Ayyā Medhānandī

Ayyā Medhānandī episodes:

• 05.31.2024

  Like the Sun Awakening the Lotus

  Throughout history, hatred, human violence and horrific sufferings have plagued the world. Truth is never diminished by these worldly conditions. So we feed the mind with what supports inner peace and awakening and not with thoughts of depression, disappointment, despair,...

  
• 05.24.2024

  A Ray of the Absolute

  Just as the sun is eclipsed by the moon passing over it, so the mind is submerged in ‘totality’ due to the veil of our human conditioning. But we can shatter that darkness by diving deeply with moral vigilance and...

  
• 05.17.2024

  Unsurpassed Is the Protection of the Dhamma

  Impermanence stares us in the face. How then can we free ourselves to understand the raw truth of what we are? There is a sorrowless state, a way out of the pains of life where we can abide in blameless...

  
• 05.10.2024

  We Have Nothing To Fear – Reflections and Guided Meditation

  Emptying the mind of fearful thoughts, we stop clinging to anything of the world – one moment at a time. And we come to know a liberating joy. It’s a way to enter the dimension of transcendence that uplifts us...

  
• 05.03.2024

  Food for Awakening

  Peace, patience, and practice ripen with the quality of faith. We trust the teacher on a path distinguished by compassion and a diet for awakening the heart. “All suffering arises when we think about our own happiness. And all happiness...

  
• 04.26.2024

  The Buddha Was Right – Reflections and Guided Meditation

  As seekers of truth, we turn the wheel of Dhamma inwardly. There alone can we understand the mind’s purity and directly know the true rhythm of the heart, undiluted by worldly refrains. The sounds of the world can turn coarse...

  
• 04.19.2024

  Mount Everest

  As the witness of suffering, we gain new eyes to see. A doorway to knowing non-duality opens – there is no ‘you’, no ‘me’. We are in the realm of no separation in one moment – gone beyond opinions, beyond...

  
• 04.14.2024

  There Is An Oasis

  Too long we have been caught in the grip of anxiety, anger, and clinging that lead nowhere. But there is an oasis in the depths of our native humanity. To understand what is true, we must empty all that is...

  
• 04.06.2024

  Unencumbered

  Fire is our teacher – the fire of pain, the fire of persevering through difficulty and the fire of going beyond what we think we are capable of. For we are greater that we know and our journey is one...

  
• 03.30.2024

  Resilience

  The winds of change blow constantly. We seek shelter, gazing attentive and unobstructed into the mind – aware, in pure presence each moment. We sit, warming the heart and our precepts with gratitude. Stopping in this way, letting be, we...

  
• 03.20.2024

  The Power of Loving Kindness

  When universal love leading to liberation of the heart is ardently developed, unrelentingly resorted to, it becomes the foundation of our life. We travel in a divine vehicle, our inheritance from the Buddha, the sublime abiding of mettā, loving kindness....

  
• 03.09.2024

  We Are That Song

  Our suffering may feel too great or the mountain may look too high. But we are resilient and we have it in us to do this work, to walk this path – if we can give up thoughts of self-cherishing...

  
• 03.02.2024

  Out of This World

  By deeply examining the mind as the Buddha taught, we see our stark human predicament, why we suffer, and the real source of happiness. For he awakened to suffering’s end and the noble path to freedom. With immense gratitude for...

  
• 02.27.2024

  Give Up the Cloud

  When the mind is completely silent, we experience the peace and happiness of pure awareness. This far surpasses any worldly promise of impermanent gains or pleasures. Instead, through wise intuitive insight, we enter into a blessed interior seclusion. Metaphorically speaking,...

  
• 02.21.2024

  Kindness Through and Through

  Contentment and generosity nurture a quality of metta that is kind through and through. We learn to respond to life like the good earth that is ever patient with and tolerant of our heedlessness. Whatever you throw on it –...

  
• 02.11.2024

  In the Name of Wisdom

  What does it mean to be noble? As a daughter of the Buddha, I learn that no name, title, degree or pedigree can confer true wisdom, authority or respect; nor do opinion, tradition or entitlement bestow them – for as...

  
• 02.04.2024

  What Is Refuge in Buddha?

