The Ajahns of Kusula Hermitage

Ajahn Santutthi

Born to a family of Vietnamese refugees, Ajahn Santutthi was in training to become a chef before discovering Buddhism at the age of 21. At age 23 he’d decided to “give it all up” and walk the path of the Buddha. He was ordained at Bodhinyana monastery by Ajahn Brahm in 2005. After 7 years he left to assist Ajahn Khemavaro at Wat Buddha Dhamma in Wisemans Ferry, NSW. After returning to Perth he came to Wat Dhammayanaram in July 2018. From April 2020 he has led the hermitage building work from a nearby rental property in Gosnells. He now resides at Kusala as Abbot. He has been a monk for more than 20 years.

Ajahn Jhanarato

“J.R.” as he’s usually known was born in Sydney in 1977. He grew up in Greenwich before moving to Perth with his family in 1996. There he studied software engineering and upon finishing his degree he spent several years in Melbourne where he worked in software development. Though successful in his career, he found something was lacking. Getting interested in Buddhism he came across Ajahn Brahm’s “Basic Method of Meditation” and started listening to some of the recorded talks at Dhammaloka. Thus inspired he returned to Perth, paid off his debts and ordained as an anagarika in 2006. He took higher ordination in 2009. Though most of his monastic life has been spent at Bodhinyana Monastery training with Ajahn Brahm he has spent time at Wat Buddha Dhamma in NSW, Na Uyana in Sri Lanka and Newbury Buddhist Monastery in Victoria. J.R. shared the rental property with Ajahn Santutthi and laboured along side him to build Kusala. J.R. has been a monk for more than 15 years.

Bhante Bodhidhaja

Bhante Bodhidhaja was born in April 1982 as the third child of Czech immigrants to Switzerland. He was introduced to Buddhism at an early age by one of his neighbours and was drawn to it ever since. At the age of twenty-one Nicolas Vrticka (that was his lay name) visited India and took temporary ordination under the late Acharya Buddharakkhita in Bangalore (Maha Bodhi Society Bengaluru). Bhikkhu Buddharakkhita gave him the monastic name Bodhidhaja in 2003 and he decided to keep it in memory of him. After graduating from teacher training college, Nicolas worked as a primary school teacher in the countryside for one year. He also chose to engage in various kinds of social work for a bit more than a year, as an alternative to the compulsory military training in Switzerland. In late 2006 Nicolas started to spend most of his time living, practising and serving as a lay person in different Buddhist monastic communities around the globe. They included Metta Vihara Forest Monastery in Germany (established by Bhikkhuni Ayya Khema), Amaravati Monastery in England (when Ajahn Sumedho was still in residence) and Bodhinyana Buddhist Monastery in Australia. After this initial period of monastery hopping Nicolas arrived in Perth in May 2010 in order to ordain as an Anagarika and to take up monastic training. Ajahn Brahm subsequently gave him novice ordination in May 2011 and higher ordination in July 2012. Bhante Bodhidhaja is part of the BSWA’s monastic community and occasionally teaches retreats together with Bhante Cunda interstates and overseas.