Bhikkhuni Sakula

Thailand

Bhikkhuni Sakula

Thailand

Bhikkhuni Sakula was born in Kalasin, Thailand in 2491 (1948). She was one of 5 children. After the birth of her youngest brother, her mother passed away from the birthing process. She was 9 years old at the time. The baby boy had to be carried throughout the village from mother to mother to receive breast milk. The family had a challenging time. So, she and her sister were sent to live with her aunt in town.

She graduated from high school, and entered the Thai army, where she served as a social worker for the children and wives of servicemen. At age 20, she married and gave birth to her daughter, Lamyai. When the baby was only 2 months old, Sakula developed breast cancer and her husband abandoned her due to the fetid odor of the ulcerated breast cancer. She healed.

Sakula worked as a voice over for silent movies in the theater. She remarried and gave birth to her second child, a son. She divorced again, and sent her children to live with her aunt who raised her. Sakula head to the city to work. She purchased and sold vegetables wholesale by the truck load.

Then her aunt died. She collected her two children and put them to live in the vegetarian, Santi Asoke Buddhist Community under the abbotship of Bhikkhu Bodhirak. Several of her other relatives followed, and at age 32, Sakula entered the temple to live, as well, as a laywoman practitioner. She practiced meditation and all temple activities for 28 years, living in the Buddhist temple.

At age 60 she departed and ordained as a 10 precept Tasa Mata with Luang Por Dhammachat and wore brown robes. At age 64, she heard that Bhikkhunis were developing in Thailand. So, she went in search of them. She traveled to Uthai Thani province and saw one, who told her to travel onwards to Sakhon Nakhon to seek Samaneri ordination. She followed the advice and was granted Samaneri ordination in the Buddha Dhamma Satri Temple at the age of 65. She remained for 2 years, and then received Bhikkhuni ordination at the age of 67 at the International Women’s Meditation Center in Rayong.

Then Bhikkhuni Sakula began an amazing wandering mendicant’s journey travelling throughout the Northeast of Thailand to many temples, particularly abandoned temples. She refurbished them and worked with the village women. She even spent one year at a mountain temple where she served as a counselor for teen girls, women and elderly women who were sent from the prison to rehabilitate from drug addiction.

At the age of 69, in the year 2561 (2018), Bhikkhuni Sakula discovered an under-utilized temple with congenial laity and created Sunyata Bhikkhuni Aram at 263 Mu.3, Chiang Khruea, Amper Muang, Sakhon Nakhon 47000, where she is currently the Abbess. Actually, she wanted to ordain from the age of 18. Fortunately, she finally could. Now, at the ripe age of 74, her goal is to benefit women to pass through all suffering and enter a peaceful state of nibbana.