Bhikkhu Rahula

Bhikkhu Rāhula, also referred to as Bhante Rāhula, is a Mexican Theravada Buddhist monk of the Burmese tradition, founder of Paññābhūmi Monastery in Zapopan, within the metropolitan area of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.

Biography

Born in Guadalajara, Rāhula worked as a musician and composer and earned a master's degree in music therapy before his ordination. He lived for about twenty years in Asia devoted to the study and practice of the Dhamma. He was first ordained in 2004 at Shwe Oo Min Monastery in Yangon, where he came under the guidance of Sayadaw U Tejaniya. He later received ordination in Myanmar with the Venerable Sayadaw Dr. U Nandamālābhivaṃsa as preceptor.

Since then he has received meditation guidance from Sayadaw U Tejaniya, studied the suttas and the abhidhamma for six years with Sayadaw Dr. Ukkamsacara in Macau, and completed two years of monastic training in Malaysia under the Venerable Ariyadhammika at the Sāsanārakkha Buddhist Sanctuary in Taiping. In June 2022 he led an online retreat on practice in daily life from the sanctuary.

In the interview he gave to the Vajrakula sangha in 2026 he also named Ajahn Brahm as a direct teacher.

Translations

Rāhula translated into Spanish Don't Look Down on the Defilements, They'll Laugh at You (No menosprecies a las impurezas mentales, ellas se reirán de ti), by Sayadaw U Tejaniya, whose revised second Spanish edition appeared in September 2017 and is distributed free of charge as Dhamma dāna. The printing of one thousand copies was supported by the Dhamma community of Guadalajara.

Activity

Since 2016 he has offered weekly teachings, in person and online, to students in eighteen countries, and teaches in Spanish, English and Portuguese.

His teaching began at the request of his mother, with a small group of students in Guadalajara, and later grew through recorded sessions of his "Anatomy of the Mind" courses.

He coordinates the Spanish version of the Digital Pāḷi Dictionary (DPD), an online dictionary of the Pāḷi language with 72,698 definitions in Spanish, developed with volunteers of the Theravada Saṅgha in Latin America on the basis of the Digital Pali Dictionary created by Ven. Bodhirasa.

In February 2026 he gave the talk How to Make Our Challenges Our Allies? at the Seattle Insight Meditation Center, and in April 2026 he led activities in Maldonado, Uruguay, announced by the local press as part of a visit by an international Buddhist monk. He has also taught at the Dharma Gates youth retreat organized by the Lama Foundation in New Mexico. In August 2026 he gave a talk at the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies in California, Transforming the Texture of the Mind: How the Practice of Mettā Changes Our Relationships in Unexpected Ways.

In an interview with the Vajrakula sangha published in April 2026, he recounted his early life as a classical and sacred musician, his turn to Buddhist meditation after a deep depression around 2001, and his path toward monastic life. He was also a guest of the Clear Mountain Monastery podcast Saṃsāra's Like This in March 2026.