1.1 Early life

Bhikkhunī Kolonnawē Kusuma (Kusuma Devendra b. Gunawardene) was born to Emilia Bartholomeuz Rajapaske and Don Cornelis Gunawardene in the town of Kolonnawa in Southern Sri Lanka on 9 October 1929. The third child in a family of five children, she grew up a practicing Buddhist, when the country was still a British colony. Her father, a civil engineer working with the British in the Government Public Works Department, was a Buddhist leader and social worker in the town of Panadura, in Southern Sri Lanka (Kusuma 2012: 1–3).

As a child, Kusuma became familiar with the rhetoric of nationalism and Buddhist resistance to Christian proselytization. Her father managed a Buddhist Sunday school where her mother taught weekly. Her mother’s favourite paper, the Sinhala Bauddhaya (Sinhala Buddhist) (Kusuma 2012: 18), was founded by Anagārika Dharmapāla, the renowned Buddhist nationalist associated with a ‘reformed’ and ‘modern Buddhism’ (Bond 1988: 53–74; Amunugama 2016). Kusuma learned the rote recitation of Buddhist gātās (stanzas) at an early age. Some of them, unique to the area of Matara in Southern Sri Lanka, were also very familiar to Kirinde Sri Dhammananda, an internationally celebrated monk, who came from the area and later became the head monk at the Buddhist Maha Vihāra (temple/monastery), at Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Kusuma was to teach there frequently after her bhikkhunī ordination. Kusuma and her siblings grew up attending the local Sunday school, regularly observing moral cultivation, sil (Sinh; Pāli sīla), including the Eight Training Precepts on full moon days. In addition to four of the Five Training Precepts observed by Buddhists, the Eight Precepts included refraining from: non-celibacy, taking food at wrong times, attending shows, the use of items of personal adornment, the use of high and large seats or beds, and accepting gold and silver. Observing sil involves wearing white and spending the day meditating and listening to talks on Dhamma (Buddhist teachings) by monastics. At about age six, Kusuma began learning the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (the Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness), a text considered fundamental to meditation (Kusuma 2012: 11–13).

1.2 Education and Buddhist networks

At age three, first attending the Kolonnawa Junior Government School, Kusuma studied in the Sinhala medium. Three years later, she attended Ānanda Bālikā Vidyālaya (established in 1925 by Anagārika Dharmapāla) and took classes in the English medium, resulting in bilingual fluency at an early age (Kusuma 2012: 14–15). She learned about the life and practice of female Buddhist renunciants from the nuns who frequented the family home. At that time, female renunciants were not fully ordained nuns (bhikkhunīs). They generally wore white or a combination of white and yellow or salmon, and were referred to as upāsikās or female devotees (Salgado 2013: 113–114). Kusuma had vivid memories of visiting her maternal aunt, Vinanda, who lived as a ten-precept mother (dasa silmātā/silmātā) or nun for several decades until she died in her eighties (Kusuma 2012: 75, 125). Kusuma’s own mother, though not officially ordained, wore yellow robes shortly before she passed away. The renowned Burmese nun Sister Mavicari, and the highly respected bilingual nun Sister Sudharma of Biyagama, were regular visitors at her home (Salgado 2013: 129–130).

The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, and the fear of Japanese bombings, prompted the family’s departure from their Kolonnawa home. Residing for about a year on the family paddy estate, Kusuma, in lieu of attending school, learned to winnow paddy. With the danger subsiding, her family returned home and Kusuma attended Ananda College, a foremost (predominantly) boys’ Buddhist school in Colombo, and obtained the London-based Senior School Certificate (SSC) in science subjects (Kusuma 2012: 21–27). She planned to attend medical school; though she passed some of the requisite entrance exams, she failed the oral entrance exam. She later learned that ‘the interview board […] had decided that [her] true aptitude was for languages, and that [she] should be encouraged to proceed in that line and leave the study of Medicine to the boys…’ (Kusuma 2012: 28). She proceeded to teach at the primary school of the prestigious Royal College of Colombo. After obtaining a certificate in teacher training, she taught science courses at her alma mater, Ananda Balika. There she pioneered the very first science laboratory at the school (Kusuma 2012: 29–32). In 1956, she married Asoka Devendra, a Maths teacher, while continuing to teach full time. They had six children.

