Ajahn Viradhammo
Ajahn Viradhammo or Luang Por Viradhammo (born Vitauts Akers, April 27, 1947 Esslingen, Germany) is a Canadian monk in the Thai forest tradition of Theravada Buddhism. He was ordained as a monk in 1974 by Ajahn Chah at Wat Nong Pah Pong monastery and became one of the first residents at Wat Pah Nanachat, the international monastery in north-east Thailand. Luang Por Viradhammo is the most senior Thai Forest monk in Canada and currently the Abbot of Tisarana Buddhist Monastery in Perth, Ontario. Luang Por means Venerable Father (หลวงพ่อ), an honorific and term of affection in keeping with Thai custom; ajahn means teacher. Biography Ajahn Viradhammo was born Vitauts Akers in a displaced persons camp in Esslingen, Germany where his parents had become refugees after fleeing from the Soviet re-occupation of Latvia in 1944. He, his parents and two year older brother immigrated to Toronto, Canada in 1951. Ajahn Viradhammo's parents were both Lutheran and he himself was confirmed in the Lutheran Church. His early experiences of silence and pure awareness came at around the age of five but it was not until much later that he was able to explain them. He started in an Engineering program at the