Ayya Santussika, in residence at Karuna Buddhist Vihara (Compassion Monastery), spent five years as an anagarika (eight-precept nun), then ordained as a samaneri (ten-precept nun) in 2010 and as a bhikkhuni (311 rules) in 2012 at Dharma Vijaya Buddhist Vihara in Los Angeles.
Ayya Santussika was born in Illinos in 1954 and grew up on a farm in Indiana. While being a single mother, she received BS and MS degrees in computer science and moved with her two children to the San Francisco Bay Area. She worked as a software designer and developer for fifteen years. Her search for deeper meaning and ways to be of service led her to train as an interfaith minister in a four-year seminary program that culminated in an Masters of Divinity degree and a brief period of practice as a minister before ordaining as a Buddhist nun. She is currently serving on the Board of Directors for Buddhist Global Relief.
This is an examination of the steps in the Gradual Training as represented in MN 39 The Longer Discourse at Assapura. Here the Buddha includes beautiful similes for the five hindrances and the experience of the four jhanas. Our study has the aim to deepen our own practice and progress on the path.
Using the Buddha's advice to his son, Rahula, on developing different types of meditation, starting with meditating on the earth element internally and externally, and meditating "like the earth."
