Anagarika Dhammadinna

On a sunny winter morning in Los Angeles my mother and I embarked on a pilgrimage up to Vancouver Island. We flew into Canada on a cold, crisp day then drove our rental car up to the retreat center through snowy woods. Parking by a snow bank, we collected our gear and walked up to the cabin where a group of people gathered around a small woman in brown robes. My mother, who had been on retreat with Anagarika before, introduced me to the woman in brown robes whose energy was so vibrant she seemed much larger than her actual size. Anagarika took one look at me and said, “So I have to be a lion tamer too.” Too shocked to be offended, not realizing that this was to be one of many future shakedowns, I made some sort of awkward greeting.

We said our hellos, settled into our cabin and thus began my first retreat. While sitting in silence with a group of strangers I felt my mother’s watchful eye on me. My mother watching me, my body uncomfortable, the cold, strange surroundings--the retreat was unbearable for many reasons. I couldn’t wait for it to end. At one point during walking meditation Anagarika forgot my name and referred to me as, “The Queen”. She clearly did not approve of me from the start and I was at a loss to know why. Still, through all the inner and outer discomfort, I somehow made it through the week. When I returned home I noticed that my entire perspective on everything had changed-- perceptibly and for the better. Right then and there I was committed to the path.

Years later, after Anagarika summarily dismissed a young hippie woman from retreat because she didn’t like her energy, my mother confronted Anagarika. She asked her why she was being so unkind to this girl who did nothing to deserve it. Anagarika’s reply was something to the effect of “you give students what you have to offer and I give what I have.” After my mother related this story to me I heard a couple other young women who had been on retreat with Anagarika say that they too had either been dismissed or felt disliked by her. It dawned on me that I was a young hippie woman, and for whatever reason she was uncomfortable with the likes of me.

Irregardless, Anagarika was a superb Dhamma teacher and I was persistent in my pursuit of her teachings. Though our relationship was fraught with ambivalence, she was my root teacher. It was she who gave me my first dhamma lessons, a gift so precious it can never be repaid. I had some familiarity with Buddhism before meeting her, through the talks of Alan Watts, Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield and through books like Zen Mind Beginners Mind and Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, but I never had a personal teacher before. Some of my friends relate feeling an initial warmth and unconditional love that drew them in to trust and love their teacher. I wasn’t drawn in by Anagarika’s warmth or welcome towards me, or even a natural comfort, but by the remarkable wisdom she so generously and tirelessly shared.

Anagarika was born in Austria in 1913. She immigrated to Canada in 1951 with her son and settled in British Columbia. In 1961 she took a freighter to India in search of answers to questions she carried with her since childhood. While on pilgrimage in India Anagarika discovered the Nalada Buddhist University. After hearing the abhidhamma taught by a Buddhist scholar at Nalada her path was clear. In 1964 she traveled to Sri Lanka where she was ordained as an Anagarika, a person who has given up most of their worldly possessions and responsibilities in order to commit their lives to Buddhist practice, by the late Venerable Nyanasatta Maha Thera. She returned to Canada as a brown robed forest nun, worked as a nurse, and taught dhamma.

Because the depth of Anagarika’s teachings were so rare in the West I was determined to continue learning from her through divorce, money problems and single parenthood. Each year I was privileged to travel to Canada to attend a retreat with Anagarika and soak up her wisdom. Spirit Rock and San Francisco Zen Center were newly forming and much closer geographically. But I continued to make the pilgrimage up north to various convents and centers where she held her retreats. Anagarika was extremely generous with her teachings and spent a great deal of time and energy on her small group of students. She introduced us to the suttas and to the abhidhamma. I don’t know of any other teachers who taught the abhidhamma to Westerners at that time, and, like Anagarika, I was drawn to the eloquence and depth of wisdom in these teachings. After each retreat I returned home to California transformed and continued to study and practice.

Besides offering her teachings and personal meditation instruction, Anagarika brought over some of the finest Buddhist teachers in the Theravadin tradition to share their wisdom with us on retreat. We were fortunate to receive teachings from the Venerable Piyadasi Maha Thera, Venerable Balangoda Anandamaitrey Mahanayaka Thera, Venerable Ayya Khema and Achan Sobin Namato. Many of the teachers she brought over were teaching in the West for the first time.

I learned as much about dhamma from Anagarika’s way of living as I did by her words. Her home was simple and mindful. I was struck by how few items there were in her broom closet when I went to get some cleaning products. This broom closet teaching greatly informed my work as a Buddhist homemaker. The same goes for how she made friends with her neighbors. I watched as she offered her neighbors kind words. As a woman in Buddhist robes in a conservative neighborhood this was a particularly skillful example of creating harmony. I went on to emulate her same spirit in my neighborhood.

A relationship with a teacher can take many forms. Our teachers are people, and by definition imperfect. We can search high and low for a perfect teacher, and some of us feel we’ve found one. But more important than a teachers personal struggles in their own awakening process, is their teachings. Anagarika offered beautiful, pure dhamma teachings, a rare gift that I will always treasure. Her teachings have become a part of me. Whether we are training to be architects, nuclear scientists, writers or any thing else, we are well served by a strong foundation. I am forever grateful to Anagarika for giving me a strong foundation in Buddhism. Although I’ve moved away from a strictly Theravadin perspective, her teachings are the bedrock of my understanding and practice.