it was a great event – the pindabata for the nuns in Castle hills – organized by Lalitha. Thank you all for joining in, either at the different stations where you were waiting for us to come along with our bowls, or at Lalitha’s house, where we finally went to have lunch and talk about meditation.

Although it rained and was cold, you were patiently waiting and meeting you all time passed so quickly that we found that we will do pindabata and meditation again.

Here are some pictures Lalitha took with her phone.

 
The bikkunis from the Santi forrest monastery will be on almsround in Castle Hill and Quakers Hill on Saturday 20th April.

The time and place to be:

9.30AM-10AM at Castle towers Piazza in Castle Hill   

March has passed. Quickly days ran by, filled with day to day business.

The saddest happenings:

Bundanoon’s postmaster Hugh passed away, we visited him in the hospital short before he was dying. It was good to meet with a person who was not afraid to die, who himself though he was ready to go.

We were invited by his family to chant the metta sutta at his funeral. A sutta that in a way describes what his aims in life were.

A friend, a meditator and supporter of Samaneri Canda, Una from Dublin, also passed away. Although we were far in terms of the physical world, we felt close to her and we performed some blessing chants while she was dying and a farewell service for her after she had died.

At some point it seemed that many friends and supporters were sick, so we went to visit some of them in hospitals or at home.

The best thing that happened: One friend in hospital who had the diagnosis that he would hardly ever be able to walk again without a walker started to walk without any crutch after our visit, to the surprise and amazement of the doctors. Not that I do believe that our blessing healed him, but the blessings might have given him the power in his mind to heal himself.

Our friend Damith Herath came to film interviews with the nuns at Santi. He met with Ajahn Brahm and Bhante Sujato, Ayya Nirodha and other people for interviews. On the last day of March he finalized his work and send it off to a film festival in Sri Lanka. It is a 28 minutes documentary about the transition at Santi, about Bhikkhunis, – well, actually I can’t really say  what it is about because I haven’t seen it yet. Most probably we will have a little monastery internal ‘sneak preview’. The documentary can’t be shown publicly because it needs to be unpublished to be eligible for the festival. We will keep you informed and invite you for a ‘docu-day’ at Santi when the film is official.

Vimala and Canda have been doing a looooot of paperwork for visas, the paperwork continues. But we also have some first good results! :)

Some wonderful Bhikkhunis, Ayya Nirodha and Hasapanna from Perth, Dhammasara monastery and Ayya Upekkha from Melburne, Sanghamitarama, came to visit Santi for some days after the Australian Sangha Associations meeting which was held in Canberra. My faith in the community of Bhikkhunis grew and I found new friends in the holy life. It was the first meeting of Theravada Buddhist Bhikkhuni abbesses in Australia. Great, auspicious.

The Easter weekend was quite crowded. Friends slept in a hotel and in the library just to be at Santi for a day or two. It is marvellous, it is wonderful how much interest the people show in being at Santi, in receiving meditation instruction and helping some nuns with chopping wood, clearing trails, cooking, cleaning etc.. A team formed last weekend to work on the first newsletter, Leeleng is preparing for a fundraising dinner/auction in her restaurant to sponsor Santi.

Tomorrow another bhikkhuni arrives for a two months stay, some others are packing their belongings to leave in a few days heading to Perth to Thailand … but more on that later. :)

May you all be well!

Here is a link to its official web site: http://www.mycause.com.au/events/Renounceathon

March is the last month of the official renounceathon. For us  Nuns, Samaneris and Bhikkhunis  the renouncing continues of course, at least we will not give up our renunciation of the home. We all went forth from home into homelessness and are very happy to be able to live the holy life supported by such wonderful friends as you are.

One friend in Denmark joined the renounceathon without creating a page on ‘mycause’. Today I received her report of success :)

>The 28 days of renunciation of irritability have passed and have been a great success. Not 100% of course! But a huge step forward. The difficulty was of course to maintain the necessary level of awareness to catch it before it erupted. And the great thing was that making the effort to be so mindful had many unexpected side effects. It’s been a marvelous experience – not least for those around me, I’m sure. Thank you for the inspiration.
As promised I will send a contribution to Santi, which will hopefully supply a few hot showers for you, when it’s cold again! I’ll look on the website for an account number.
Very best wishes, and Metta
Kim<

As you all know we had all sort of renunciations. From giving up ‘negative thoughts’ which is the number one fund raiser on the renounceathon web page, over giving up to speak Thai, doubts, complaints, nuns and friends renounced and in most cases were very happy with the results

My (Phalanyani) renouncing of ‘the use of hot and warm water except for drinking’ was a very interesting experience. I did it! I regularly took cold showers! To understand why I am so enthusiastic about it – I am known as a wimp when it comes to cold. Born in summer of (then) the hottest year since records, I felt cold, so to say, by default. Later I lived in Spain and when we went to the beach to swim I put my toe in the Mediterranean sea and most times decided it was to cold to go in, while everybody else suffered from the heat outside of the water. Now I do even consider to continue taking cold showers… unbelievable.

farewell and departure is always a large part of the life of any Buddhist monastic. We are not supposed to become attached to one particular place. In the Buddha’s time, it seems, the monks and nuns have been wandering for most time of the year, except for the period of three months every vassa.

