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The Friends of Sravasti (FOSA) is an interconnected web of lay and ordained supporters who engage in fundraising, communication, and maintenance of the four requisites for Dharma practice.
FOSA has branches in North America, Mexico, and Singapore. Our service includes inviting generosity, coordinating volunteers, bookkeeping and accounting, finances, and providing the four requisites for monastic practice—food, clothing, shelter, and medicine.
Founded in 2003 before Sravasti Abbey had purchased its present-home, FOSA has been active in every aspect of the Abbey's physical development.
Now FOSA is taking the lead in this capital campaign to build a home for the Buddha's Sangha to sustain the Dharma in America.
Circle of Mutual Support
When the Buddha first began to ordain the Sangha, they lived as mendicants, sleeping under trees and eating alms the lay people offered.
After a merchant, Anathapindika, heard the Buddha teach, he offered the Sangha its first home in a beautiful park at Sravasti.
Anathapindika's generosity demonstrates the circle of mutual support shared between the Sangha and the laity.
The Sangha gives generously of their practice by teaching and demonstrating ways to subdue afflictive emotions and transform the heart.
The lay community gives generously of their worldly resources to provide the four requisites for Dharma practice.
The monastics and laity together put the Dharma into practice, subduing their ignorance, anger, and clinging attachment and cultivating impartial love, compassion, and wisdom.
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