In 1969 the Asia Foundation and the National Science Foundation awarded Kusuma scholarships that enabled her to travel and study for an MSc Degree at Ball State University, Indiana, USA. She spent that summer investigating the origins of life in pond water. However, beset with homesickness for her children, and frustrated that her studies in microbiology did not answer her questions about life and death, she decided to discontinue studying the sciences and returned to Sri Lanka to study Buddhism. She received a B.A. in Buddhist Philosophy, English, and Pāli from the University of Sri Jayawardenepura at age forty-four and began teaching there as an instructor of English as a second language. She continued teaching there for about twenty years until her retirement. The University of Sri Jayawardenepura, originally established as a piriveṇa (centre for monastic learning), was well equipped with extensive library resources on Buddhism. She completed her M.A. degree on sati (mindfulness) at the university in 1981 (Kusuma 2012).

Kusuma and her husband took weekly Abhidhamma (Buddhist philosophy or meta-Dhamma) classes for about five years, deepening Kusuma’s knowledge of Buddhism. While already well versed in Pāli texts, she and her family members began attending meditation retreats at the Kanduboda Vipassana Meditation Center where she became connected with well-known silmātā-teachers of meditation including Kobeigane Kotawane Shantilatha and Moonemalpe Dhammapali. The latter conducted Devendra’s eventual Ten-Precept ordination (Kusuma 2012: 63–64, 111; interview with the author, July 2004).

Kusuma’s family knew other renowned monastics such as the German monk Nyanaponika Thera and Balangoda Ananda Maitreya Thera (Kusuma 2012: 56–57). She became acquainted with the American monk Bhikkhu Bodhi when he lived in Sri Lanka. She also hosted Ilse Ledermann (from Germany), later ordained as Ayya Khema. Maintaining connections with the monastics and family friends she knew helped ground her research on dasa silmātās and promoted bringing them state recognition in the 1980s (Kusuma 2012: 105–109). Kusuma’s childhood acquaintances and her school and university friends became a strong network of support, sponsoring her projects and travels in later life.

1.3 Research, renunciation, and ordination

One might trace Kusuma’s earliest renunciatory practice to her observation of sil as a child. In her mid-thirties, she participated in eight- to twelve-month retreats at the Kandubodha Vipassana Meditation Center. When her youngest daughter, diagnosed with ovarian cancer at the age of twenty, passed away in 1982, Kusuma began to wear white, the colour of mourning (and renunciation) while observing the ājīvaṭṭhamaka sīla, cultivation in the Eight Lifelong Training Precepts (interview with the author, July 2004). Those training precepts, in addition to the five precepts commonly observed by householders, include three additional precepts on speech – refraining from the use of (a) slander, (b) abusive language, and (c) meaningless speech. Unlike the better known Eight-Training Precepts, they detailed specific forms of restraint in speech and allowed partaking in an evening meal. The ājīvaṭṭhamaka sīla are often observed by women who remain in the family home (Salgado 2013: 107; 250, note 11). In the early 1990s, and after her official retirement as a teacher, Kusuma began living away from home on a more permanent basis. Handing over familial responsibilities to her children, she led a more itinerant life at different religious centres (interview with author, July 2004). She had lived away from family for about five years when she ordained as a dasa silmātā in 1996. Shortly thereafter she led the 1996 bhikkhunī ordination in Sarnath (Daily News 1996a).

