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.
The Buddha gives us a flawless positioning system that will guide us to the coordinates of Truth. That ultimate refuge and peace is not to be known anywhere but in the sanctuary of our own heart. To find our spiritual bearings, we explore our true nature and the real origin of our sufferings. Step by step, our wise friends and daily practice of virtue, mindfulness, heroic forbearance, and faith will reinforce and steady us as we navigate the tempests of life. But this is a journey of great joys as well as trials. Like the hollow reed that becomes a flute, we empty ourselves of fear to be the true love we seek
Though we may feel lost in the world, on the path of purification we find secure refuge and blessings shower down upon us. It is by the power of our own mind that we bring forth what is resplendent in this world. We use suffering as our teacher and live in forgiveness, gratitude, and clear seeing – grounded in the treasures of Truth. Doesn't the ocean care for each wave until it reaches the farther shore? Just so, we entrust our aspiration to liberate the heart in the care and protection of the Dhamma.
With selfless awareness, we practise good-will, radiating loving-kindness inwardly and to all beings, even to those who are indifferent or hostile, or to those who cause harm. This is the Buddha's instruction to us in the Metta Sutta. Can we unequivocally wish all beings freedom from harm? Can we forgive enough to convert thoughts of fear, anger or enmity into benevolence? It takes courage to enter a dark space without a light. So we try as much as we can because unconditional compassion and kindness in this world give peace, healing and reconciliation a chance.
Across millenia, the Buddha speaks of his awakening – teaching us how to take refuge, how to be fearless, how to walk the Middle Way, how to understand suffering, and how to know what to trust. Fear is the opposite of trust. So be willing to relinquish concepts and questions and let yourself live into the answers day by day where fear can end – there in the pure sanctuary of the heart. For this, we learn to have compassion even for those who kill us. But we must give up what is not trustworthy. With courage, compassion, and clear awareness of what we face now, stay quietly present and listen carefully. The truth will speak, and we shall understand.
Let us not serve the false, fierce tyranny of fear – withering, unworthy, not to be clung to, and not who we are. By emptying the mind of fearful thoughts, we stop clinging to anything of the world – one moment at a time. Tasting the joy of true freedom, we enter that dimension of transcendence, beyond the prison of grasping a self and all its adornments. For there is no 'one' to be afraid, no ‘one’ who dies, and no ‘one’ to awaken. But there is waking up as we let go into the peace of selfless awareness.
Through the lens of Truth, mindful and attentive, we pierce anger, sorrow, fear and complacency. We are on the cusp of realizing who we are. Clear present awareness leads us inwards. We are on track to let go, relinquish and abandon all that is harmful. Discarding ancient beliefs one after another with microscopic insight, we empty out the rubbish from the mind. Radical awareness directly knows the impersonal, imperfect and empty nature of all that we experience. Now we see the face of holiness. Giving our hearts to truth, we are set free.
Are we ready to stop clinging, let go and trust? If we live with gratitude and change for the good; if we learn to really see, we will be able to listen from within and notice the true condition of the mind, going from a state of fear to non-fear, from suffering to non-suffering, from trauma to trust and the truth of the Unconditioned. Putting out the fires of greed, hatred and delusion, we forgive, set our burdens down and embrace kindness. We make wise choices and we live and die with joy, peace, and blessing.
When the inner fires flare, stay in your lane – aware, present and know – even if you are on fire, you can still the inner turbulence and sustain peace. Resist wandering to the past or future; resist the viruses of the mind’s obsessions. On the magnanimous wave of Dhamma, let go fear and control. Wise, patient, and pure-hearted, sit fearless in the truth of this moment, and right there, at the very core of the raging storm – watch it die. When the chains of life unravel and the bonds of wanting gently fall away, you enter the chrysalis. It’s a prayer, a holiness, the heart’s peace – indeed, the way from sacrifice to sanctity.
We are searching for the Unconditioned and the way to discover it is by fulfilling our highest potential: complete transformation from human being to spiritual being. Our journey of awakening simulates the monarch butterfly's miraculous flight. Freed from its chrysalis, it emerges whole and ready to traverse unimaginable distances. Just so, the liberated mind is freed from the mire of delusion to transcend the imperfections of this realm. It flies beyond ignorance to touch the Dhamma and know the fullness of our humanity.
Nature is begging us to wake up especially when we find ourselves at the mercy of fear arising like ghosts in the dead of night. What will protect us from these intruders? At the moment of ambush, can we see their true qualities in the light of suffering and its cause? Know that truth of suffering, its cause, its cure and the truest way of healing to break out of the prison of delusion. Now enter the measureless liberation of mind.
