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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, JUNE 11, 2018
Meet the monks of the Columbia River Gorge
Forest-dwelling
monks preserve
obscure tradition
By BRADLEY W. PARKS
Oregon Public Broadcasting
A small house and a few
huts sit at the end of a potholed
gravel road in the Colum-
bia River Gorge. Trails wind
through the forest past trees
and rocks covered in electric
green moss.
Mountain bikers occa-
sionally zoom up and down
the forested trails. A ranching
family lives next door.
Serene and secluded, this
place is unfathomably quiet.
It’s perfect for the for-
est-dwelling Buddhist monks
who call it home. Their her-
mitage is far enough removed
for the monks to practice in
solitude.
But it remains close to
town. It has to. The monks are
alms mendicants. That is, they
eat only what they’re freely
given.
The monks cannot ask for
food or store excess. They
cannot possess or use money.
They cannot farm.
This tradition puts the
monks of the Gorge among
an extremely limited few in
North America.
“We live dependent on
the support of people offer-
ing, out of a sense of good-
will or inspiration, the neces-
sities of daily life,” said Ajahn
Sudanto, abbot of the Pacific
Hermitage in White Salmon,
Washington.
It’s a lot to ask of any com-
munity — especially in a
country where monasticism
(i.e. monks and nuns) isn’t
very visible.
Jill Davis regularly con-
tributes food to the monks
on alms round. She said
they bring a “sense of good-
ness” to White Salmon. The
monks offer the community
free weekly meditation at the
yoga center in town and Bud-
dhist teachings to anyone who
seeks them.
For about eight years, this
small hermitage has found the
support it needs to survive in
the Gorge. And that’s largely
because its supporters see
benefits in return.
“It’s remarkable that White
Salmon has this group of peo-
ple and something that’s really
established,” Davis said. “It
feels really comforting to me.”
On a warm Tuesday in
May, sun knocked aggres-
sively at the forest canopy,
beckoning Sudanto and the
monks of the Columbia River
Gorge. It was before 7 a.m.
Mother Nature had just turned
the volume on.
Clad in orange robes,
three monks padded across
the wooden deck down to
a well-swept forest trail in
silence, single file. They car-
ried big steel bowls wrapped
in crochet.
The monks walked into
town to collect food from lay
supporters, as they do every
morning. This alms round is
how they obtain their one daily
meal, which must be consumed
between dawn and noon.
“It’s not just a game or an
empty ritual,” Sudanto said.
“In some sense, we’re walk-
ing our talk.”
The rules are part of the
Thai forest tradition, which
the monks follow. It’s an
expression of Theravada Bud-
dhism with a heavy focus on
disciplined meditation as a
path to enlightenment.
The Thai forest tradition
champions spiritual wander-
ing and renunciation of mate-
rial possessions and worldly
Bradley W. Parks/Oregon Public Broadcasting
From left, Tan Sampanno, Ajahn Kassapo and Ajahn Sudan-
to make their morning alms round through White Salmon.
pursuits.
Their belief is that “all
avoidable human suffering is
caused by mental defilements,
and that these defilements can
be completely avoided by a
systematic education of body,
speech and mind,” according
to texts distributed by monks
of this tradition.
Rules are designed to help
monks eliminate stresses,
desires or “defilements.”
So they get help from out-
siders. Colleen Regalbuto
helps coordinate food offer-
ings for the monks in White
Salmon. On alms round each
morning, the monks’ stops are
predetermined, so they have
some sense of security.
If people don’t give, the
monks don’t eat.
Regalbuto said she thinks
the monastery’s survival
speaks to the generosity of
White Salmon.
“I think it’s just inspiring
for people to see these people
who focus their lives on cul-
tivating compassion and kind-
ness … who exist to lead a
life of contemplation and ser-
vice,” she said.
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