Dharmagiriis a Section 21 Company which operates under South African law. It is a registered Non Profit Organisation and has Public Benefit Organisation status. It has four directors, two managers and 25 members from South Africa, the UK and the US who support and oversee its guidance.


The Founders of Dharmagiri are Kittisaro and Thanissara

Kittisaro from Tennessee USA, was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford before going to Thailand to ordain with Ajahn Chah in 1976. He was a monk for 15 years and during that time helped found Chithurst Monastery and Devon Vihara in the UK. He also taught extensively during this time and was involved in the training of monks. He disrobed in 1991 and since then has taught internationally in the States, Europe, South Africa, and Israel. He has studied and practised Chan and Pure Land for 20 years informed by the Chinese school of Master Hua. Kittisaro has completed two one year long silent self retreats and is currently writing in between continuing his teaching engagements.



Thanissara, from an Anglo-Irish background, started Buddhist practice in the Burmese school in 1975. She was inspired to ordain after meeting Ajahn Chah and spent 12 years as a Buddhist nun. She has facilitated meditation retreats internationally the last 25 years. Thanissara has an MA in Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy Practice from Middlesex University & the Karuna Institute in the UK. She has written a book of poetry, ‘Garden of the Midnight Rosary'.Currently Thanissara is co-facilitator of the Community Dharma Leader Program at Spirit Rock Meditation Centre CA, USA.


Kittisaro and Thanissara spent 7 years as guiding teachers of the Buddhist Retreat Centre, (BRC) KwaZulu Natal, S.Africa and co-founded the Woza Moya HIV/Aids Outreach which operates from the Chibini community next door to the BRC. They went on to co-found The Khuphuka Project, an HIV/Aids Outreach in on the border of Lesotho and KwaZulu. They teach internationally in Europe, the US and Israel and regularly host one to three month retreats at Dharmagiri Hermitage.


Dharmagiri Directors are Kittisaro, Thanissara, JP Meyer and Marlene Mattheson


JP Meyer - is an artist and co-director of Dharmagiri. Shortly after his first meditation retreat in 1994 he swapped the corporate life for that of a full-time art student, graduating with distinction in 1999, since then he has been widely exhibited. JP has travelled and spent many months in the ashrams, meditation centres and monasteries of India, Sri Lanka and the U.S. He currently has a studio in Prince Albert and facilitates Art & Meditation retreats within South Africa.




Marlene Matheson – helps with accounting at Dharmagiri. She has a long experience in book keeping, office management and has worked within the hospitality industry as well as in the NGO sector. Marlene has been manager at the Buddhist Retreat Centre for several years and has been a Buddhist practitioner since the mid 1990’s and spent two years as a novice Theravada nun in the Forest School of Ajahn Chah. She has studied counselling through South African College of Applied Psychology. She currently lives in Hazyview.


          


‎"Ah, not to be cut off,
not through the slightest partition
shut out from the law of the stars.
The inner -- what is it?
if not the intensified sky,
hurled through with birds and deep
with the winds of homecoming."

— Rainer Maria Rilke (Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry & Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke)