Spring News ✨💦🌸Emerging from Winter Retreat with Happy Astro-Solar New Year's Blessings 🌸💦✨

[Dhammadharini Sangha]

Dear Venerables & Dhamma friends, 

Warm greetings to all of you as we emerge from our first full three month long winter retreat into the spring and the Astro-solar New Year ~
We hope that this note finds you and all your loved ones well in both body and heart~mind.

   "Earth Witness" Buddha amidst spring blossoms
   Dhammadharini monastery garden, Astro-solar New Year April 13th

~ Blessings New Year's Blessings from our monastic community emerging from retreat (below and @9:38 in video)
~ Project Updates  Holiday Giving & monastery Dana Sala Project news update (below and ~@13:30 in video)

~ Dhamma Dana  Upcoming Dhamma & meditation offerings and Vesak Buddha Day in May (below and @18:37 in video)
~ Covid Safety Joining in programs in-person and online (below and @19:40 in video)

~ Sangha News Incoming & new monastics with Dhammadharini and greater Bhikkhunis' community

~ A few closing words from our monastic community about their winter retreat experience

  Blessings  New Year's Blessings from our monastic community emerging from retreat (video)

 Our whole Dhammadharini monastic community would like to share our blessings with all of our ancestors, teachers, kalyanamittas, good and wise advisors, Dhamma friends, benefactors and all beings at this time of the Astro-Solar New Year. Starting this year with our first full three months long Dhammadharini winter retreat was a great boon for us, and we would like to share the blessings with all of you. We also rejoice thinking of the benefits to the nearly 100 people who joined us in a practice commitment during these past three months and/or who joined us for our fortnightly Winter Retreat Uposatha Program, undertaking and regularly renewing their Refuges & Precepts and joining together for Meditation, Dhamma reflections & Dhamma discussion. Please see "a few closing words" from our monastic community about their retreat experience below.

 
 lustral water for new years blessings with blossoms from monastery garden

 Project Updates  Holiday Giving & monastery Dana Sala Project news update

  First, we would like to express our appreciation to everyone who offered our Robes Dana, Lodgings Dana, Home-cooked Meal and Grocery Dana, Medical Fund Dana, and "All Requisites Dana" for the time of our winter retreat both in person and from afar. Much appreciation to our Dhammadharini Support Foundation and Inspiring Generosity Committee members who made that possible, and to our dana coordinator Lal Senanayake who organized and coordinated weekly hot-meal and grocery dana at both our monastery and hermitage during the whole winter retreat time. We also enormously appreciate our local Coyote Family Farms regular fresh vegetable offerings throughout winter retreat.
  We've received the news from our Dhammadharini Support Foundation financials team that everyone's generosity during the Holiday Giving Season, from Kathina, Thanksgiving, Giving Tuesday, and thru to the Lunar New Year during our retreat time has generously supported not only the winter retreat requisites, but also greatly contributed towards our Monastery Dana Project, the Monastic Travel Fund for supporting aspiring bhikkhunis and samaneris to be able to join us when safe & possible, and the Monastic Medical Fund. We expect them to share more detailed news with us all after the board's first full meeting of the year, and look forward to being able to offer our community a Covid-safe space to gather in our open air outdoors Dana Sala, if not for Vesak Buddha Day in May, then hopefully in time for Entering Vassa and Dhamma Day in July. More news coming soon.

 Dhamma Dana  Upcoming Dhamma & meditation offerings and Vesak Buddha Day 

  During our winter retreat, Ayya Tathaloka offered fortnightly Uposatha Dhamma teachings, with many thanks also to our guest speakers Ayya Sudhamma and Leigh Brasington. Then we went "from retreat to retreat" with Ayya Sobhana, after three months off, offering the excellent "Transformation" retreat. If you missed something, or you would like to watch & listen again ~ you can on our Dhammadharini Youtube page. 
  Upcoming teachings. Ayya Sobhana will again be offering weekly meditation & Dhamma talks on Tuesday nights together with Sutta Discussion group on Sunday afternoons leading up to this year's Vassa. We'll also be once again offering meditation time together on Sunday mornings online.
  Vesak Buddha Day is coming up six weeks from now on the May full moon supermoon on May 25th-26th. Every full moon from now thru Vesak leading up to the Vassa is a supermoon this year!  We will be sharing more information with you very soon about the date and Vesak program offerings. 

 founding abbess Ayya Tathaloka's blessings for the New Year
welcoming all for Covid-safe in-person & online Buddha-Dhamma Sangha

 Covid Safety Joining in Dhammadharini programs in-person and online

  We are hearing that many of our community members are now getting vaccinated for Covid prevention. Since we are just emerging from winter retreat, none of our Dhammadharini monastic community members are fully vaccinated yet. Ayya Sobhana and Ayya Tathaloka have begun the process with shot #1 of 2, and others will follow. For now, as advised by the CDC, we continue practicing wearing masks and social distancing.
  For now, we're welcoming day visitors for out-of-doors, socially distanced, masked visits and making offerings of food and other requisites. We'll be continuing to offer online teachings, and as our Dana Sala project unfolds, we hope to be able to offer our community a lovely Dhamma teaching and meditation space outdoors for local participation and small gatherings. We'll be sharing more news with you about this as it unfolds...

