Bhante Sujato
Sujato, known as Ajahn Sujato or Bhikkhu Sujato, is an Australian Buddhist monk formerly ordained into the Thai forest lineage of Ajahn Chah and presently identifying with the Early Buddhist movement.
Life
He is a former musician with the post punk alternative rock Australian band Martha's Vineyard, who had toured with, amongst others, Mick Hucknall's Simply Red, INXS, Annie Lennox' Eurythmics, and early proto-punk garage band The Saints before disbanding in 1990. He spent several years at Bodhinyana Monastery in Western Australia before going on to found Santi Forest Monastery in 2003 where he served as the abbot. Following Sujato's wishes, Santi became a bhikkhunī vihara in 2012, and he returned to live in Bodhinyana Monastery.Monastic work
In 2005, Sujato co-founded the Buddhist website SuttaCentral along with Rod Bucknell and John Kelly, to provide access to Early Buddhist texts in their original language and make translations available in modern languages. After being unable to secure copyright-free digital translations of the Pali Canon for SuttaCentral, Sujato moved to the island of Chimei, off the coast of Taiwan, to undertake the task of creating English translations of the four Nikāyas, living there from 2015 to 2018. These translations have since been published on SuttaCentral, and as free edition books.In 2019, Sujato moved to Sydney to establish Lokanta Vihara with his long term student, Bhante Akaliko, to explore what it means to follow the Buddha's teachings in an era of climate change, globalised consumerism, and political turmoil. He is also involved with Engaged Buddhism. In a Buddhist Dharma talk entitled I am an anarchist for Dhammanet, Sujato states his anarchist ideology, specifically aligning himself with anarcho-pacifism, which he explains as being compatible with The Buddha, Buddhist, lay man, and renunciant life, as well as being in accord with the monastic vinaya. In the speech, Sujato explains his belief that The Buddha himself was also an anarchist.