Kusuma’s early interest in Buddhist nuns may be traced to interactions with her silmātā aunt and the visiting nuns who frequented the family home. Her academic research on Buddhist nuns began in the early 1980s with her receipt of a small grant from the YMBA. In 1982–1983, Lowell Bloss, a professor of Religious Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in the US, visited Sri Lanka to conduct research on silmātās and met Kusuma. She introduced him to nunnery centres throughout the country and served as an interpreter while continuing to collect her own research data (Bloss 1987: 28, note 1). The research that she and Bloss conducted was among the earliest conducted on silmātās in the early 1980s, together with that of Lily Beatrice Thamel (a Catholic nun who was completing an M.A. thesis on the subject; see Thamel 1983) and Nirmala S. Salgado (then a research officer at the International Center for Ethnic Studies in Colombo). Visits to about 200 nunnery hermitages convinced Kusuma that the marginalization of the silmātās needed rectification (Devendra 1988: 262–266). She met with President J. R. Jayawardene and later his wife, Elina Jayawardene, as well as government officials, urging them to establish a department promoting the uplift and organization of silmātās. She recommended a ‘social reform’ and that the nuns ‘be supported by legitimate and executive state powers’ (Kusuma 2010: 189). Her interaction with state officials contributed to the first state recognition and support of silmātās (Kusuma 2012: 105–107). Kusuma’s research had prompted her to reflect on the ‘importance of the resurrection of the Bhikkhuni Order’ in Sri Lanka (Kusuma 2012: 119). Those thoughts could not have proved more timely, given that others in Sri Lanka and beyond had begun advocating the establishment of a Theravāda bhikkhunī order at that time. In 1987, Kusuma received state funding to attend the first conference held by the Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women (SIABW). She became a founding member of that association, later serving as president of the Sakyadhita branch in Sri Lanka. She was appointed a member of the Vinaya Research Committee led by the German scholar Friedgard Lottermoser, and in 1988 travelled to Germany to begin research on the Pāli Vinaya (Kusuma 2015: v). She later helped organize the 1993 SIABW conference in Sri Lanka.

George Bond, who was conducting research on Buddhism in Sri Lanka in the early 1980s, has suggested that the silmātās ‘shared a reformist perspective, much like Dharmapāla’s’ and that ‘they represented one of several reform movements’ (Bond 1988: 67). Dharmapāla’s goals in supporting Buddhist nuns and the bhikkhunī order are cited among practitioners who sought to bolster the position of female renunciants (Salgado 2013: 162–163). It is likely that his perspectives impacted Kusuma’s work. Kusuma sought assistance benefitting the silmātās, not just by garnering material support for them but also by publicizing their activities and appealing to state officials on their behalf. Her concern was that, despite their deep devotion, the silmātās mostly lived in destitution and had been accorded little recognition.

To that end, Kusuma assisted with the establishment of nunnery centres flourishing to this day, including the Devanapatis Samatha Vipassana Meditation Centre near Kandy, and the Dekanduwala Dhamma Training and Meditation Center at Horana, which became a prominent training centre for bhikkhunīs. The current Sakyadhita Bhikkhunī Training and Meditation Center (Gorakana, Panadura) is a legacy of Kusuma’s dedication. Her science teacher originally offered her the land where it now stands. However, on Kusuma’s insistence, the land was gifted as a centre for nuns instead (Kusuma 2012: 121–122). Using donations from foreign trips, Kusuma contributed to the construction of a hostel for bhikkhunīs and women at Sadaham Sevana in Colombo, though the plans for the hostel did not transpire as she had hoped. Some donations she received from her trips, together with support from the Buddha Haus in Germany, led to the successful establishment of what became her base: the Ayya Khema Meditation Center, in Horana. It was declared open on 8 December 2013 (Kusuma 2012: 190–197; Padmasiri 2013).

In her efforts to support the dasa silmātās and establish a Sri Lankan bhikkhunī order, Kusuma collaborated with monastic advocates, including the senior Buddhist monk Mapalagama Vipulasara, president of the Maha Bodhi Society of India, to arrange a higher ordination for Sri Lankan nuns. In contrast to silmātā ordinands who affirm ten training precepts, those accepting the higher ordination (upasampadā) would take 311 precepts, potentially allowing them recognition as full-fledged monastics of the community (sangha). Supporters of the higher ordination of silmātās hoped to raise their educational level by giving them access to a bhikkhunī training program, and the higher ordination. They also aimed to garner recognition for silmātās that would enhance lay support of them and bring them out of destitution. Select silmātās were trained and educated at the Parama Dhamma Chaitya Pirivena in Ratmalana, near Colombo, in preparation for a bhikkhunī ordination.

