The NZ Bhikkhuni Trust was established in 2012 by a group of lay people inspired by Venerable Ayya Medhanandi Bhikkhuni’s six year visit (1999-2006) to Aotearoa, where the need for a supportive environment for bhikkhuni was very evident. Ayyā Tathālokā Therī’s first visit in 2012 with Ayya Adhimutti to spend time researching a translation of the Bhikkhuni Vibhanga further discussions began. Although there were discussions it was difficult to find people to be  Trustees. The initial 3 people having been part of Wellington Insight Meditation Community previously established in the early 1990s formed the Trust in November 2015 after a meeting in Wellington with Ayya Adhimutti and Sister Rohini. Soon after Jamie and Pen joined,  with the addition of a number of advisors who had been a major part of the original conversations.

An incorporated charitable trust, the New Zealand Bhikkhuni Sangha Trust, registered 6th November 2015, provides a residence for invited fully ordained Buddhist female monastics (“bhikkhuni”) and other teachers expert in Buddhist doctrine to provide spiritual guidance and teachings. To also host invited visiting lay women teachers ensuring they are well supported by the community.

Ayyā Tathālokā Therī  followed with a visit in 2016 to continue her research and writing with the second Bhikkhuni Vibhanga project.

“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.” .. Ayya Ma Medhanandi