  We are now again also accepting longer-term resident visitors who have a negative Covid test shortly before coming, and who are happy to undertake a two-week quarantine retreat upon arrival at either our monastery yurt or at our hermitage's lovely Ratana Kuti, during which time they will take another Covid test, to ensure the safety of our resident monastic community. After negative Covid tests and completing quarantine, the visitor will be able to join together in all activities with our resident monastic community. We especially would like to welcome visitors who aspire for longer term stays, especially for all or a large part of the Vassa, and for the entire three months of our next 2022 Winter Retreat. For resident visitors who haven't visited us before, we warmly welcome you to have your first extended resident visit with our Dhammadharini community this spring for six weeks: 2 weeks quarantine retreat + one month with monastic community at Dhammadharini Monastery and/or Aranya Bodhi Hermitage (first time resident visitors application form, return visitors form). 
  We are delighted to welcome this year as our first resident visitor, Brenna Artinger, the new president of the Alliance for Bhikkhunis (AfB). The AfB has been a great support to us over the years, and we cannot appreciate enough their essential support of Theravada Bhikkhunis' communities around the world during this pandemic. 

  We also deeply appreciate our lay stewards Linda and Sophie who joined us for the whole winter retreat and continue on with us now, hopefully at least until we can welcome and safely integrate in new stewards, if not longer. We hope to be able to welcome in new monastic life aspirants and anagarikas and support our longer time Anagarikas to undertake Samaneri ordination when they are ready.
  In line with our mission to support Bhikkhunis and Bhikkhuni ordination, we also aspire this year to be able to welcome in more good and aspiring candidates for Bhikkhuni ordination. We have chosen two most promising bhikkhuni ordination candidates, and will be moving ahead with this plan as soon as we are safely able with the evolving pandemic. We deeply appreciate those who donated towards the Bhikkhuni Travel Fund during the holidays, which will make this possible when all other supportive conditions come together. Anumodana Sadhu!

  Sangha News Incoming & new monastics with Dhammadharini and our greater Bhikkhunis' community

   Our monastics at large - Ayya Suvijjana has completed her time at Heartwood and has gone to visit our good friend senior bhikkhuni Ayya Sudhamma at the Charlotte Buddhist Vihara where she will be offering a family program on April 24th "Everyone is Family: Loving-kindness Begins at Home" suitable for children of all ages. Ayya Niyyanika is completing winter retreat at Aloka Vihara Forest Monastery and we hope to see her for a short visit to us this spring. Anagarika Ariyasara, now a resident of Amaravati, has been much benefiting from winter retreat at there; Loung Por/Ajahn Sumedho has returned and been teaching regularly. Anagarika Sama's father has passed away, and she continues on leave to support her elderly mother until another caregiver, short in supply during Covid, can be found. From next week Anagarika Paññavimutti will be away with faithful friends of Santi Stupa's BHMC Be Happy Meditation Club in San Jose while she undertakes a 3-week long course of medical treatment.

 Ayya Suvijjana welcoming families and children of all ages 
  for "Everyone is Family: Loving-kindness Begins at Home" April 24th on Zoom 

  Hopefully incoming to Dhammadharini - We have quite a backlog of residential visitor applications from last year (more monastic life aspirants than the previous year, and younger overall); and our visitors coordinator Samanerin Kaccayana is faithfully working to contact them all. We have accepted and hope to be able to welcome Bhikkhuni Vandana from India who applied to join us last year, and Samaneri Anuvidita from our sister monastery Anenja Vihara in Germany, for the Vassa - if pandemic restrictions allow. Ayya Tathaloka had been invited and planned to travel to Germany last winter to offer Bhikkhuni ordination at Anenja Vihara, but was unable to due to Covid restrictions. Hopefully we can welcome at least one of the samaneris here to Dhammadharini, and Ayya T can travel to Germany this coming winter instead.
  New ordinations with our great bhikkhunis' community - The European Bhikkhuni sangha has begun to grow more rapidly now with the presence of Bhikkhuni teachers, and new monastery projects taking off. In January, Samaneri Jutindhara, who undertook Anagarika precepts with Ayya Tathaloka in Cambodia in Jan 2019, undertook Samaneri Pabbajja at Anenja Vihara, with Ayya T's blessings.  On April 12th, one more aspirant, Carolin has undertaken Anagarika precepts and training at Sirisampanno Kloster in Germany with Ayya Sucinta as preceptor, receiving the new name of Anagarika Sirinanda. Meanwhile in Thailand, bhikkhunis' communities around the country have gone ahead with their annual temporary samaneri ordination programs from Mar 31st to Apr 14 with special dedication for the astro-solar new year.

