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.
Praising Truth for its own sake, we lean in the direction of Truth. We make our intention not to harm by body, speech, or thought. Harmlessness leads to selflessness. Selflessness leads to the Deathless. To boundless compassion. It will save us from the flames of greed, violence, and delusion raging around us. Like the baby quail. What saved it from the forest fire was the purity of its own truth developed over lifetimes. A talk given in a Toronto Theravada Buddhist Community (TBC) zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic.
How can we care for ourselves and each other, using our formal meditation practice as a template for daily living? As we sit for meditation, mark an intuitive pathway through painful, burdensome mind states, teaching the mind to purify itself with every breath. Gradually, we overcome our sufferings. We glimpse the peace, happiness, clarity and freedom of heart that are within our reach.
Can we not give vent to the wanting mind, not blame conditions nor allow discontentment to grow? Develop patience and persevere on the path. Know things as they are and accept them. Patience is the highest austerity. So change gears, and move away from old habits of mind by rubbing the dust out of your eyes. Weather difficult conditions. See the beginning of your suffering and end it in the ways of Dhamma. Plant good seeds.
Every Canadian knows Terry Fox, a teenage athlete who lost his leg to cancer, continued to train as a runner, and ran across Canada with one leg before he succumbed to his illness. His mission was to raise money for cancer research so others would not suffer. A legacy for our own journey - spiritual heroism, undaunted effort, magnanimous vision, valiant heart. The training begins now - for as along as it takes.
What is renunciation? Patiently we learn how to let go of the thoughts and actions that enslave us to samsara. And we begin to understand what it takes to tame the ego and cultivate greater and greater compassion in its boundless quality. Through this magnificent process, we study the way to ascend the altar and sit with our teacher, the Buddha.
As we follow the steps of the Eightfold Noble Path, our hatred, greed, and delusion abate. We may yet suffer, but we use our suffering to fathom the meaning of it, see its causes, and see the possibility for ending suffering. The four Noble Truths come alive within. Invariably, our suffering manifests in many forms. It may never ‘end’ but it ceases to be a problem as our fear or aversion to it die. Persevering in this work is the way to make peace with our suffering.
How training the mind in following precepts, such as the rules regarding the use of four monastic requisites - food, robes, shelter, and medicines, can win us greater patience, faith, gratitude, calm, courage, and mindfulness. Such ways of renunciation test our commitment to the path and teach us how to forgive and let go even our fears so that we harvest the riches of joy, compassion and inner peace.
In the Sallekha Sutta, MN 8, the Buddha teaches us how not to imitate the faults of others, and how to be fearless in the good and vanquish unwholesome mental habits. We start where we are and trust the path, learning to live wisely, to glimpse the fruits of letting go, reaching for the farther shore so that when fear dies, unconditional love will prevail. A talk given online during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Responding to questions about social change during pandemic time protests: seeing that we are the owners of our actions, subject to the law of kamma, we can embody the Buddha's teachings by respecting all beings with compassion, nonviolence and our foundation in virtue, and choosing wise leaders who uphold these principles.
When change and unrest foment around us, we must guard the mind and protect it from disruptive emotions such as fear or anger that may lead us to speak or act unskillfully. In this pandemic of moral decay and heightened fear, seeing how we are not in control, we care both for ourselves and others, morally and spiritually. To bring reform or healing in the world, we speak or act from an inner quiet, not boiling with anger or resentment, but from a heart tempered with patience, compassion, wisdom and peace. A talk given online during Covid-19 and global anti-racism protests.
