Buddhist Women on a Path of Spiritual Awakening
Taming of the Shrewd
My personal identity was dismantled on the full moon of March, 1988. That was the day I donned the robes of a Buddhist alms-mendicant nun. I’d been practising intensive meditation at the Mahasi Sasana Yeiktha in Yangon, Myanmar (formerly Rangoon, Burma) under the guidance…
Composting the Heart
Just as church steeples or temple spires once symbolized the essence of what we cherished, these days, our tallest buildings tend to be commercial in nature – as if to signify the moral erosion of contemporary civilization. We are in a state of decline…
Lenten Feast
As a nun, I practice Lent every day – not just because I fast after midday but because my fast is a devotion. I choose this path out of love for a truth that reveals the depths of my humanity even in the humdrum…
The Ninth Patch
Everyday I proclaim my faith by wearing my robe. I have no special vestments or ceremonial dress. It is the same robe each day that protects me and steers me from worldly pursuits. It links me to the ancient roots of the path I…
Not Straying from Ancient Virtue
While living in monastic community, visitors often asked, “What do you do?” I would describe the daily schedule: rising early, morning and evening meditations, chanting, the almsgiving, work projects, meetings and other duties. But what I am is not just what I do or…
Setting the Pagoda Alight
When I was 37, I undertook an intensive meditation retreat at the Mahasi Sasana Yeiktha in Rangoon. Within several months, inspired by the purity and profound benefits of the practice, I felt called to the holy life and, in honour of that intention, navigated…
Sole Food
I live on faith – day by day, not knowing if I will eat. Far from the abundance of established community, the alms I do receive can range from feast to fasting. Whatever comes, I accept. Whatever the circumstances, I persevere. In monastic community,…
A Community of One
What continues to nurture me outside the formal structure of monastic community? Living with a group of companions committed to the holy life was a boon to my spiritual development. More telling has been the process of detaching myself from that framework and spreading…
Giving to What We Love
One morning, as I stood for alms in an outdoor market, an elderly man supporting himself with a walker shuffled awkwardly towards me. His daughter held him on one side with her arm. As soon as he saw my robe and bowl, and the…
A Frayed Knot
Wise living cannot be legislated or simulated through script or form. It needs to grow from the inside, maturing when we reflect on our omissions and misjudgements – if we resolve to learn. Valuable as they are, the lessons we garner from yesterday’s choices…
~ Dhammapada Verse 54