Understanding Life Now

When trips to Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand to share and study the Dhamma were cancelled due to Covid 19, Sarah and her husband Jonothan Abbott started to run Zoom discussions at the request of many friends. They were delighted that Ajahn Sujin from the Dhamma Study and Support Foundation, Thailand was able to join these zoom discussions and to take the lead. They have been extremely beneficial to many people around the world.

The following jottings Sarah made and quotes Nina has given are based on these Zoom talks.

They are all about the truth of life at the present moment as taught by the Buddha. They are for anyone with an interest in learning more about what is most precious in life: the understanding of what is real now as opposed to what we assume to be real.

The beginning of the Path is the understanding of life now, little by little. The Teachings of the Buddha are unique in revealing that each conditioned reality in life is not only impermanent and unsatisfactory but also anattā, not-self.

Sarah Procter Abbott has been studying and sharing the Buddha's teachings as preserved in the Theravadin (or Pali language) tradition for over 45 years, under the continuous guidance of the Thai Buddhist teacher Ajahn Sujin Boriharnwanaket. During this time she helped share the Dhamma in England, Hong Kong, Australia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand, Sri Lanka and other countries. For the past 20 years she and her husband Jonothan have hosted an internet Buddhist discussion group, Dhamma Study Group. It currently has 1000 members and an archive of 170,000 messages. Sarah and Jonothan lived in Hong Kong for 40 years, until moving to Sydney recently. Sarah worked as a psychologist and teacher.

Nina van Gorkom was born in 1928 to a family of socialist intellectuals. Her father was a member of the Dutch parliament. She studied at Leyden University and during this time she became a Catholic. In 1952, she married Lodewijk van Gorkom, a Dutch diplomat.In 1965, Lodewijk was posted to Thailand and Nina started learning the Thai language. She took a keen interest in Buddhism, attending classes for foreigners at Wat Mahathat. There she met, in the summer of 1966, Sujin Boriharnwanaket. Impressed by the profundity of the Buddhist teachings, she became convinced of the truth of the Buddha's words and later assisted Khun Sujin in discussions about Buddhism for Thai radio stations. These talks were later published as Buddhism in Daily Life, her first book.Nina and Lodewijk left Thailand in 1970 and lived in Japan, New York, Indonesia (where Lodewijk was the Dutch ambassador) and Austria. Lodewijk retired in 1990 and she now lives in The Hague in Holland.Nina's writings are well-known amongst English speaking Buddhists, and she is highly respected in Thailand where several of her books have been translated into the Thai language with (after many reprints) over one hundred thousand copies now. Her books have also been translated in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Nepal, China, Vietnam and Germany.