 

 Samaneri Jutindhara's Pabbajja at Aneñja Vihara in Germany  | Anagarika Sirinanda's Anagarika precepts day at Sirisampanno Kloster Germany

  Sangha news from our related Bhikkhunis' communities. During our winter retreat time, we received news that Santi Forest Monastery in Australia's Southern Highlands outside Sydney will be transitioning leadership. Ayyas Jitindriya and Jayasara are founding a small retreat hermitage further south, Viveka Hermitage, and Dhammasara monastics will come to lead up in the Santi Forest. This is a great boon, as Santi is an awesome forest monastery, and Dhammasara, although large, is becoming quite full.

  Also at Mahapajapati Monastery in the Mohave Desert in California, Ayya Gunasari, now quite elderly, has retired from active duties as founding abbess, and her bhikkhuni disciple Ayya Kosalla Vipassini from Korea has taken up leadership and is actively teaching. You can read Ayya Kosalla's regular Dhamma letters here.

  A few closing words from our monastic community about our winter retreat experience

The following are extracts from our community's sharing of gratitude, inspiration, appreciation, loving-kindness, blessings and wisdom post retreat. The reflections may be read in full here...

  

Her serenity is transmitted.....

Winter Retreat of the year with Ayya Khema’s teaching this time was a precious time.... I am deeply grateful for having this opportunity to obtain wise answers from this teaching.

    With mudita,   

    Ayya Sucitta

It was very clear this year how the community has evolved, and our way of holding retreat together becoming more settled, balanced and fruitful. As a long term resident of Dhammadharini — it is most inspiring to see how our newer residents and new friends add so much to the success of our community practice.  And inspiring to see how the friendship among long-time companions continues to grow.

- Ayya Sobhana

[A]ll this generosity of support has been a powerful and humbling experience. I can see that it has been given in purity of heart, and that the goodness of heart you have all cultivated in offering these things is an amazing blessing that you have offered to yourselves. I can only appreciate and rejoice in seeing that goodness in you -- my thanks again to everyone. This time has been so good for me, and I am so glad to have shared it with all of you. 

With metta,

Samanerin Kaccayana

Overwhelming joy and gratitude fill my heart. I am so deeply touched and inspired by your support of the Sangha during this winter retreat. It is truly inspiring and joyful to witness such acts of boundless generosity. Such kindness certainly inspired me to practice more deeply and joyfully. Thank you for the beautiful retreat.

Much Metta to you

Samaneri Dhammavara

This retreat, I so appreciated the structure created by Ayya Khema’s teachings, and the way we were working with them as a community, as well as the freedom we each found within that structure. All of that felt like a container that brought us together, but also gave each of us space to practice in our own way within it. [W]e had such a strong sense of that safe container being held by our larger community - I sincerely hope that the benefits of our practice have also been spreading outwards.

With much metta,

Anagarika Thavira

This winter retreat was the best retreat I’ve had since coming to Dhammadharini. I really felt the support of [those in the] community, driving so far, bringing meals, groceries and supplies, and the growing list of supporters who pledged to cover the needed requisites.  It helped to keep me focused on why I am here- to practice, and it brought such a natural joy to my day when blessings were shared. This uplifting joy was what I returned to over and over. 

Anagarika PaññaVimutti

It was a pleasure to serve in the quiet community at Dhammadharini Monastery during the winter retreat. To be able to see Ayya Khema on video was a blessing that will enhance all my listening to her recorded talks in future. The breadth of her talks, covering the foundation and basics of practice all the way to the final “Path and Fruit” moments, was truly heart-opening and inspirational. Altogether a fruitful and peaceful time.

Upāsikā Linda

There was a felt sense that with the change of Winter to Spring, I could see myself in that too... there was so much growth and maturity that I could see reflected in the budding of flowers this time of year. Not only had I grown in my cooking skills, but also an equanimity to embrace whatever is going on with ease. I want to thank everyone in this community whose presence has been a blessing for me and this world, as well as Ayya Khema's 'tough love' and the overflowing generosity of lay supporters near and far. With much metta [from Sophie] 🌸

   

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Dhammadharini

 Sangha 

 

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☸ our monastery

Dhammadharini Sonoma Mountain Bhikkhuni Monastery

6791 Sturtevant Dr, Penngrove CA

 94951 USA

Email: dhammadhari...@gmail.com

Phone or text: 707.583.9522

 ☸ our hermitage 

Dhammadharini's Aranya Bodhi Awakening Forest Hermitage

Email: awakeni...@gmail.com

Mailing Address: PO Box 16, Jenner, CA 95450  USA

Voicemail or text: 707.583.9523

[Dhammadharini Sangha]

Dear Venerables & Dhamma friends, 

Warm greetings to all of you as we emerge from our first full three month long winter retreat into the spring and the South & Southeast Asian Astro-solar New Year ~