There were some who opposed the higher ordination of Sri Lankan Buddhist women in the Theravāda tradition, asserting that the loss of the Theravāda lineage of bhikkhunīs meant that there were no extant Theravāda bhikkhunīs to conduct the ordination as prescribed by the Pāli Vinaya tradition. Advocates of the higher ordination of Theravāda nuns argued that such an ordination was indeed legitimate since the Dharmaguptaka lineage could be traced to that of the Sri Lankan bhikkhunīs who had first introduced the higher ordination to China (see section 2.2, below).

The chief incumbent of the Bo Miyun Sa temple in Seoul, South Korea, who offered to arrange support for the organization and funding of the ordination of the Sri Lankan nuns, requested that they first learn the Korean ordination procedure. Kusuma spent three months at the Bo Miyun Sa temple in Seoul studying that procedure. Her research confirmed that the Korean Dharmaguptaka Vinaya ordination procedure was very similar to that of the Pāli tradition (Kusuma 2012: 131–136). Nevertheless, faced with setbacks in implementing the higher ordination of Sri Lankan nuns, Vipulasara considered cancelling the arrangements. Kusuma persuaded him to desist from so doing, whereupon he invited Kusuma to lead the Sri Lankan nuns in the ordination telling her:

there is only one solution […]. [Y]ou are the only person who is committed enough and qualified enough to face this challenge […;] if you agree to give leadership to this team of Nuns, I will go ahead with this project!’ (Kusuma 2012: 137)

Kusuma’s response to Vipulasara is indicative of how her research interests in nuns culminated in engendering her full renunciation and bhikkhunī ordination:

For a moment I was stunned by this totally unexpected suggestion. Then I thought that if I said ‘No’ to this request, I may regret it for the rest of my life. Already I had left home and was living more or less an ascetic life and my family no longer needed me […] So what did I have to lose? I spoke up and told the Ven. Vipulasara Thero, ‘Ven. Sir, if this is the only alternative, and if you think that I am really suitable. I will gladly undertake this great challenge, even if I have to risk my life in doing so.’ (Kusuma 2012: 137)

The opposition in Sri Lanka was palpable. Nevertheless, arrangements were made to safely conduct the higher ordination and give a new recognition to Buddhist nuns. Shortly after returning from Korea, Kusuma was ordained as a silmātā at the Kelaniya Raja Maha Viharaya (Daily News 1996b). On 8 December 1996, she led nine other silmātās in a Korean higher ordination in Sarnath, India. The nuns were asked to live in Sarnath doing missionary work for two years (Kusuma 2017b: 28–31). In 1998, she assisted with the translations and procedures for another ordination of Sri Lankan nuns (conducted by nuns from Taiwan) at Bodhgaya, with whom she is pictured as a participant (Daily News 1998). The Bodhgaya ordination was funded and coordinated by monastics from the Fo Guang Shan Monastery in Taiwan (Foguang Shan Monastery 1998; Chuehmen 2007: 23). Because questions about the origins and lineage of the prior Korean ordination had been bruited earlier, it was deemed necessary to publicize the Bodhgaya bhikkhunī ordination as ‘authentically Theravāda’ to practitioners in Sri Lanka. Accordingly, the bhikkhunīs ordained in Bodhgaya travelled to Sarnath, where they participated in a ceremony whose renunciants comprised Sri Lankan monastics alone – so as to affirm the Theravāda character of their ordination (Divayiṇa 1998). Kusuma was the lead bhikkhunī participating in that ceremony (Kusuma 2017c: 35–36). Her contribution to the Bodhgaya bhikkhunī ordination helped facilitate annual ordinations of bhikkhunīs that continue to this day at Dambulla.

