Ayyā Medhānandī Bhikkhunī, is the founder and guiding teacher of Sati Sārāņīya Hermitage, a Canadian forest monastery for women in the Theravāda tradition. The daughter of Eastern European refugees who emigrated to Montreal after World War II, she began a spiritual quest in childhood that led her to India, Burma, England, New Zealand, Malaysia, Taiwan, and finally, back to Canada.
In 1988, at the Yangon Mahasi retreat centre in Burma, Ayyā requested ordination as a bhikkhunī from her teacher, the Venerable Sayādaw U Pandita Mahāthera. This was not yet possible for Theravāda Buddhist women. Instead, Sayādaw granted her ordination as a 10 precept nun on condition that she take her vows for life. Thus began her monastic training in the Burmese tradition. When the borders were closed to foreigners by a military coup, in 1990 Sayādaw blessed her to join the Ajahn Chah Thai Forest Saņgha at Amaravati, UK.
After ten years in their siladhāra community, Ayyā felt called to more seclusion and solitude in New Zealand and SE Asia. In 2007, having waited nearly 20 years, she received bhikkhunī ordination at Ling Quan Chan Monastery in Keelung, Taiwan and returned to her native Canada in 2008, on invitation from the Ottawa Buddhist Society and Toronto Theravāda Buddhist Community, to establish Sati Sārāņīya Hermitage.
To simulate the natural process of death is to experience the impermanence of the five aggregates and a pure awareness that knows the inherent emptiness of things as they truly are. Dying is a potent doorway for liberation of mind and the best death we can die is shattering the ego. Then we can let go of fear once and for all. This guided meditation was given during a death and dying retreat in an Australian church in 2004.
Digging deep through life's trials and pains with unfaltering compassion, discover the way beyond harming, the way beyond anger. At last, can we forgive all the monsters of the mind, letting them go, setting them free? Living harmlessly, fearless in the good and devoted to this radical healing, the face of enlightenment appears in the trenches of our own suffering.
The Fourth Insight known as udayabbaya ñāņa arises bestowing six qualities of upekkha as well as intimate knowledge of anicca through seeing the arising and disappearance of all conditioned things - most importantly, the emptiness of 'self'.
Most highly revered treasures and our true refuges - the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha - are extolled in this devotional chanting of a traditional Pali sutta. The style of the chant arose in the heart while walking in the forests of Sati Saraniya Hermitage.
As the witness of suffering, we gain new eyes to see. A doorway to knowing non-duality opens – there is no 'you', no 'me'. We are in the realm of no separation in one moment – gone beyond opinions, beyond wanting, beyond our pains and brokenness, and our enslavement to all that drives us. Can we see them as empty and powerless apart from the power we give them? Emptying the mind's rubbish each day, every moment that we can – enough to see, to intuitively know unconditional love – we ascend the Everest within to behold the jewel of the heart’s Himalaya.
How long must we wander misguided in life? To courageously seek Truth, extract all impurity from the mind under the scrutiny of the Wisdom Eye – silent, watchful, fully aware, and dedicated to inner purification. See what fills the space of the mind, what percolates within and how we fuel it. Gradually, we will triumph over the sway of delusion and habitual distractions that betray the mind again and again. We’ll take our rightful seat, empty and poised on the throne of present moment awareness. In the safety of true refuge, there’s no going, and no one who goes. When the mind sees itself, there's just pure knowing, awake to its innermost sanctity.
There are many skills and restorative qualities needed for us to grow in our spiritual work. Let us not underestimate the essential ingredient of mettā. This universal quality of love will unfailingly nurture the unfolding of the Noble Eightfold Path. It enhances our energy to persevere with courage, agility and joy so that the journey is sustainable and our trust becomes unwavering. We reach out more to others and support them in the good, while rejoicing that as we accomplish the Way, we draw close to the Buddha.
What are the prerequisites and supports for walking such a path of awakening? Kindness and a loving forgiveness rank with those qualities that are foremost. They allow us to repair the seemingly unforgivable, to heal what we could not see or wish to see, to dwell in the real not in our concepts, and so to ascend with the strength gained from that groundwork. Try forgiveness first. Recovery opens the way home to healing, to Truth.
The Buddha told Mahanama not to be afraid of the muddled mind, just to keep developing the qualities which incline the mind to Nibbana. This Dhamma is for one who is content. A mind unburdened can pacify itself and be calmed. A mind fortified by faith, virtue – in particular, the virtues dear to the noble ones – learning, generosity and wisdom, will go to distinction. But for mental peace we have to consider how to seclude the mind and what we are giving our consent to in daily life.
The path is a gradual one. Don’t go to the depths immediately. First develop the strength. Going slowly but deeply. Forgiveness, supported by patience endurance, acknowledging and seeing the breakage and repairing it regularly, repairing what has been broken or harmed, and freeing ourselves from the prison of our anger. How can we creatively counter the current of our addictions instead of gratifying it. If we do, we tap into the joy of the heart.
