We've built the Buddha Hall!

Come practice with us in the Buddha Hall!

February 2025 Update

We have received the occupancy permit on January 29! That means we’re allowed use the building. Come and practice with us in it this spring!

Venerables Semkye, Pema, and Ngawang are leading the effort to furnish the building. They are very busy shopping for affordable used furniture in good condition. They—and others—are assembling, cleaning, and touching up the furniture.

Furnishing, moving in, and landscaping are major activities that will continue throughout this year! Want to come and help?

There are still a few details for some sub-contractors to finish, so construction is not fully finished yet. We hope the AV system will be fully installed and testing in time for Kathina, on March 23.

A Spiritual Home for All Beings
Envision a temple nestled against a forest in North America. A refuge for people from all countries and walks of life. A learning center for love, compassion, and wisdom. A place to cultivate peace. That’s the vision for Sravasti Abbey’s new Buddha Hall

The Buddha Hall is a new two-story, 17,000 square foot temple and library, the center of spiritual activity at Sravasti Abbey. It will support Sravasti Abbey’s daily meditation practices, regular sangha and chanting rituals, teachings, retreats, pujas, memorials, and special Dharma events.

In the Buddha Hall, we’ll learn to replace anxiety, anger, and fear with love, compassion, and wisdom.

Purposeful Design and Features
Adorned with beautiful Buddha images, the Buddha Hall’s three meditation halls, library, classrooms, and quiet spaces invite us to delve deeply into Buddha’s profound teachings.

The main hall will feature a large, central altar with a ten-foot statue of Shakyamuni Buddha, flanked by smaller statues of Venerable Ananda and Venerable Mahaprajapati Gotami, the first Buddhist nun, who was also the Buddha’s stepmother.

The Buddha Hall’s audio-visual components will greatly improve the quality of streamed and recorded teachings to share on YouTube and other platforms.

The Buddha Hall is built from Faswall, an attractive, long-lasting, green building material made of insulated wood chip and cement blocks. Faswall makes a sturdy structure that is both fire and pest-resistant, ensuring the Buddha Hall will serve monastics and lay followers for hundreds of years.

Join Us
Inspired by a vision to create peace in this chaotic world, thousands of people have joined in with their offering to bring the Buddha Hall to life. We are almost there! We aspire to consecrate in 2025.

Creating places for nuns, monks, and lay people to generate virtue brings “great fruit, highly beneficial, splendid and enormous in nature.”
—The Buddha
“The Abbey is established by the people—so many people from all over the place—and for the people—so for everybody and anybody who wishes to come here.”
—Venerable Thubten Chodron
“The more people that get involved, the more people that come together to support and build this Buddha Hall, the better the whole world is going to be.”
—Fariba Fuller
“It will take all of us—our action, vision, fortitude, and aspiring bodhicitta—for this Buddha Hall to come to life. When it does, it will bring great inspiration to countless beings for a long, long time.”
-Brittany Daugs
“Now is the perfect time to build the Buddha Hall because the Buddha Hall is for all people, the country, and the world. And it’s built to last hundreds of years so that future generations can cultivate wisdom and compassion in their hearts and minds.”
– Venerable Thubten Chodron
“People want to stay here for practice. People want to stay here to be awakened. People want to stay here to feel kindness—to actually nurture love and compassion deep from their heart.”
—Kenryuu Ong
“In regions where the supreme precious teaching has not spread or where it has spread but then declined, with my heart deeply moved by great compassion, may I illuminate this treasure of happiness and benefit.”
—Tsongkhapa
“I’ve been a lot of places; this is the most conducive situation I have ever encountered for especially a female monastic but also for Dharma in general.”
—Venerable Sangye Khadro
“The Buddha Hall is a project that allows the Dharma to grow. It literally creates a space but also metaphorically for the Dharma to flourish here in the west”
—Brittany Daugs
“This is an incredibly precious community and the good that this community does on behalf of us all is critical in this world.”
—Fariba Fuller
“By doing a donation to the Buddha Hall you accumulate merits, because you benefit others. You bring happiness not for yourself, you bring happiness for others—then you can accumulate merit.”
— Joline Lee
“This is more than a temple. It is in alignment with the monastic setup where you have regular training going on.”
—Geshe Dadul Namgyal
“Sravasti may not be the birthplace of Buddhism in the west, but it’s where Buddhism is really taking hold.”
— Zhiwa Woodbury
“It doesn’t need to be big money… I think it’s ok, just remember how many people are gonna use this place. Imagine the Buddha Hall that we all put together. We can help out.”
—Joline Lee

Roof Ornaments

Deer, Dharma Wheel, and Three Ganjira (spires)
We’ve added a traditional twist to the Buddha Hall with roof ornaments similar to what you see in traditional Tibetan monasteries. The Abbey commissioned master Nepalese craftspeople from Chichhok Solukhumbu Handicraft in Nepal to create the roof ornaments. The three ganjira (spires), two deer, and a Dharma wheel were handcrafted using traditional techniques.
Read more about them >

Dharma Instruments

The Sound of the Dharma
We receive monastic precepts from the Chinese Buddhist tradition, and chant in the Chinese Buddhist style twice a week as part of our evening practice and during monastic rituals. The Buddha Hall houses large Chinese Dharma instruments, made by traditional craftspeople in Taiwan.
Learn more about the instruments >

Library and Learning

Studying the Buddhadharma
The ground floor features a large library for Tibetan, Chinese, and English texts. It also includes a media room, and Dharma classrooms that allow us to both broadcast teachings and receive instruction from afar.

The Posadha Room

Where Ritual Unfolds
Where we’ll give novice ordinations and perform the monastic ceremonies that maintain a virtuous and harmonious monastic community. Keeping these monastic commitments well is the bedrock of a sangha’s ethical discipline and the key to community harmony.
Learn More about the Posadha room >

We Have a Tara Room!

A Special Practice Space
A side room off the main hall, Tara Room, provides space for small-group Dharma teachings, meditation, and contemplation. It’s a place to take refuge in the Buddha’s enlightened activities, a place to reach out to “Mummy Tara.” The entire ambiance with visuals of Tara, beaming joy, will inspire tranquility and devotion as beginning and seasoned practitioners alike share the Dharma.
Learn more about the Tara Room >

Statues

Images of Enlightened Beings
The main altar will feature a ten-foot seated Shakyamuni Buddha, flanked by smaller statues of Venerable Ananda, the Buddha’s faithful attendant, and Venerable Mahaprajapati Gotami, the first Buddhist nun, who was also the Buddha’s stepmother. These statues have been specially made by Peter Griffin.
Read more about the statues >

Teacher’s Wing

Hosting Extraordinary Dharma Masters
Sravasti Abbey has hosted many incredible teachers, including renowned Geshes, Vinaya masters, and western scholars. In the future, visiting teachers will stay in a special wing of the Buddha Hall. In addition to a room for the guest teacher, the wing has a kitchenette, private bath, and room for a translator/attendant. Our guest teachers will have their own spectacular view of the mountains.

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Sravasti Abbey

692 Country Lane
Newport WA 99156 USA
[email protected]
509-447-5549