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.
Anger and fear are perilous, flammable states of mind – like barnacles attached to a ship's hull that undermine its power to sail. So we call on wise discernment and forgiveness to rescue us. We take stock: is there any anger within me? Or fear? The Dhamma purifies and frees us from these stains of the heart. So seek refuge. Guard the mind from the fires of anger or unwholesome states by directing full attention to present moment awareness. This is the blessing of our work, and the promise of awakening.
Living in the forest, we are always aware of the trees. Patient, deep-rooted, even in fierce storms, they stand. So stand like the trees, committed and enduring. See the world with pure awareness, just the way it is. Living in a state of gratitude, we make peace with the divisiveness of this realm. We offer the blessing of our own inner harmony – the heart's compassionate, pure presence – to live and die in a state of grace, gratitude and love. Some will be blessed by that. But can we spread peace in the world without being peaceful ourselves?
The heart’s splendor is known in pure awareness – not tainted by any harmful thought or feeling. It is integrity itself – present now. Traverse from the self, the narrow sense of me and mine, to surrender – knowing that we are nothing of this realm. But this emptiness is a fullness, measureless and complete – so vast that it dwarfs everything. It is universal love, compassion, supremely gentle, kind. Once known, it can never not be known. We are not separate from awareness. Like the sky. It is always there – a silent homage, our true home.
How do we extinguish the fires of greed, hatred and delusion that burn within the mind? The Buddha has thrown us a lifeline. We grab hold of it right here and now – one moment at a time. Free yourself from relentless conceptualizing and the suffering that comes of it. Stop and be aware – again and again. What is happening within you? The Buddha's first aid is just this – see each moment of turmoil or fear that is assaulting us as impermanent. Witness these feelings of despair or darkness arise and pass away – not what you are. Breathe free. Breath by breath, we let the heart heal – at peace.
We are caught up in the world – as if we're in jail. But we are also on the threshold of silence wherein lies the key to pure, infinite, wordless presence. Isn't that love – timeless, universal, here and now? Sustain that purity of heart and abide in pure presence, aware of awareness itself. There is no 'one' there, no solid being, and no experience is refused. Why is that? Because we cease to live in fear. The Buddha guides us to witness this process – not as a person identified with self or ego but just letting the world go. For we are not what we know, and that consciousness is the Deathless.
How true can we be so we don’t have to lie? Not just in what we say or think but also in how we live this precious life both in our doings on the outside, and also what goes on inside the mind – where no one can see! But we see. We know the state of the heart. When we turn away from self- deception to the inner shining, we are set free from our deepest pain – with pure love. So live caring for yourself as for others – spiritually in tact and whole, with measureless kindness and compassion. Sitting in the school of Truth, more than pilgrims, we are stars crossing space. We shine, even in the dark.
There is a transcendent Reality – inaccessible to the thought world – but to be known with right mindfulness and its accompanying powers of mind, patiently developed and polished day by day. These skills we learn provide tremendous traction to cultivate the mind, like gardeners watering the seeds of awakening. At the root of this uplifting spiritual training is the fundamental premise of our mortality. But are you ready to sit at the altar of the sublime and to have your illusions shattered? Like the hollow reed that becomes a flute, empty yourself of fear and be the pure love you seek.
Do we know the truth of what we are? If not, how can we love unconditionally? When the heart abides in loving-kindness, the misery of fear, anger and despair is vanquished. If we look for unconditional love outside of us, we will never find it. Nor can we know it by thinking. The mind must grow in silence and stillness, in unsullied conscious awareness. Then we can see what we truly are – intuitively, beyond thought, in the quality of this very breath, this moment. We pierce through the dust of lifetimes to know the core of our being, to wake up – here and now. Just to live in that kindness is the truest life of all.
Guided by the Dhamma, our life path is courageous. See how the world burns from cruel and chaotic forces. So we cultivate a heart of compassionate awareness and peace, knowing that freedom from suffering is within reach. Our spiritual footprints emulate those of the Buddha himself. We persevere and endure, powered by the noble fire of the Dhamma to illuminate our way and to bless us and all generations to come. Small as the flame appears, its light is as vast as this universe.
Treasure the silence within and listen attentively. Where else can we find the spiritual heights but within our own heart? In one moment of pure presence, we discover the joy, patience, mindfulness and 'kindfulness' that open our eyes to the truth of what we are. And in the goodness of time, there’s an emptying out. It's almost by unlearning what we’ve learned that we can see the blank screen of nothingness in the mind and know pure consciousness itself. This transcendent awareness becomes our refuge. We no longer look for refuge in other people, nor in ideas, concepts, occupations, travels, wealth, information, anything of the world. The heart is overjoyed in simple homage to the breath we breathe right now. This is waking up through wisdom power – pure presence ever transcending.
