Chaiya Meditation Monastery

In honor of my mother's 80th birthday, I'm raising money to benefit Chaiya Meditation Monastery, the Theravada Buddhist temple my mother helped to found. It is a part of her tremendous legacy, built over years of work, prayer, and community building.

Over 30 years ago, she and others in the Southeast Asian/Thai community welcomed the Venerable Ajahn Chaiya from Myanmar (Burma). My mother welcomed Ajahn (a title that means "teacher") into our living room to teach chanting, meditation, and prayer to others.

I want to raise $8000 in honor of her memory: a number I have chosen to impact this temple where she contributed so much, and that poured back into her through culture, friendship, and spiritual sustenance. The significance of this numeric goal is that in many cultures, 8 is an auspicious number, it was my mother's favorite number, and 80—the age she was not able to see on the earthly plane—is a factor of 8000.

I had always taken it as a given that my mother was a pious, spiritual person, but she shared with me woman-to-woman only in the last few years that her life as a Buddhist only deepened well into adulthood here in the U.S. as an act of self-love and healing after her divorce from my father.

I am so proud of my mother and what she manifested in the world for herself and her community: it is humbling to see what she created from dedication and a quiet dignity leaving behind a legacy for others even beyond those that knew and loved her.

As a separate but related note, we are having a Celebration of Life/80th Birthday Party for her at our home on April 30th, 2022. This will be an opportunity to gather and share stories about why we loved/love her and the impact she made and continues to make on our lives. If you are interested in those details or would like to reach out to me to share a story, please reach out to me, Maythinee Washington.

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Info about the CMM mission and purpose:

The monastery welcomes people from every walk of life, religion, and belief to learn and practice The Art of Living and the way to be free from all suffering, which is the definitive goal as taught by the Lord Buddha.

As the guidance of Vipassana meditation at CMM, Ajahn (teacher) Chaiya encourages everyone who comes to Las Vegas to visit the Temple to learn more about the Vipassana meditation. Especially someone who would like to study meditation but does not know how and where to go about it.

Dhamma talks are provided on a daily basis at CMM in Burmese, Thai, and English.