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 Ayya Khema was a Buddhist teacher who through her teaching, lecturing, and writing, made Buddhism more accessible to women. In 1978, at the age of fifty-five, Ayya Khema, a Jewish woman from Berlin, took a Buddhist vow, dedicating her life to the Buddhist path. Over the next twenty years, she was to have a significant impact on Theravada Buddhism in the West. Ayya Khema established two monasteries; the Wat Buddha-Dhamma, a forest monastery, in 1978, in Sydney, Australia, and the Metta Vihara; the first Buddhist forest monastery in Germany, in 1997. Ayya Khema also organized the first ever global symposium of Buddhist Nuns in 1987. This resulted in the establishment of Sakyadhita, a worldwide Buddhist women’s organization. In that same year, she addressed the United Nations on World Peace and Buddhism- the first ever Buddhist nun to do so. Ayya Khema also wrote over 25 books on Buddhism and taught meditation throughout Europe and Australia. From 1989, until her death in 1997, Ayya Khema was the Spiritual Director of the Buddha-Haus monastery in Germany. |
Date of Birth: 02 Nov, 1923
Location: Germany
State: No State Provided
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Views: 72
Summary
Ayya Khema was born to Jewish parents in Berlin on November 2, 1923. At the outbreak of war in 1938, she escaped to Scotland with two hundred other children. Her parents escaped to China, and in 1940, the family was reunited in Shanghai. As war spread to the East, the family was put in a Japanese internement camp. Whilst in the camp, her father died. After the war, she immigrated to the States. She later got married and had a son and daughter. Between 1960 and 1964, she traveled with her husband and son throughout Asia. Here, she learned meditation for the first time. Ten years later, she started to teach meditation. In 1979, whilst in Sri Lanka, she became a Buddhist nun. She was given the name of Ayya, meaning Venerable and 'Khema' meaning safety and security. For the next eighteen years, she dedicated her life to lighting the path for women in Buddhism. She died in 1997, in Germany.
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Related Links:
www.geocities.com/tokyo/6774/a_khema.htm
www.buddhanet.net/masters/ayya-khema.htm
www.ayyakhemamandir.org
www.buddha-haus.de
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