Buddhist Women on a Path of Spiritual Awakening
Empty of Fear
A dedication to a member of the community who is in the last stages of life. She struggles with breathing but is composed and at peace with the process. We are reminded how important it is to train the mind while we are able…
Medicine Heart Metta: Guided Forgiveness
May you be well, happy, and peaceful. Learn how to connect with the radiant, loving energy in your heart. Dissolve your opinions and unwholesome attitudes and deepen a quintessential quality for the Path – forgiveness. It is the key to greater loving-kindness for all…
Bhikkhuni Pioneers
Ayya Medhanandi offers a historical perspective on the bhikkhuni tradition as well as insights on how to live with compassion in the world. She describes how the monastic communal experience provides abundant opportunities for the exploration of personal and collective aspirations to fulfill the…
Moral Integrity, Courage and Peace
The real path to peace lies in developing moral integrity. Our spiritual strength depends on purity of heart and action. We learn to identify unwholesome habits that obstruct our well-being and practice courageous compassion to discover the joy of harmlessness. These are the qualities…
Sowing Grace
A talk given at Toronto Theravada Buddhist Community in 2015.
How Do I Know I’m Deluded?
A breakthrough step on the spiritual path is realizing just how deluded we really are – otherwise we would not have to seek happiness outside ourselves. To see our true state of mind, we have to properly investigate and honestly peel away the layers…
Sacred Heart: First Inside the Temple
Within us we have a sacred space that we need to reclaim – the very space inside the heart. Here the Four Noble Truths come to life. Know our suffering, not blaming anyone or any conditions for it, see its origin within us, and…
First Aid
To free us from our relentless conceptualising and the suffering that comes of it, the Buddha has thrown us a lifeline. We can grab hold of it by continually using the perspective that “this is impermanent”, and thereby we can pull ourselves to safety….
Nothing There: Beyond the Prison of ‘Self’
The Fourth Insight known as udayabbaya ñāņa arises bestowing six qualities of upekkha as well as intimate knowledge of anicca through seeing the arising and disappearance of all conditioned things – most importantly, the emptiness of ‘self’. A talk given at Sati Saraniya Hermitage…
Crossing Boundaries: Ayyā Medhānandī & St. Thérèse de Lisieux
An interview in 2005 with Ayya Medhanandi about how, though more than a century apart and of different religious orders, St.Thérèse de Lisieux blesses the life of a Buddhist nun:
~ Dhammapada Verse 54