Ajahn Soṇa

Ajahn Sona (born Tom West, 1954) He is known for his widely followed online teachings, with a YouTube channel that by 2026 had over 37,000 subscribers, and as a contributor to the Buddhist media outlet Buddhistdoor Global.

Biography

Born in Canada in 1954 as Tom West, Sona worked as a classical guitarist before his ordination.

Sona has also been an advocate of environmental sustainability at the monastery, a theme he presented in a 2011 talk at TEDxOkanaganCollege. A 2018 YouTube video he made on energy efficiency at Birken described the main building as roughly 80 per cent more energy-efficient than typical residential buildings in Canada. The monastery was visited by the Canadian public broadcaster CBC in 2016, whose reporter toured the grounds and interviewed Sona.

Teaching

Sona's YouTube channel, founded in 2013, features his talks and has accumulated over 5.4 million views, He has also contributed to Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, one of the main English-language Buddhist magazines. He is the author of several books, including Bloom: Buddhist Reflections on Serenity and Love (Sumeru Press, 2020, ), What Comes Before Mindfulness?: Effective Effort: How to Garden Your Inner Life (Birken Publications, 2023), and Life Is a Near Death Experience: Skills for Illness, Aging, Dying, and Loss (2021, ). He has also been a guest of the Clear Mountain Monastery podcast, where the monks of that community credited him with coining the term "New Gandhara" for the Pacific Northwest as a region where Theravada Buddhism is flourishing. In 2013 he withdrew from his duties for a full year of solitary retreat at the monastery, following the forest tradition practice of senior monks spending extended periods in seclusion.