Ajahn Jotipālo was born in 1965 in Indiana. He received a B.A. from Wabash College and worked for six years in technical sales. He became interested in Theravada Buddhism after sitting several Goenka retreats. While on staff at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, he met Ajahn Amaro and Ajahn Punnadhammo. After leaving IMS, he spent three months with Ajahn Punnadhammo at the Arrow River Forest Hermitage in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. Ajahn Jotipālo came to live at Abhayagiri in 1998 and subsequently spent two years training as an Anāgārika and Sāmaṇera. He ordained as a Bhikkhu with Ajahn Pasanno as preceptor on Ajahn Chah's birthday, June 17, 2000. Since that time, Ajahn Jotipālo has also stayed at Ajahn Chah-branch monasteries in Thailand, Canada, and New Zealand. He has returned to Abhayagiri for the vassa of 2012.
with Ajahn Naniko. All sensory events contain a feeling tone (vedana). They are either pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral (neither pleasant nor unpleasant). The neutral is so common, so ordinary and so incapable of grabbing our attention that we rarely attend to it. Instead, we tune out to the quiet, unpretentious, boring sensory events. Yet without noticing the neutral, we bypass an extraordinary opportunity to deeply penetrate our experience and to be a knower of the world.
with Ajahn Naniko. All sensory events contain a feeling tone (vedana). They are either pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral (neither pleasant nor unpleasant). The neutral is so common, so ordinary and so incapable of grabbing our attention that we rarely attend to it. Instead, we tune out to the quiet, unpretentious, boring sensory events. Yet without noticing the neutral, we bypass an extraordinary opportunity to deeply penetrate our experience and to be a knower of the world.
