DhammaTalks

AUDIO DHAMMA TALKS from 2020

2017-2019 audio Dhamma talks from Mark Nunberg, Ajahn Sucitto, Rebecca Bradshaw, DaRa Williams, and Janice Cittasubha Sheppard, are available here.

June 20, 2020, Ayya Medhanandi

Guided meditation, “The Mantra of Compassion”

Dhamma Talk, Q&A, “When Fear Dies”

Ayyā Medhānandī Bhikkhunī is founder and guiding teacher of Sati Sārāņīya Hermitage, a Theravāda forest monastery for women. The daughter of East European refugees who emigrated to Montreal after World War II, she began a spiritual quest in childhood that led her to India, Burma, UK, New Zealand, Malaysia, Taiwan, and finally back to Canada. In 1988, at the Yangon Mahasi retreat centre in Myanmar, Ayyā requested full ordination as a bhikkhunī from her teacher, the Venerable Sayādaw U Pandita. This was not yet possible for Theravāda Buddhist women. Instead, Sayādaw granted her 10-precept novice vows on condition that she take them for life. Thus began Ayyā’s monastic training in the Burmese tradition. When Myanmar was closed to foreigners by a military coup, Sayādaw blessed her to join the Ajahn Chah Thai Forest Saņgha at Amaravati, UK. After ten years in their community, Ayyā felt called to more seclusion and solitude in New Zealand and SE Asia. In 2007, having lived as an alms mendicant nun for nearly 20 years, she received bhikkhunī ordination at Ling Quan Chan Monastery in Keelung, Taiwan. In 2008, on invitation from the Ottawa Buddhist Society and Toronto Theravāda Buddhist Community, Ayyā returned to Canada to establish Sati Sārāņīya Hermitage.