About
Bhante Pasanna was born in Vienna in 1975 and ordained in Sri Lanka in 1997 by Venerable Katukurunde Nyanananda Thero. He practiced in Sri Lankan monasteries and forest hermitages for 17 years. From 2014 to 2019, he resided at Metta Vihara in Germany. He currently lives as an independent hermit in rural Germany. He teaches Theravāda Buddhism with attention to both authenticity and practical application.
Teaching focus
Bhante Pasanna's core teaching draws on mindfulness of breathing, noting practice, body sweeping. The frame is early Buddhist teachings rooted in the Pali canon, but the language stays plain. Bhante Pasanna doesn't lecture from height. The talks tend to think alongside whatever's actually present in the room. Recurring themes include sila, samadhi, and the four foundations of mindfulness. None of those get presented as abstract ideas. They're worked into the body, into ethics, into how a practitioner shows up in family life or at work, so that the dharma stops feeling like a separate compartment. There's a steady invitation in the talks to keep practice human-sized. Sit when you can, return when you've drifted, and trust that small consistent attention does more over the years than dramatic breakthroughs. Format-wise, Bhante Pasanna teaches in online, and the tone moves easily between guided sittings, dharma talks, and Q&A. Questions tend to get answered the way they were asked, without being reframed into something cleaner. That alone tells you a lot about how the room feels.
Background
Bhante Pasanna was born in Vienna in 1975 and ordained in Sri Lanka in 1997 by Venerable Katukurunde Nyanananda Thero. He practiced in Sri Lankan monasteries and forest hermitages for 17 years. From 2014 to 2019, he resided at Metta Vihara in Germany. He currently lives as an independent hermit in rural Germany. He teaches Theravāda Buddhism with attention to both authenticity and practical application. Born in Vienna in 1975, he was ordained in Sri Lanka in 1997 by Venerable Katukurunde Nyanananda Thero. Bhante Pasanna lived and practiced in monasteries and forest hermitages in Sri Lanka for 17 years. From 2014-2019, he spent time in the Metta Vihara in Germany and since then has been living as an independent hermit in a cottage in rural Germany. It is important to him to convey Theravāda Buddhism in an authentic yet practicable way. Bhante Pasanna teaches across several communities, including Insight Meditation Center, Insight Retreat Center. That work sits within early Buddhist teachings rooted in the Pali canon, and the recurring concerns of Bhante Pasanna's teaching, ethical foundation, steady attention, and the slow softening of habitual reactivity, echo the older texts without sounding distant from a 21st-century practitioner's life. What stands out across Bhante Pasanna's talks isn't a single technique but a steadying tone. Practice is treated as something built slowly, in ordinary life, with care. There's room for the difficulties practitioners actually bring into the room, grief, restlessness, the body's complaints, family obligations, and the encouragement is consistent without being pushy.
Lineage
Bhante Pasanna teaches within early Buddhist teachings rooted in the Pali canon. Current affiliations include Insight Meditation Center, Insight Retreat Center. The lineage shows up less in titles than in the way Bhante Pasanna talks about practice, with steady reference to the older Buddhist vocabulary while keeping the door open for people who've never read a sutra. Whether that framing lands as monastic or lay depends on the specific talk, but the consistent thread is care for the form without letting the form become the point.
What to expect
Sitting with Bhante Pasanna, you can expect grounded instruction in mindfulness of breathing, with space to ask questions and bring whatever's actually showing up in your practice. Online sessions tend to keep the same shape, shorter sits, a talk, and time for Q&A, in a format that's accessible from home. The teaching voice is steady. Bhante Pasanna won't push you past your edge, and there's a clear preference for slow, sustainable practice over breakthrough chasing. Bring a notebook if you like, or don't. Either way, you'll be met where you are.
