Offering Service Is Fun!

Volunteer at the Abbey or from home
“Offering service” is what other people call “work.”

We volunteer with a motivation to be of benefit. Every visitor gets involved with offering service. You can too.

Why Offer Service?

Sravasti Abbey exists by the kindness of volunteers—literally. Whether offering service at the Abbey or volunteering from home, we aim to “create peace in a chaotic world” in all that we do.

It’s fun to work in a team—indoors and outdoors—sharing the Dharma as we care for the Abbey land and facilities. It is an opportunity to connect with monastics and make new Dharma friends.

Won’t you join us in transforming our world? Enjoy the Abbey’s beautiful rural setting and work with like-minded people for something you believe in.

From April to October, we host a monthly Offering Service Saturday. See the Visit section to schedule a longer visit or to come on a different day.

Many Ways to Help

Forest Work
With 374 beautiful acres of forest and meadow, we always need help in the forest.

Cooking
We welcome cooks, especially for large events and courses.

Media Editing
We often need assistance with graphic design, video editing, and other digital media.

Transcribing, Editing, and Translating
Help us spread Dharma teachings globally!

Gardening
Abbey vegetable and flower gardens are prolific and always need some attention—weeding, composting, planting, or harvesting.

Offer Your Expertise
From accounting to sewing, we can benefit from your special skills and expertise.

Volunteer at the Abbey

We’re happy to have help with cleaning, organizing, sewing, and editing. We welcome cooks—especially for large events—and tap graphic designers, photographers, and computer pros as needed.

Depending on the season, we’ll have you thinning the forest, canning and freezing fruit, preparing mailings, or stringing prayer beads for the incarcerated.

For folks who love to work outdoors, there’s plenty to do at the Abbey!

From April to November, depending on snow, we welcome help in thinning the dense stands of trees and shrubs for forest health and fire prevention.

Abbey vegetable and flower gardens are prolific and always need some attention—weeding, composting, planting, or harvesting. If you know a weed from a carrot top, come give a hand. Or if you’d like to learn, we can teach you.

We have sedentary tasks and heavy outdoor projects. Sometimes we seek specific skills. For many jobs, no skill is required. There’s really no end to the possibilities of how to offer service. Come see what we need, or write the office to offer your skills.

Volunteer from Home

Important Abbey functions are done by volunteers from home—things like graphic design, proofreading, transcribing teachings, and audio editing.

If you’d like to work from afar, write our Office. Tell us what skills you’d like to use and we’ll match you up with an offering service task. Be patient, though. Sometimes it takes a while to connect a volunteer to the right job.

Offering Service Motivation

Venerable Chodron wrote this prayer that we say every day to set a virtuous motivation for our service tasks.

We are grateful for the opportunity to offer service to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha and to sentient beings.

While working with others, differences in ideas and ways of doing things may arise. These are natural and a source of creative exchange; our minds don’t need to make them into conflicts.

We will endeavor to listen deeply and communicate wisely and kindly as we work together towards our common goal.

Using our body and speech to support the values we deeply believe in—generosity, kindness, ethical conduct, love, and compassion—we will create great merit, which we dedicate for the enlightenment of all sentient beings.

“I am so blessed to have all of you in my life teaching me ‘new tricks’ that are such a help. I am so thankful my karma has led me to you so I can get a ‘head start’ on the next phase of my being.”

Veda Van Zee

Spokane, Washington

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Sravasti Abbey

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