vision of a monastic community compelling.

International Supporters

Ven. Chodron also has a large group of supporters and donors around the world. She taught in Seattle for much of the 1990s, but lived and taught in Asia for much of the decade prior. In particular, she has close connections with students in Singapore, where she spent close to two years. Several donors of the Abbey have been from Singapore and other places in Asia, a remarkable fact when one considers that many of these donors may never make it to America to visit the Abbey.

Other donors come from America, Mexico, and other countries where Ven. Chodron has taught, including Malaysia, India, and Israel. One especially moving group of supporters is the number of prisoners who have chosen to become monthly benefactors to Sravasti Abbey. Ven. Chodron carries on correspondence with a number of prisoners around the country and makes visits to see them whenever she can. A number of the inmates that she corresponds with have decided to support the Abbey on this regular basis, helping to provide a crucial source of support for the ongoing needs of the Abbey, including bills, regular maintenance, and costs associated with disseminating the dharma.

Local Supporters

A final group of people who help sustain the Abbey is the group of local volunteers, both those who physically reside at the Abbey and those who live in the greater Spokane area. Two of the FOSA board members mentioned above, the Chair of the Four Requisites and the Chair of Disseminating the Dharma, reside at the abbey. As of October 2005, there are three full-time residents of Sravasti Abbey in addition to Ven. Chodron. In addition to their larger FOSA responsibilities, each of these people helps with other important daily tasks, such as cooking, cleaning, making offerings in the meditation hall.

Yet the residents of Sravasti Abbey will not purchase food for themselves (all cash donations go to a separate fund that is used for construction, general maintenance, and other related expenses). All food that is eaten at the Abbey is brought by volunteers and supporters. Visitors who come to the Abbey are encouraged to bring food, and many who stop by even for the day will bring fruits or vegetables. Early in the Abbey’s history visitors would often bring sweets and cakes, which occasionally resulted in a preponderance of desserts, although it seems that more recently people have begun to bring more essential food items.

In order to allow people who do not live within physical proximity of the abbey to make food donations, a food fund has been created. This fund is currently administered by a woman in Idaho, who receives checks and then uses this money to purchase food for the abbey. Each week a volunteer brings staple items of the abbey diet, such as tofu, cheese, breads, and juice. However, the rest of the items that the residents of the abbey come from offerings that people have brought, either in the form of more perishable items such as fruits and vegetables, or pastas, nuts, and other food with a longer shelf life that has been offered.

An especially remarkable event concerning food offerings occurred in August of 2005. After reading an article about Sravasti Abbey in the local paper (http://www.sravastiabbey.org/samplingmonastilife.pdf), a woman brought by an entire car-load of food to help support the residents of the Abbey. She movingly explained how she wanted to support the vision of the Abbey as described in the article, and all the residents and other visitors (the donation occurred during an “Exploring Monastic Life’ program) were humbled and inspired by her generosity (http://www.sravastiabbey.org/eml05p3.html).

This network of supporters illustrates well the fundamental Buddhist principle of dependent arising. The Abbey is sustained in dependence upon the efforts of a tremendous range of people, all of whom contribute to the flourishing of the physical environs of the abbey and the sustaining of the lives of the people who live there.