In modern times this has changed quite a bit and monastics are more bound to their monasteries. None-the-less there is coming and going, people we share monastic life with, who have been or who are guests in Santi have left and will leave.

Our brother and friend Thanavuddho Bhikkhu left after 2 months and heeded on to Wat Buddha Dhamma to stay with Bhante Khemavaro for some time. It is rare to have a monk happily accepting female leadership. It certainly requires a lot of non-self :)

Our longterm lay-guest-man Sangvaro left this morning. He needs to work on his career now and goes to America for a while. It was very lovely and inspiring to see him work with himself to become a better person while he was here. And yes, the world is richer, as there is now one person definitely better than he was before. He changed to the better hopefully for good.

To see people changing like this through the power of the Dhamma and meditation, is the most beautiful thing to see, for one who teaches the Dhamma.

In less than two weeks Ayya Yeshe will also leave Santi. She has her place the Bodhicitta Foundation where she, with her work for the people and the Dhamma is needed in the slums of India. She brings light to a place in the world where there is darkness. She is strong, not many can do what she does for the people in the slums. She lives with them and shares with the people what you share with her.

Here are some pictures of our friends who took or will take leave soon.

Dear friends,

Entering the year of the snake…
On our way to the big cave for our group meditation we met a large python on our way, calmly watching us for a while and then disappearing into the bush.

best wishes for the New Luna Year.

May your lives, your minds be at peace.

Times sometimes are hard and things don’t seem to get better, economy, health – everything. The greatest blessing one can have is to take all hardships of life with dignity and appreciation. Getting upset about hardships will make them double hard, embracing them, accepting them with an open heard and mind can transform them in valuable lessons. These hardships are the times when we grow strong, compassionate and wise. They are our teachers. They happen according to our Karma.

May you always be well!

One of the yogis at Santi renounced fear and he did a great job! Not that he has overcome fear entirely – but none the less, his life changed this month. And we rejoice very, very much.

Chocolate was renounced, complaining, anger, sleeping in, doubt and more; all of them things without which our life would change for the better.

As for my part (Ayya Phalanyani), I intended to give up liking and disliking. And I have to admit: I completely failed. But it was worth a try! The intention to give up likes and dislikes drove my attention to see once more how much of it there still is and how deeply it is rooted.

The mind is just like that, it judges every single experience and decides whether something is perceived as good or bad, whether we like or dislike it. We need continuous full awareness and strong concentration to see our defilements and make every moment a ‘present moment’. Even if we are totally mindful and concentrated, we need to have strong determination to look at things as they really are. We need to have compassion towards ourselves, as just one among many imperfect human beings, so that we don’t punish or torture ourselves when we realise we are not yet perfect.  Then understanding can ripen and we can spiritually grow beyond our old habits and patterns of thinking and behaving.

One of my strongest aversions is towards cold water. Satiya, one of Santi’s friends and strong yogis took cold showers all last winter, just because hot water was not available once! I was deeply impressed. Another consideration is that our electricity bill has increased due to many visitors and monastics staying at Santi, whilst support has decreased. All this together triggered the new resolve that I will make for the next month of renounceathon -  giving up warm water for washing and showering (I’ll continue to take hot drinks to warm up after the shock!) But hey, afterall it is summer!

Friends, I hope you too keep on giving up all sorts of unnecessary things, such as bad habits, defilements or whatever else is weighing you down, for the benefit of yourself and in support of  Santi. Please check the following link for details on sponsoring a renunciant or becoming one yourself:  https://sites.google.com/site/renounceathon/

We are amazed that the young men, the monk and Nandiya, have been happy to stay under leadership of a woman and receive teaching from a female teacher. This is not too common among monks. We and our female lay guests are happy to see that this is possible! Many of the women who visit for a meditation retreat, especially the Asian women, tell me during the daily interview how healing it is for them to see this happen.
Santi might not be able to host and support so many monastics on the long run, but as long as we can we will, with great joy!

Thank you, friends, for your support.