  Stay true to seeing with wisdom and be compassionate to yourself – then, gradually to all beings. Preserve, treasure, grow and rejoice in the moral fabric of your true nature and know its incomparable radiant light. But first, we must...

  
• 01.28.2024

  The Buddha’s Positioning System – BPS

  The Buddha gives us a flawless positioning system that will guide us to the coordinates of Truth. That ultimate refuge and peace is not to be known anywhere but in the sanctuary of our own heart. To find our spiritual...

  
• 01.20.2024

  The Ocean Cares for Each Wave

  Though we may feel lost in the world, on the path of purification we find secure refuge and blessings shower down upon us. It is by the power of our own mind that we bring forth what is resplendent in...

  
• 01.14.2024

  Give Peace a Chance

  With selfless awareness, we radiate good-will, that quality of loving-kindness, inwardly and to all beings, even to those who are indifferent or hostile, or to those who cause harm. This is the Buddha’s instruction to us in the Metta Sutta....

  
• 01.06.2024

  A Jet Plane to Nibbana

  Across millenia, the Buddha speaks of his awakening – teaching us how to take refuge, how to be fearless, how to walk the Middle Way, how to understand suffering, and how to know what to trust. Fear is the opposite...

  
• 12.30.2023

  On A Path We Trust

  Let us not serve the false, fierce tyranny of fear – withering, unworthy, not to be clung to, and not who we are. By emptying the mind of fearful thoughts, we stop clinging to anything of the world – one...

  
• 12.23.2023

  The Face of Holiness

  Through the lens of Truth, mindful and attentive, we pierce anger, sorrow, fear and complacency. We are on the cusp of realizing who we are. Clear present awareness leads us inwards. We are on track to let go, relinquish and...

  
• 12.16.2023

  Stay In Your Lane

  When the inner fires flare, stay in your lane – aware, present and know – even if you are on fire, you can still the inner turbulence and sustain peace. Resist wandering to the past or future; resist the viruses...

  
• 12.09.2023

  Chrysalis of the Monarch

  We are searching for the Unconditioned and the way to fulfill our highest potential as spiritual beings. Our journey of awakening simulates the monarch butterfly’s miraculous flight. Freed from its chrysalis, it emerges whole and ready to traverse unimaginable distances....

  
• 12.02.2023

  The Sacred

  The core teachings of the Buddha offer us a ready escape from the hells of hatred and hostility. Though the heart is perturbed, we reach deeply into our core to connect to that aquifer of Dhamma within us, calming the...

  
• 11.25.2023

  Measureless Liberation of Mind

  Nature is begging us to wake up especially when we find ourselves at the mercy of fear arising like a ghost in the dead of night. What will protect us from these intruders? At the moment of ambush, can we...

  
• 11.18.2023

  When You Get Close to the Sun

  What can protect us from the repercussions of negative and unwholesome mind states? Begin the journey, the archeology of our own heart. It’s a total cleansing. Like a mountain climber, we ascend the interior slopes and our burden lightens. We...

  
• 11.11.2023

  Patience is Love

  Patience is love, a faith both fearless and true. How can we know and embody that? How can we value each moment and care for it, patiently turning the mind away from the world to the peace within us –...

  
• 11.04.2023

  Truth and Reconciliation

  Can we face what we most fear and touch the well-spring of goodness, kindness and compassion within us? The first step towards Truth is taking responsibility for our own actions, intentions, and their consequences. Denial and distraction only numb us...

  
• 10.28.2023

  What Is The Solution?

  The Buddha said it simply. The awakened mind is the best solution. The mind-heart needs happiness to be well and to extend that well-being to others. So we tune inward, listen, meditate and resolve the dis-ease. We teach ourselves to...

  
• 10.21.2023

  Ice Melts

  We carry the seed of awakening. And yet we are so blind. Can we learn to see through the clouds of delusion, greed and hatefulness? Do we have the resolve and patience to begin and the humility and forgiveness to...

  
• 10.14.2023

  When the Mind Sees Itself

  How long must we wander misguided in life? To courageously seek Truth, extract all impurity from the mind under the scrutiny of the Wisdom Eye – silent, watchful, fully aware, and dedicated to inner purification. See what fills the space...

  
• 10.07.2023

  Who Do You Think You Are?

