Sister Vajirā (Hannelore Wolf) was a

dasa sil mata A dasa sil mata (Sinhala: දස සිල් මාතා ) is an Eight- or Ten Precepts-holding anagārikā (lay renunciant) in Buddhism in Sri Lanka, where the newly reestablished bhikkhuni (nun's) lineage is not officially recognized yet. ...

, a

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

ten precept-holder

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...

in Sri Lanka.

Lay life

Hannelore was looking for religious meanings and in early summer 1949 she came across the teachings of the

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in L ...

. Hannelore was so impressed that she came to the seminary group of Debes, one of the most prominent lay Theravada teachers at that time, and took part in her first “weeks of investigation” in an Adult Education College in the Lüneburger Heide area. She worked as a private teacher. In June 1954 the Sinhalese monk Ven. Nārada turned up in

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

and Hannelore took the opportunity to request to go to Ceylon and become a nun. Ven. Nārada gave Pali names to many Buddhists and Hannelore became Vajirā. After much turmoil she finally got her chance to go to Ceylon. She took on the 10 training rules and was ordained as Sister Vajirā by Ven. Nārada on the full moon of July in 1955 at the Vihāra Mahā Devi Hermitage at Biyagāma near

Colombo Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்பு, translit=Koḻumpu, ) is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo m ...

, where other Buddhist nuns (

or dasa sila upāsikā) lived.

Life as a nun

To provide her with greater quietude, supporters built a bungalow for her in the palm-tree forest of the monastery garden. However, she suffered internal lack and noticed that she could not possibly meditate all day long and became physically ill. Taking on scholastic work offered itself as a way out of her frustration. Having learned English quickly, she then started intensive Pali studies and soon started to translate texts and carried on correspondence about Dhamma topics with various people. One of the dāyakas of the monastery offered her healthier conditions and arranged for a nice bungalow to be built, into which she moved in 1959. Young Sinhalese women venerated her very much there, and one of them lived temporarily with her as a disciple. Around autumn of 1961 the English monk Ven. Ñānavīra Thera, who lived 40 km from her in a kuti in the jungle as a hermit, had sent her a text he had written, ''A Note on Paticca Samuppāda'', wherein he criticized the extension-over-three-lives interpretation. Thereupon an intensive exchange of letters followed. The early letters show a woman who, in her own thinking and discussion with Ven. Ñānavīra, earnestly searches a way to approach the essence of the Buddha's Teaching by repeated trial-and-error. This search finally yielded its fruit when she, by her own account (as given in a letter to Ñānavīra Thera), attained sotāpatti, or ''Stream-entry'' in late January 1962. The one who has "entered the stream" has ''ipso facto'' abandoned personality- view (sakkāya-ditthi), which is the self-view implicit in the experience of an ordinary worldling not free from ignorance, and understood the essential meaning of the Buddha's teaching on the Four Noble Truths. But the rapidity and intensity of the change of her views caused a kind of nervous breakdown and she disrobed, returning to Germany on 22 February 1962.

Back in Germany

Upon her return to Hamburg she ceased to have any contact with her former Buddhist friends. This, commented Ven. Nāṇavīra, was "a good sign, not a bad one- when one has got what one wants, one stops making a fuss about it and sits down quietly."''op. cit.,'' p.353 (Letter 84) After recovering from her breakdown she started to work for a textile machine factory, Artos, in Hamburg. She still held Ven. Nāṇavīra in high esteem. In 1986

Samanera Bodhesako Sāmanera Bodhesako (born Robert Smith, 1939–1988; known also as ''Ven. Vinayadhara'' and ''Ven. Ñāṇasuci'' in his early monastic life) was an American Buddhist monk. Born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1939, he studied at the University of Iow ...

had written to her from Ceylon to request permission to publish parts of her letters to Ven. Ñānavīra in the planned book Clearing the Path and she consented. Dr Hellmuth Hecker visited her in 1989, they had a two and half hours conversation and she stated that she was still a Buddhist. She died on 7 December 1991 in her room in Maschen.

Published work

The Letters of Sister Vajira
- Correspondence between Nanavira Thera and Sister Vajira, Path Press Publications, 2010, *
Sakka’s Quest: Sakkapañha Sutta (DN 21)
', Buddhist Publication Society, 1959

Notes

References

* Ñāṇavīra Thera, ''Clearing the Path: Writings of Ñāṇavīra Thera (1960–1965)'',

1988, 2003

External links

Ñāṇavīra Thera Dhamma Page
- An archive of Ñāṇavīra Thera's writings.
Path Press
- Publishers of works by Ñāṇavīra Thera
Full Biography
��by Dr. Hellmuth Hecker.
''Sakka’s Quest: Sakkapañha Sutta, Introduction, Translation and Comments''
Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, 1959.
''Last Days of the Buddha: The Mahāparinibbāna Sutta''
Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, 1964. Translation from the Pali into English, revised by Francis Story and introduced by

Nyanaponika Thera Nyanaponika Thera or Nyanaponika Mahathera (July 21, 1901 – 19 October 1994) was a German-born Theravada Buddhist monk and scholar who, after ordaining in Sri Lanka, later became the co-founder of the Buddhist Publication Society and autho ...

.
Letters
- An archive of Vajirā's letters. {{DEFAULTSORT:Vajira, Sister German Theravada Buddhists German Buddhists Buddhist writers Converts to Buddhism Buddhist nuns German scholars of Buddhism German women philosophers 20th-century German philosophers German Buddhist nuns 1928 births 1991 deaths 20th-century German women writers 20th-century German writers 20th-century Buddhist nuns German expatriates in Sri Lanka