Buddhist Women on a Path of Spiritual Awakening
And Then Your Heart Will Shine
How can we tread the path of nonviolence that rises above anger, blame, and mistrust? Try choosing compassion, kindness and forgiveness. For inner peace is nowhere to be found if not within your own heart. Even in the throes of tempestuous life situations, draw…
Give Ear to Silence
Listen to the interior silence with audacious selfless attention and see how pure awareness catapults us into a dynamic intuitive presence. We connect to the Dhamma without obstructions. Silence is formless, soundless, complete. We are witness to an emptiness beyond attachment where the burdens…
The Four Noble Truths in Action
The Buddha realized a state of pure awakened consciousness. We try to emulate his moral excellence by turning inward to bring the mind to silence. We relinquish habitual unwholesome and harmful thoughts, and reveal the same universal moral essence within us – just as…
The Joy Will Come
Joy can come with wise reflection and a pepper of difference. I learned this standing in town with my alms bowl as a mendicant nun one morning. Living for the sake of what is highest within us, we can each know the beauty, brilliance,…
Knowing Godness
Was the Buddha a Buddhist? The Buddha was fully awakened, having realized the truth beyond convention, beyond worldly identities. We want that – to fully awaken; and to understand our experience at its core through the purification of the heart. When the mind is…
Why Do We Have To Be Human?
Meditation is a renewable resource. “Why do we have to be human? O not because happiness exists – but because being in this Dharma realm means so much.” Our spiritual work reveals how we must hold the mind – as refuge, safety, and protection…
Love Wisdom More Than Life
To bring the mind to peace, we must learn about all that makes it unpeaceful, unquiet. We learn how to guide ourselves to abide in wholesome states of mind, how to prevent dark and unskilfull states from arising and how to deal with them…
Grow in the Master’s Way
All conditions of this world have the nature to change: the earth, weather, governments, work, health, leisure, family, friendships and so forth. We observe these variations and consider the most critical change of all. It promises the greatest blessing – but first we must…
Gone Forth, Going Beyond
A book of Ayyā Medhānandī’s Dhamma reflections from 1996 to 2007, published in English and Mandarin, 2008. “We do not know what laws are at work here. These pains we endure may purify some dark karma to release us from them forever. In the…
Our Dhamma Compass
Strong in restraint, courageous in wisdom, we use our Dhamma compass of right view to steer us on the Noble Eightfold Path, while right intention sustains the healing actions of mind that let go unwholesome thoughts and endless fabrications. We learn to live and…
~ Dhammapada Verse 54