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.
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
Shrouded in the cloud of ignorance, we believe that suffering will never happen to us. But when we emerge from that fog into a radical simplicity of heart, suffering becomes our teacher. Our eyes are opened thanks to Right View and direct experience of the Four Noble Truths. At last we transcend the tyranny of fear.
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
Though we feel powerless to effect change globally, we can purify the mind and restore trust, peace, and harmony in our own lives. Six special qualities of reconciliation help us nurture the balm of forgiveness. We learn to see how our suffering begins and how to stop the bombs in our own minds. Practising kindness and compassion, we let go hostility. We put down our weapons and enter the temple of the heart.
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
Stokes Valley Monastery Retreat, New Zealand
The poison arrow of ignorance spreads its toxins through passion, desire and ill will. By sitting still, applying mindfulness and surrendering to what is, the right view will illuminate our minds and will help us extract the arrow and heal the wound.
