Ayya Khema (1923-1997) was the first Western woman to become a Theravadan Buddhist nun. As such, she has served as a model and inspiration for women from all the Buddhist traditions who have sought to revive the practice of women's monasticism in modern times. Though her renown as a teacher is widespread, few know the truly amazing details of her life before her monastic ordination at the age of fifty-eight. And what a life it was. Born Ilse Kussel in Berlin, Germany, she grew up in a prosperous Jewish family that was ...
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Ayya Khema (1923-1997) was the first Western woman to become a Theravadan Buddhist nun. As such, she has served as a model and inspiration for women from all the Buddhist traditions who have sought to revive the practice of women's monasticism in modern times. Though her renown as a teacher is widespread, few know the truly amazing details of her life before her monastic ordination at the age of fifty-eight. And what a life it was. Born Ilse Kussel in Berlin, Germany, she grew up in a prosperous Jewish family that was broken up by Nazi terror in 1938. The story of her escape alone to Scotland, and her journey to rejoin her family in China, would be enough for a thrilling adventure novel in itself--but it is only the beginning of the story. Her later adventures included--but were not limited to--surviving the Japanese invasion of China; living the life of a suburban housewife in Los Angeles, California; journeying up the Amazon; studying in a Bolivian university; building a power plant in Pakistan; and establishing the first organic farm in Australia. Her Buddhist practice was a result of a pursuit of the spiritual life that began in her forties when she encountered spiritual teachers in India. She eventually founded a monastery in Sri Lanka, from where, through her books and her teaching travels, she became one of the most widely respected of contemporary teachers, particularly skilled in interpreting the Buddhist teachings for her fellow Westerners.
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Ayya Khema (1923-1997)played an important role in the ongoing revival of Western interest in Buddhism. Her autobiography "I give you my Life" (1997), completed just before her death, tells the story of the development of her commitment to Buddhism and spirituality and of her decision at age 55 to become a Buddhist nun. Each chapter in her brief book is introduced by a verse from the Dhammapada, a seminal Buddhist scriptural text consisting of short poems, which illuminates in a telling way the portion of her life under discussion.
Ayya Khema ("Ayya" is an honorific title for Buddhist nuns while "Khema" was the name of a nun during the Buddha's lifetime) was born Ilse Kussel in 1923 in Berlin to a prosperous, assimilated Jewish family. The family fled Germany before the Holocaust and Ilse, as a teenager, travelled by steamer to Glasgow, Scotland before joining her family shortly thereafter in Shanghai. She married in her late teens and travelled to California with her husband where she worked in a bank, had two children, and appeared settled into an American middle-class life. As a result, she tells us, of a deepening sense of spiritual unrest, she divorced her husband and married a childhood acquaintance named Gerd, whose family had also fled the Holocaust. She and Gern lived a wandering type of life in South America and Asia, where her husband was an engineer. The couple ultimately settled in Australia, bought a farm and raised shetland ponies. This marriage too ended with Ilse's, continued search for spiritual wisdom and her growing interest in meditation. Ilse became a Buddhist nun at the age of 55, helped establish three Buddhist convents in Sri Lanka, Australia, and Germany, became a meditation master, worked ceaselessly to revive the Buddhist order of nuns, and wrote prolifically about Buddhism.
Ayya Khema lived an inspiring and full life on many levels and she tells her story well. Apart from her decision to become a nun, I learned a great deal from her willingness to make a radical change in mid-life. It is important to see how people may change and develop throughout their lives, and I was moved to see this realized in Ayya Khema's story.
In many ways, Ayya Khema's autobiography radiates sincerity and purpose and fulfills its goal of speaking directly to the reader. This is especially true in her introduction and in the sections of her book following her ordination where she explains what the Buddhist path has meant to her. The final pages of the book, written when Ayya Khema knew she would soon die, have a rare immediacy and poignancy.
Most autobiographies conceal as much about their subject as they reveal, and Ayya Khema's autobiography is no exception. The book gives a good picture of the externals of Ilse Kussel's life but, I thought, too little of what was going on inside. I found myself wanting to know more about Ilse's two marriages and the reasons for their failures. There is a brief discussion of Ilse's attempt to recover her spirituality through Judaism, and I would have liked to hear more. Beyond references to the suffering of life and to the inevitability of change, I would have liked more detail of Ilse's early study of spiritual texts. And I would have liked more details on the course she pursued during her meditation retreats and on what it was she learned from the Indian and Buddhist masters she reveres as her teachers.
This autobiography shows effectively Ilse Kussel's transformation into Ayya Khema. It shows what was important to Ayya Khema when she became a nun and how she worked to realize herself as a Buddhist nun. We see Ilse Kussel/Ayya Khema througout her life as an intelligent strong-willed and determined woman. I still do not fully understand, after reading this inspiring story, the internal process by which Isle Kussel became transformed into Ayya Khema.
