Podcasts religion Buddhist Society of Western Australia Blazing a trail for women monastics in the UK - Bhikkhuni Canda

Blazing a trail for women monastics in the UK - Bhikkhuni Canda

Published: July 28, 2022, 1:42 p.m.

Published with permission of Treasure Mountain Podcast. Please visit Treasure Mountain Podcast and Treasure Mountain website.

In this episode of Spirit Stories our guest is Venerable Candavisuddhi, also known as Ayya Canda, who first encountered meditation and the spiritual path when travelling through Asia as a young woman. This led to several years of going on and supporting retreats in India and Nepal. Whilst the yearning to live the Buddhist monastic life intensified, she found that opportunities for women to lead a meditative monastic life were few, until finding out about a chance to ordain with Sayadaw U Pannyajota in rural Burma. The meditative life suited Venerable Canda very well, but four years of the Burmese climate, diet and parasites took a toll on her health, and she decided to return to the West. A chance encounter led Venerable Canda to the teachings of Ajahn Brahm, and the opportunity to practice and take higher ordination at Dhammasara Monastery in Western Australia in 2014. Now she is blazing a trail for women monastics by leading a project to start a monastery for bhikkhuni sangha in the country of her birth, the United Kingdom. Venerable Canda joins us now to share her Spirit Story.

Links related to this episode:

Please support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via Patreon.

To find and download more precious Dhamma teachings, visit the BSWA teachings page: https://bswa.org/teachings/, choose the teaching you want and click on the audio to open it up on Podbean.