Kusuma continued to reside at the Maha Bodhi Center, returning to Sri Lanka shortly before her eldest son passed away due to cancer in December 1998. She proceeded to live at the Vipassana Center of the Wijerama Mawatha temple in Colombo for eight years, where she led daily meditation sessions and discussions (Kusuma 2012: 160–174). After leaving the temple, she led a semi-itinerant life travelling and giving presentations in Sri Lanka and abroad. Eventually basing herself at the Ayya Khema Center, she frequented different locales in and around Colombo, including an apartment at Maharagama close to family members, and Sadaham Sevana, where she began to work with the monk Athuraliye Rathana to build a hostel for nuns (Kusuma 2012: 164). At the age of 89, she handed over the administration of the Ayya Khema Center to a recently ordained pupil, Bhikkhunī Kotte Dhammadinna. A friend, Dr Samadhi Rajapaksa, founder of the Institute of Palliative Medicine, Matara, invited her to move to Matara, where she spent several months in 2019, providing daily counselling and Dhamma teachings to cancer patients, before returning to the Colombo area. She lived at different nunnery centres for much of the time during the coronavirus pandemic, teaching junior nuns in person and delivering online talks.

Kusuma had trained, organized, and participated in the higher ordinations of nuns from Sri Lanka and abroad throughout her life, including at Fo Guang Shan Monastery, Taiwan (2000), at the Tapodanārāmaya temple near Colombo (2002), at Anuradhapura (2004), and at other venues in and around the Colombo area. She spoke and taught at conferences and retreats, where she addressed interfaith audiences, scholars, and Sri Lanka Buddhist and householder communities throughout the world.

Kusuma passed away at Lanka Hospitals, Colombo, on 28 August 2021 due to complications with COVID-19. Because of pandemic regulations, only one family member was allowed to attend her funeral.

2.1 Dasa silmātās and bhikkhunīs

Kusuma’s research on nuns, and her advocacy for their support, echoes the perspectives of Dharmapāla and others, who viewed nuns as subjects adversely impacted by colonization and in need of succour. Her initial research on Sri Lankan nuns, submitted to the Department of Pāli and Buddhist Studies, University of Sri Jayawardenepura in 1987 (in fulfillment of the requirement for a doctorate), was rejected. However, she spent three lakhs in Sri Lankan Rupees to publish it later as a book, The Dasasil Nun: A Study of Women’s Religious Movement in Sri Lanka with an Outline of its Historical Antecedents (2010) (personal communication with the author, June 2012). In tune with contemporary views about the emancipatory attitudes of the Buddha that diverged from ‘Brahmanic’ thought, she contrasts the ‘post-Vedic Period’ when the ‘position of women drastically changed for the worse’ (Kusuma 2010: 4) with the time of the Buddha when ‘the position of women improved greatly’ (Kusuma 2010: 6).

Outlining a story of the Sri Lanka lineage of bhikkhunīs, she suggests that ‘invasions from India’ and a ‘lack of state support’ after the tenth century contributed to its end (Kusuma 2010: 67), thus setting the stage to appeal for state support for the silmātās whom she interviewed throughout the 1980s. The research is pioneering in its detailed study of prominent silmātās and the founding of their hermitages. The Dasasil Nun calls for the organization of the silmātās so as to restore them to ‘pristine glory’ (Kusuma 2010: 187). It indicates that in the 1930s and 1940s, Buddhist nuns, viewed as lacking in social engagement by those who were generally steeped in Christian values and activism, received little support. Among recommendations for the ‘uplift’ of the silmātās, the book argues for aid from the male monastic community and the state to help facilitate their organization through the provision of structured meetings, and to help them garner the respect and support of the general public (Kusuma 2010: 180–191).

