The NZ Bhikkhuni Trust was established in 2012 by a group of lay people inspired by Venerable Ayya Medhanandi Bhikkhuni’s six year visit to Aotearoa, where the need for a supportive environment for bhikkhuni was very evident. With Ayyā Tathālokā Therī’s first visit in 2012 further discussions began. Ayyā Tathālokā Therī followed with a visit in 2016 .
An incorporated charitable trust, the New Zealand Bhikkhuni Sangha Trust, registered 6th November 2015, provides a residence for fully ordained female monastics (Bhikkhunīs) to live safely, to host invited visiting lay women teachers and to ensure they are well supported by the community.
Ayyā Medhānandī Bhikkhunī, is the founder and guiding teacher of Sati Sārāņīya Hermitage.
Ma on right
“Whether we practice as a monastic or as a lay disciple, we are all disciples of the Buddha, students of his way of training. What is it then to train the mind? It is to know the truth of the Dhamma directly within our own experience. For this we develop generosity, virtue, contentment, kindness, and faith. And we practice very patiently, cultivating intuitive awareness and wise reflection that reveal the mind’s inner light. Gradually, step by step, we gain the courage to steer ourselves out of the entrapments of the world, beyond life’s traumas and spiritual famine, to safe harbour and self-healing, We open to a noble dimension of experience – the mind seeing the mind. We see its pure, stainless, radiance in the heart of our heart. And in every heart. Within that interior peace, wisdom ripens. We are on the path. We are truly waking up.”
Her Dhamma talks are available at http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/391/.
New Zealand Bhikkhunī Sangha Trust 