  Not-clinging spreads very fast, very far. Its fuel power is letting go attachment to ‘self’; to selfishness and the inversion of the mind into a cocoon of self-concern – which is spiritual death. There’s no truth in that. Aren’t we...

  
• 09.30.2023

  Under the Canopy of Dhamma

  Where is safety in a world burning with greed, hatred, fear and violence? It is within us. Under the protective canopy of Dhamma, with unshakeable faith in the Buddha’s awakening, we purify the heart – emulating his tactical strategies for...

  
• 09.23.2023

  The Sound of Silence

  Can we quieten the mind enough to hear that divine frequency of the heart’s innermost chamber? Into that stillness, we come, softly, humbly – to try – and we persevere, secluded from the noise of the world. As the fevers...

  
• 09.16.2023

  Unexpected Treasure

  Deep in the space of our hearts there is a sanctity unreachable by any vehicle other than wisdom. We travel there silently to explore the galaxies that lie within us. Until we try, we can’t know the wonders of that...

  
• 09.09.2023

  Taste the Mountain

  Rather than running away from suffering, we use it as the way to deliverance. Out of suffering, we draw beneficial mind states, especially compassion – not blaming our dukkha on any external or internal conditions but letting them go. If...

  
• 09.03.2023

  Holding the Chalice

  We underestimate the power of renunciation to gain our true spiritual inheritance from the Buddha. These deeper levels of practice require not a formulaic approach but faith enough to let go the clinging that perpetuates an endless cycle of loss...

  
• 08.27.2023

  The Fire of Illumination

  We wish for perfect conditions in life. But true perfection only arises within the awakened mind. So we are like mendicants of the present moment – not able to control or know what lies ahead. Let us not lose heart....

  
• 08.19.2023

  I Just Wanted Some Toothpaste

  The way out of pain is not in sense pleasure. But suffering can be a ticket to Nibbana – maybe not the one we asked for, but it’s in our hands. So we try. Taste the moment just as it...

  
• 08.11.2023

  Those Who Rightly Love Wisdom

  In a psychic feat for his sister, Sundari Nanda, the Buddha creates a vision of a beautiful lady who transforms into an old woman. Through this direct experience of impermanence, her mind is liberated. Likewise, those who rightly love wisdom...

  
• 08.07.2023

  Purest Gold

  The sublime attitudes of loving kindness, compassion, joyous empathy, and serene composure create for us a path, a moral training to guide us not to ransom our goodness or our intrinsic values for the fleeting joys of worldly gratification. As...

  
• 07.31.2023

  Silent Thunder

  The Dhamma is deep, subtle yet powerful enough to teach us how to stop, how to listen, how to see the truth of things. For what we thought we knew, we may have not really understood. So how can we...

  
• 07.26.2023

  Compassion Enough to Care

  Let us truly live with compassion enough to care. And share that beautiful mind energy with a depth of awareness and attention to each moment. Keeping far from the noise of the world, every breath, every new moment will arise...

  
• 07.19.2023

  My Religion is Kindness

  Joy comes softly. First, we plow through the labyrinth of our emotional compost. We know anguish, selfishness, and all their truant cousins. Then we learn skillful ways to let go. Dying to the ‘self’, the heart is purified. Even despair...

  
• 07.11.2023

  When the Canoe Starts to Tip

  Right mindfulness developed with meticulous appreciative attention on the breath enables us to tame the wilderness of the mind. If we are careening off course – just when the canoe starts to tip – we notice and immediately rebalance, regaining...

  
• 07.06.2023

  Behind the Mask of Fear

  What do we fear the most? Love, unconditional love. Learning to see intuitively, we truly see. And when we have eyes to see, we are fearless. We may not feel fearless but we know how to face our fear –...

  
• 06.29.2023

  A Way of Benevolence

  The Buddha guides us on a way of benevolence, worthy of our praise, worthy of our attention, worthy of our devotion. It extinguishes the fire of delusion in the mind to kindle the fire of awakening. No ‘one’ awakens but...

  
• 06.20.2023

  A Bow To Silence

  The spiritual path may be exceedingly long and demands nothing less than the most supreme culminating effort. But our patience and faith are radical.  In every moment of pure attention, insight into impermanence and awareness of Truth shatter our delusion....