Buddhism was studied in former Czechoslovakia since the beginning of twentieth century. The first Czech monk, Venerable Nyanasatta Thera lived since nineteen thirties in Sri Lanka with his teacher the German Venerable Nyanatiloka Thera; some of their writings are available on the list of Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy. Well known is the work on the History of Buddhist Literature by the Czechoslovak scholar Moritz Winternitz. One of the best Czech Buddhist authors, Leopold Prochazka has represented Czechoslovak Buddhists internationally till the Second World War. Thereafter under the Nazi and Communist rule, no Buddhist activities were allowed.

Since the arising of democratic Czech Republic and Slovak Republic as separate states, there has been steady growth of  Buddhist activities in the nineteen nineties. Several groups are following all the various Buddhist schools. The practice of the oldest form of Buddha Dhamma known as Theravada has been introduced to Czechoslovakia by Dr. Mirko Frýba who has returned from Switzerland to his former home country in May 1990. Assisted by Karla Potuckova and Tomas Vystrcil, who have founded an institution called Friends of the Dhamma (in Czech: Pratele Dhammy) to shelter the meditation retreats, Mirko Fryba has conducted the very first course of Satipatthana–Vipassana starting on 1^st November 1990 in Zlaty Vrch near Prague. Since then the pupils of Mirko Fryba founded several local Bodhi Groups in the main towns of Czech Republic; they have friendly relations with the Buddhist Groups in Slovakia. These Czech and Slovak Groups were united in the Czech branch of an umbrella organization International Buddhist Fund. Another sister organizations of the IBF Geneva has existed in Germany for some time and became then a Headquarters of German Ayukusala.

During the last ten years, several monks have been visiting Czech and Slovak Republic to teach the Dhamma and conduct meditation courses. The foremost of them was Venerable Rewata Dhamma Sayadaw, residing in Birmingham Buddhist Vihara in UK. The late Venerable Rewata Dhamma was one of the teachers of Mirko Fryba -- both of them acted as the founder patrons of the International Buddhist Donation Fund. In 1998, Dr. Fryba has also become a monk in Sri Lanka and is now known as Bhikkhu Ayu Kusalananda. There were more than twenty Czech and Slovak monks trained by Venerable Kuslananda in Sri Lanka, most of them are now doing their dhammaduta as lay upasakas in Europe. These ex-monks, together with some other lay Dhamma Teachers who were trained by Venerable Kusalananda are promoting the Buddha Teaching as the way to life mastering, literally: Ayukusala.

One of the most important projects of the Ayukusala Central European Sangha is a monastery called Dhammarama, which has a provisory seat in the second biggest Czech town Brno.

For further information on history, see:
http://www.ayukusala.org