Ayya Nimmala Bhikkhuni began her monastic life with Ayya Medhanandi in 2008 assisting in the establishment of Sati Saraniya Hermitage in Canada. After training as anagarika and samaneri with Ayya Medhanandi, she took full ordination as a bhikkhuni with Ayya Tathaloka in 2011 at Spirit Rock in California. Aftert 10 years in her small vihara in Vancouver, Ayya returned to serve as a core member of the guiding Sangha at Sati Saraniya Hermitage.
The Buddha encourages us to abandon the unwholesome and develop wholesomeness in our daily acts, words and thoughts. As we learn to trust in pure awareness and present moment mindfulness, the weight of the world is lifted from the heart. Here and now, we abide in the formless, changeless, and eternal. Not only do we bear testimony to others that this is within our reach but we are also directly blessed by it ourselves. We see the nature of emptiness and know the peace of true freedom.
True refuge is a call to stop, even for a moment, to see and know the breath that brings the world into and out of consciousness. We witness the liberating silence of that present moment awareness. In the still space between thoughts from which all that appears in the mind arises and disappears without end, we let go. Trust this. See the instability and insecurity of all else. Be an island, be a refuge unto yourself in the pure awareness of truth beyond concepts – the truth in this moment of freedom. Disentangled from the world, we can let go. Our refuge is the awakened heart.
