Ajahn (Ven.) Canda began meditating in 1996 with S.N. Goenka and spent the next decade deepening her practice in India and Nepal. She renounced as a Buddhist nun in Burma in 2006 and subsequently received full bhikkhuni ordination with Ajahn Brahm as her teacher. Her approach to meditation focuses on kindness and letting go as a means to deepening stillness and is richly informed by the Early Buddhist Texts. Ven. Canda founded Anukampa Bhikkhuni Project with Ajahn Brahm - a UK charity that has now established Britain's first monastery for the full ordination of women, near Oxford!
Ajahn Candasiri was born in Scotland in 1947 and was brought up as a Christian. After university she trained and worked as an occupational therapist, mainly in the field of mental illness. In 1977, an interest in meditation led her to meet Ajahn Sumedho, shortly after his arrival from Thailand. Inspired by his teachings and example, she began her monastic training at Chithurst as one of the first four anagārikās.
Within the monastic community she has been actively involved in the evolution of the nuns’ Vinaya training. She has guided many meditation retreats for lay people, and particularly enjoys teaching young people and participating in Christian/Buddhist dialogue.
Ajahn Candasiri recently established Milntuim Hermitage in Scotland, where she now normally resides.
Ajahn Metta was born 1953 in Germany. She became an Anagārikā in ‘93 at Amaravati and took higher ordination as a Sīladhāra in ‘96. During her monastic life she has been involved in many areas of the community. She is one of the group of senior nuns leading the Sīladhārā community. For the past few years she has been teaching meditation workshops and retreats. Prior to monastic life she worked as a secretary and office assistant. She is a mother of a grown-up son and was living a family life before entering the monastic path. She has been practising meditation since ‘84 and has experience of living in other spiritual communities in Europe and Thailand (Wat Suan Mokkh).
The Aloka Vihara sisters are a community of bhikkhunis (fully-ordained nuns) dedicated to practicing the Buddha’s teaching in the style of the Theravada Forest Tradition. Their practice emphasizes simplicity, renunciation, service and an orientation towards learning from the natural world – all held within the context of the Buddha’s teaching. The sisters are embracing and integrating the realities and challenges of contemporary society into their practice.
Ayya Anandabodhi first encountered the Buddha’s teachings in her early teens, igniting a deep interest in the Buddha’s Path of Awakening. She lived and trained as a monastic in the Forest Tradition at Amaravati and Chithurst monasteries in England from 1992 until 2009, when she moved to the US to help open more opportunities for women to live the monastic life. She took full Bhikkhuni Ordination in 2011. Her practice and teaching are guided by early Buddhist scriptures, living in community, and through nature’s pure and immediate Dhamma.
Ayya Dhammadhira ordained as a nun in England in 2001, training in the Ajahn Chah lineage at Amaravati and Chithurst Monasteries. After leaving England in 2012 and ordaining as a bhikkhuni, she has been moving between various monasteries and practice centers both within the U.S. and abroad. Her interest is in the core teachings of the Buddha and also how they relate to the essential teachings of other spiritual traditions.
Ayya Jayati has trained as a nun since 2007 and received bhikkhuni ordination in 2014. She currently resides at Aloka Vihara, a monastery for nuns in the Sierra Foothills near Placerville.
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.
Ayya Niyyānikā is appreciative of monastic life as her container for practice. She received her initial training with the Dhammadharini community from 2014 through 2019 and is currently practicing with the Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery community in Placerville, CA.
Santacitta Bhikkhuni hails from Austria and trained as a nun in England & Asia from 1993 until 2009, primarily in the lineage of Ajahn Chah and has also received teachings in the Shechen lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. She is committed to our planet as a living being and resides at 'Aloka Earth Room', currently located in San Rafael, California. Santacitta Bhikkhuni stammt aus Österreich and begann ihre Nonnenausbildung 1993 in England & Asien, vor allem in der Traditionslinie von Ajahn Chah und hat auch Unterweisungen in der Shechen Traditionslinie des Tibetischen Buddhisms erhalten. Sie ist unserem Planeten als lebendes Wesen verpflichtet und lebt im 'Aloka Earth Room', derzeit in San Rafael, Kalifornien.
Ayya Santussika, in residence at Karuna Buddhist Vihara (Compassion Monastery), spent five years as an anagarika (eight-precept nun), then ordained as a samaneri (ten-precept nun) in 2010 and as a bhikkhuni (311 rules) in 2012 at Dharma Vijaya Buddhist Vihara in Los Angeles.
Ayya Santussika was born in Illinos in 1954 and grew up on a farm in Indiana. While being a single mother, she received BS and MS degrees in computer science and moved with her two children to the San Francisco Bay Area. She worked as a software designer and developer for fifteen years. Her search for deeper meaning and ways to be of service led her to train as an interfaith minister in a four-year seminary program that culminated in an Masters of Divinity degree and a brief period of practice as a minister before ordaining as a Buddhist nun. She is currently serving on the Board of Directors for Buddhist Global Relief.
A Sri Lankan by birth, Ayya Sudinna was ordained as a samaneri in 1999 by Bhante Gunaratana at the Bhavana Society. She received the higher ordination (Upasampada) in 2002 in Sri Lanka. In lay life, Ayya Sudinna served as a teacher in Government schools and as a lecturer in English at the Government Teachers Training College, Maharagama, and later under the Higher Education Ministry in Sri Lanka. She has an honours degree in English and an M.A. in Buddhist philosophy. She is the author of a children’s story book titled ‘Delightful Tales.’
