Cate Kodo Juno

In my travels I have been very fortunate to meet many lovely people

Cate San is one of them

I actually read about Cate San many years ago I think it was in Nova magazine.

I went to our local "new age" shop and actually got her detains and I was going to track her down and find out more about her "Kannon Tour" of Japan.

But I lost her number and in my busy life I forgot about it.

Last year the Buddhist Society of Western Australia had Cate San as a guest speaker during the rains retreat, Sometimes I download the Friday night talks , and hers sounded very intersting.

I listened to her talk and was inspired to track her down and Visit her

Shes a lovely lady and very inspiring

You can find her website at Sacred Japan I've visited her temple at Wabi’an and its the most amazing thing .. like someone plucked a little temple out of Japan and Popped it down in Western Australia !

If you look at the Fire Ceremony Link on her main page there are some photos of Wabi’an.

Despite these being fantastic photos it was still one of those places I'm Glad i made the trip to see.

A Visit to Dhammasara

Today I finally went to visit the nuns up at Dhammasara

http://www.dhammasara.org.au/

Its about a 45 min drive so not that far.

Its a lovely spot and the only think you can hear apart from the comings and goings of the nuns, The angarikas and the Lay visitors is the call of the ravens that seem to like the place , I cant say I blame them :)

After I had given the food I took to one of the young Angarikas I sat outside for a while as I was a little early ( having not been there before I gave myself plenty of time in case i got lost)

After a while I was invited inside and i was surprised to see Venerable Suchina sitting beside Venerable Nirodha !

Actually part of me wasn't surprised I don't believe in coincidences.

Venerable Suchina is staying with the nuns for 2 months , and she arrived 2 weeks ago.

I've been a supporter of the nuns monastery on and off since it was built but its taken me 10 years to get off my bum and actually go and visit !

It must be some very odd ( good odd , not bad odd) Karma that made my first visit to our Local nuns cause me to run in to Venerable Suchina again !


I really enjoyed the morning up there its a lovely spot.

Nuns (Bhikkhunis)

I've been interested in Buddhism

for a long time and have visited Dharmaloka a few times over the years I've lived in Perth.

Ajhan Brham makes me laugh, his english sense of humor is great and hes a realy nice fellow.

At some point in the last few years I met Ajhan Vayama.

I actually heard her first , shes the main chanter on the Dharmaloka Friday night chanting MP3

To be very honest I cant recall the first time I met her clearly but it was up at Dhamaloka on a Saturday , she was up there with one of the other sisters and they where chanting the Metta Sutta for a lady.

When she had finished talking to the nice older lady , I said to her "hey are you the lady chanting on the MP3 ?"

She smiled and said she was one of them yes , and we proceeded to chat for a few minutes.

She has an amazing aura of peace about her one cannot help but feel calm in her presence.

I didn't know that when I met her she wasn't a fully ordained nun ,I don't think it ever occurred to me that Bhikkhuni ordination was such a big deal.

I guess she was a Bhikkhuni to me because i didn't know any better.

I had previously met Venerable Losang Chodron somewhere and Seen a number of Japanese Nuns in my visit to Japan.

I was unaware that the Theravada tradition was any different in its attitude to the ordination of Women than The Mahayana tradition.

So I was very happy for Ajhan Vayama when she and her sisters at Dhammasara became fully ordained nuns.

I happened to be in Melbourne the weekend afterwards and I deduced that Venerable Sucinta might have been involved in in ordination so I decided to go and visit her and thank her for helping make this historic event happen.

I spent about 2 hours at her Bikkhuni Residence in Suburban Melbourne.

http://www.sanghamittarama.org.au/

In parting she said perhaps we would meet again , I replied I would be happy to see her again she was a lovely lady and she made me smile.

Introduction

Welcome to my blog , here you will find my musings on various things

I suspect it will be as i am a little random and somewhat strange

Taranwen means "White Shield" in Welsh

To me this name invokes an idea of " The defender / protector of things that are good"

Not that I think I can do this but I do like the idea :)