The Nuns Community
The Order of Sīladhārā (Ten Precept Nuns) began in 1979 with the Anāgārikā ordination (Eight Precept Nuns) of four Western women at Chithurst Monastery.
For the first five years, the women lived as Anāgārikā in a cottage about ten minutes walk from the main monastery.
In 1983 they were given the Ten Precepts, and in the following year, all of the nuns - by then four Sīladhārā and four Anāgārikā moved to Amaravati Monastery, which was to be their new residence.
Since then a training structure has been established, consisting of the Ten Precepts and additional observances. There are currently 17 Sīladhārā and 6 Anāgārikā residing at Amaravati and Chithurst Buddhist Monastery.
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Sister BrahmavaraSister Brahmavara (Susan Pritchard) was born 6 August 1964 in Reading, England. She studied medicine at Sheffield University, trained as a doctor in Auckland, New Zealand and worked as a GP in Shropshire. She started meditating while she was a medical student under the guidance of SN Goenka and spent a few years in India at Goenka centres, studying Pali, sitting and serving on retreats. She came to live at Amaravati in October 2000 as a retreat centre manager but soon after arriving requested anagārika ordination. She ordained as a sīladhāra in October 2004. |
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Sister SumedhaI was born in 1973 in Leicester, England but spent most of my childhood either in the north of England or in the Western Isles off the north west coast of Scotland. From quite early I was interested in spiritual life and first visited Amaravati when I was 15. During that visit I read some of the teachings of Ajahn Chah. |
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Sister ChandasaraSister Chandasara (Louise Stack) was born in 1954 in Johannesburg, South Africa, and grew up in a Christian family. She was involved in revolutionary politics in exile in her twenties and later worked as a political researcher and analyst at the Centre for Policy Studies in Johannesburg for 14 years before coming to Amaravati in 2002, and ordaining as a siladhara in 2006. She has a BA (Hons) in African Politics and an MA in Linguistics (Semantics). Her lifelong quest has been, and continues to be, liberation and learning how to love unconditionally. |