Ayya Yeshe Bodhicitta ordained as a nun in 2001. She discovered Buddhism whilst travelling in Nepal and India at the age of 17 on a search for the meaning of life. Coming back to Australia after a year of study and practice in monasteries, she helped run a Buddhist Centre in Sydney and trained with her teacher Khenpo Ngawang Dhamchoe for five years whilst working as well.
Upon ordaining as a nun at the age of 23 Venerable Yeshe, found like the majority of Western monastics before her that there was very little care or support for Western monastics, people preferring to access Tibetan Lamas who are already trained. She had no where to live and had to beg on traditional alms round to get food, she stayed with various friends and in garden sheds. She engaged in teaching Dharma in HIV hospices, schools, drug and alchohol rehab centres and trained as a yoga teacher.
Coming to India in 2004, Venerable Yeshe studied for two years in a monastery, but felt a need to make Buddhism accessable and socially engaged, whilst still trying to maintain her contemplative way of life. She met Indian Buddhists in 2005 and has been working with them ever since. Her teachers are Sakya Trizen (the second highest Lama in Tibetan Buddhism) and Ven Thich Nhat Hanh, the nobel peace prize poet and peace activist.
Ayya Yeshe Bodhicitta is the author of 'Everyday Enlightenment' published by Harper Collins and is featured in the documentaries 'life beyond the begging bowl' and 'Through the Eastern Gate'. She is also made a Buddhist chanting CD with one of Australia's top world music groups - India Jiva called 'Dakini'.
I aspire to offer teachings that are encouraging, that support people to discover how they are an expression of Dhamma. I'm particularly interested in the interplay between stilling and settling the mind, and opening to greater kindness and generosity of heart.
Abbess of Vajra Dakini Nunnery, Khenmo Konchog Nyima Drolma has trained with the foremost spiritual teachers of our time including H.H. Dalai Lama, H.H. Drikung Kyabgon Chetsang Rinpoche (the head of the Drikung Kagyu Lineage) and Ani Pema Chodron. After her novice ordiantaion by Drikung Kyabgon in 1997, she spent two years in training at Gampo Abbey guided by Ven. Pema Chödrön. In 2002 she took full ordination as a Buddhist nun in Taiwan. In 2004 she was installed as a Khenmo (Abbot) in the Drikung lineage, becoming the first woman and first westerner in her lineage to officially hold this responsibility. Since then she has worked continuously to establish Vajra Dakini Nunnery and teach the Dharma internationally.
Chimey Lhatso is a Swedish-American Buddhist Minister, performing artist, and teacher from the Tibetan Vajrayana tradition. She is a holder of the Karma Kagyu lineage with the incomparable 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, as her main teacher.Prior to life as a nun she was a pioneering wellness educator as the founder of CM – Conscious Movement and a performing artist who became rewarded as a choreographer.
Amma Ṭhanasanti is a California born spiritual teacher dedicated to serving all beings. Since she first encountered the Dharma in 1979, she has been committed to awakening. As a former Buddhist nun of 26 years, she combines the precision and rigor of the Ajahn Chah Forest Tradition, compassion, pure awareness practices and a passion for wholeness. Amma has been teaching intensive meditation retreats in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia since 1995. She invites an openness to pause and inquire into the truth of the present moment, integrating what is liberating at the core of our human condition.
My teaching practice and my personal practice continually intertwine, each weaving a pattern in the larger tapestry of the Dharma. The theme that threads itself throughout my practice relates to the tremendous pain and suffering, the challenges and difficulties that so many beings face, and the possibility of awakening from this suffering. From this immediate calling I've woven the purpose of my life.
It is a deep honor for me to come together with others who feel a similar calling of connection to the Dharma to learn about the greatest gift of all: a happiness inside of us that is unconditional, and a depth of being that is infinite.
Together, our practice is dedicated to this effort of opening to our hearts' potential. To this I bring the flavor of my lineage--the continuation of the teachings of my root teachers, Ruth Denison and her teacher U Bha Khin; a commitment to learning how to live with each other in kindness; and my life as a lesbian in a long-term relationship.
Even though I have been involved in different traditions over the years, what I love about Buddhism is the simplicity of the practice; the fact that it isn't embodied by a lot of ritual, or special clothes, or the need for different props. I love the moment-to-moment calling of awareness to whatever one is doing. And vitally important, I appreciate the safety inherent in the teacher/student relationship, where the emphasis is on the practice itself and the teacher engages as a peer and spiritual friend.
Dr Elizabeth Day has been practising meditation and yoga for over 20 years. She spent six years as an ordained monastic within the Ajahn Chah monasteries in the UK. She has held leadership positions in the Health and Higher Education sectors, including as Academic Head of a School of Counselling and Psychotherapy. She has a Doctorate in intersubjectivity, and is a qualified yoga teacher and Gestalt psychotherapist.
Jenny Wilks has practised Buddhist meditation for many years and has an MA in Indian religions. She has taught on retreats and dharma gatherings since 2005, is a regular teacher at the Barn retreat centre at Sharpham in Devon, and has been teaching at Gaia House since 2008. Jenny trained as a clinical psychologist; she leads mindfulness-based therapy groups in healthcare settings and for the general public and teaches and supervises on the MBCT diploma course at Exeter University.
Matty Weingast is co-editor of Awake at the Bedside and former editor of the Insight Journal at Barre Center for Buddhist Studies. With almost two decades of meditation experience, Matty completed much of the work on The First Free Women: Poems of the Early Buddhist Nuns while staying at Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery in Northern California.
