Note by Board Chair

It is a great pleasure for me to take over as the new chair of our young society after DNBF has now held its fourth annual meeting. I have come to a tidy and well-maintained house! The annual report shows a healthy and positive development in all areas that matter to us. We have a motivated and well-qualified board in place and all core activities in the society are steadily growing in popularity. The website is constantly being developed and now has a lot of interesting and inspiring material to offer. The society’s relatively new podcasts are also among the most popular in their category in Norway. All in all, there is every reason to be excited!

The most important thing for the society to develop, however, is that Ajahn Nitho (and teachers he collaborates with) get to continue teaching small and large retreats throughout the year and thereby get to meet hundreds of searching and interested people. It is there that the most effective communication of the Buddha’s teachings occurs. It is there that meditation techniques are explained and small and large obstacles on the way are understood and overcome. Generation after generation for over 2500 years has tested the Buddha’s advice and has experienced that they improved and changed their lives radically. High-quality teaching that can be traced back to the Buddha himself will therefore be the mainstay of our society, whether it is 4 or 400 years old. Thanks to those who saw that the building of the society would go through arranging retreats and a personal thanks for the fact that it is so easy to see which direction we should continue in. Then we get to build stone by stone together until our retreat center is ready sometime in the future!

The year 2025 for me as the new chair of the board and together with the rest of the board, will partly be to consolidate the good work that has been done by ensuring good retreats and high quality of our other activities. But we also want to further develop our website and make it a natural place to visit both for the curious, the interested and the dedicated. We are also in the process of inviting external teachers for some smaller retreats that have not yet been announced and that are guaranteed to be exciting and will be to your liking.

The board is also working to find a physical meeting place in Oslo, something that many members have wanted and requested. I also see the year 2025 as a time to recruit more members by showing ourselves in more arenas and more actively promoting ourselves. I also have several ideas for activities that I hope can be realized when the time is right.

I also think it will be important and absolutely necessary for an society in growth to be able to create space and arenas for more volunteering. Dāna, or generosity – as volunteering for an society that promotes the Buddha’s teachings to the highest degree is – is an essential part of Buddhist practice and is mentioned in hundreds of suttas. I am therefore convinced that structured and good arenas for volunteer work will play a central role in the years to come and that volunteers will sign up in line with the association’s growth and needs.

Finally, a huge thank you to those who are now retiring from their board positions; Elisabeth, Rikard and Mona! An equally big thank you to Birthe who, together with me, are new to the board. An equally big thank you to those who continue, Erlend, Sissel, Vidar. And not least, heartfelt thanks to our teacher Ajahn Nitho and to all of you who have arranged large and small tasks in connection with retreats.

Alf Helge Christensen
March 2025