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.
How can we calm the mind in order to not be overwhelmed by thoughts and emotions? We can learn to live skillfully by realizing how the mind and body really work. Don’t be angry with your anger, don’t be caught up with your desires, don’t be overwhelmed by your delusion. But, go beyond and find an island of peace that can result in the ethical perfection that is known as enlightenment. A talk given during an Ottawa Buddhist Society 10 day retreat in Arnprior, Ontario, Canada.
When you move towards what is fearful step by step with courage, it is possible to overcome the darkest moments breath by breath. Draw together all the threads of your life, and let each one go strand by strand. A guided meditation on death at a 10 day retreat, Galilee Centre, Arnprior, Ontario Canada.
An alms mendicant's perspectives on everyday relationships with parents, family, friends and those not so friendly. How we can redeem what may seem like a hopeless dynamic through unwaveringly and patiently insisting on seeking out the goodness in others even in the face of hostility or rejection on their part. A talk given at a 10 day retreat at Bodhinyanarama Monastery, Stokes Valley, New Zealand in 2006.
Bodhinyanarama Monastery, Stokes Valley, New Zealand
Practice means we keep trying to purify the mind and strengthen our commitment to the precepts. There is no failure – we just begin again and again until we find our Dhamma wings. A short talk given during a Theravada Buddhist Community (TBC) retreat in Toronto.
While living in New Zealand, Ayya Medhanandi pays respects to the relics of St. Therese de Lisieux that were brought to the Catholic Cathedral in Wellington during a world tour. In this interview for the Catholic diocese, she reflects on what drew her to the spirituality of St. Therese.
Bodhinyanarama Monastery, Stokes Valley, New Zealand
How can we love everything the same? How can we come to a place of pure love within us so that whatever energy is arising in the heart, we can receive it, and we can accept it fully. We don't have to run away anymore. That way, all experience can be lived and treated the same - the way the sun treats all beings the same. And yet, we must use sharp wisdom to discern what is harmful and abandon that; and to know what is wholesome and cultivate that - like the Buddha's example of a great mother bestowing compassion on all her children.
Bodhinyanarama Monastery, Stokes Valley, New Zealand
Set out on a personal journey to turn greed, anger, and delusion into teachers and learn how to establish Right View in your meditation practice. A talk given at the Buddhist Society of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia in 2005.
Are you interested in becoming fully awakened? The development of determination (aditthana) is one of the Ten Perfections that will allow you to persevere with your practice in spite of difficulties and distractions. A talk given at the Melbourne Buddhist Society of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia in 2005.
Seeing the honest truth of the mind's delusion can teach us to develop a healthy mind and know true happiness. It is a doorway to freedom, opened through mental cultivation including loving-kindness and compassion for ourselves and all beings.
Bodhinyanarama Monastery, Stokes Valley, New Zealand
Birth, aging, death, pain, sorrow, lamentation are all dukkha.
There is pain and there is the way out of pain. That is the cultivation of the Noble Eightfold Path. By sitting, accepting and letting go, we walk the Middle Way and follow the laws of Dhamma.
Bodhinyanarama Monastery, Stokes Valley, New Zealand
