Phra Visuddhisamvarathera (), known as Ajahn Brahmavaṃso, or simply Ajahn Brahm (born Peter Betts on 7 August 1951), is a British-born Theravada Buddhist monk. Currently, Ajahn Brahm is the abbot of Bodhinyana Monastery in Serpentine, Western Australia; Spiritual Adviser to the Buddhist Society of Victoria; Spiritual Adviser to the Buddhist Society of South Australia; Spiritual Patron of the Buddhist Fellowship in Singapore; Patron of the Brahm Centre in Singapore; Spiritual Adviser to the Anukampa Bhikkhuni Project in the UK; and Spiritual Director of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia (BSWA). He returned to the office on 22 April 2018 after briefly resigning in March, following a contentious vote by members of the BSWA during their annual general meeting. Early life Peter Betts was born in London. He came from a working-class background and went to Latymer Upper School. He won a scholarship to study theoretical physics at Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge in the late 1960s. After graduation, he taught mathematics at a high school in Devon for one year before travelling to Thailand to become a monk and train with Ajahn Chah Bodhinyana Mahathera. Brahm was ordained in Bangkok at the age of twenty-three by Somdet Kiaw, the abbot of Wat Saket. He subsequently spent nine years studying and training in the forest meditation tradition under Ajahn Chah. Bodhinyana Monastery After practicing for nine years as a monk, Ajahn Brahm was sent to Perth by Ajahn Chah in 1983 to assist Ajahn Jagaro in teaching duties. Initially, they both lived in an old house on Magnolia Street, in the suburb of North Perth, but in late 1983, they purchased 97 acres (393,000 m²) of rural and forested land in the hills of Serpentine, south of Perth. The land was to become Bodhinyana Monastery (named after their teacher, Ajahn Chah Bodhinyana). Bodhinyana was to become the first dedicated Buddhist monastery of the Thai Theravada lineage in the Southern Hemisphere and is today the largest community of Buddhist monks in Australia. Initially, there were no buildings on the land and as there were only a few Buddhists in Perth at this time, and little funding, the monks themselves began building to save money. Ajahn Brahm learnt plumbing and bricklaying and built many of the current buildings himself. In 1994, Ajahn Jagaro took a sabbatical leave from Western Australia and disrobed a year later. Left in charge, Ajahn Brahm took on the