Kusuma’s next research project and her doctoral work on the bhikkhunīs’ book of discipline (Vinaya), submitted to the Buddhist and Pāli University of Sri Lanka in 1999, resulted in a 2003 publication in Sinhala, Bhikṣuṇī Vinaya, and a later publication in English, Code of Conduct for Buddhist Nuns (2015), both highlighting inconsistences in the Pāli textual narrative of the first ordination of bhikkhunīs. Her Bhikṣuṇī Vinaya (2003a) became available in Sri Lanka when the ordination debate was still ongoing. Other important publications about bhikkhunīs and their precepts that also contributed to the debate and were used by nuns appeared in both English and Sinhala at about the same time, such as the first version of Pǟliyagoḍa Sudarśanā’s book, Bhikṣunī Prātimōkṣaya saha Vinaya Karma (The Bhikṣuṇī Prātimōkṣa and Acts of Vinaya) (1998, later printed in 2016), and the publication by Weeraratana and Dharmapāla, Bhikṣuṇī Śāsanōdaya 21 Siyavasē Dharma Punarjīvanaya (The Revival of the Uplift of the Bhikṣuṇī Śāsana in the 21st Century, 1997). Talalle Dhammāloka, an erudite monk of the Tapodanārāmaya Temple near Colombo and the deputy prelate of the Amarapura Siri Saddhammavaŋśa Chapter, who led some of the earliest ordinations of Sri Lankan nuns at the time, considered Kusuma’s Bhikṣuṇī Vinaya a path-breaking study. In his foreword to the book, he declares that her work is outstanding in its discussion of the question of the bhikkhunī ordination (Kusuma 2003a: 5–15). Questions commonly raised at the time addressed the controversy of a ‘single ordination’ conducted by monks alone rather than a ‘dual ordination’ of bhikkhunīs and bhikkhus (i.e. a dual Sangha), as well as whether or not to accept an ordination of Theravāda bhikkhunīs conducted by Mahāyāna monastics – questions that Kusuma addressed in her doctoral research and at forums.

2.2 Ordination procedures: dual ordination and the Mahāyāna–Theravāda difference

In 1934, G. P. Malalasekara published a seminal article about the possibility of ‘reviving’ a bhikkhunī order in Sri Lanka (Malalasekera 1934). However, serious discussions addressing that question did not take place until the 1980s and 1990s, during which time there were (sometimes unsuccessful) attempts to train and ordain bhikkhunīs (Salgado 2013: 142–145, 211). Throughout the 1980s, numerous publications appeared in Sri Lankan newspapers and newsletters debating the feasibility and desirability of restoring a Theravāda bhikkhunī ordination. The silmātā Rohana began to write articles in a newly issued journal sponsored by Kumar Piyasena in support of Theravāda bhikkhunī ordination (Salgado 2013: 143). Amarasiri Weeraratne, a devout practicing Buddhist and a one-time board member of the Servants of the Buddha (see section 3), also published multiple articles supporting it (Salgado 2013: 295). Meanwhile, leading senior monks opposing the idea responded in kind, contributing to what became a lively debate (Kahaṭapiṭiyē Shrī Dhīrānanda 1997; Salgado 2013: 259, note 53). The question of introducing an authentically Theravāda bhikkhunī ordination without the participation of Theravāda bhikkhunīs was central to the debate. The arguments referenced the Pāli Vinaya narrative of the bhikkhunī ordination and the eventual loss of the Sri Lankan bhikkhunī lineage. The Vinaya narrative served as a touchstone for the discussion.

In addition to addressing the rationale for the ordination of Sri Lankan bhikkhunīs, there was much discussion about ordination procedures. Kusuma’s research, shared with scholars and activists through her publications and talks, affirmed the importance of accepting that a single ordination procedure had existed in the time of the Buddha (Kusuma 2015: 43; 2017b: 7–8). She argued: ‘Today, in Theravāda countries, in the absence of bhikkhunīs, the earlier tradition of bhikkhus giving ordination to bhikkhunīs could be adopted, if the monks are willing. Such a tradition existed in the earlier stages, and the Buddha himself allowed it’ (Kusuma 2015: 83).

Monastics advocating the higher ordination of Sri Lankan nuns became convinced that the Dharmaguptaka ordination procedure, extant in China and Korea, differed little from that which Chinese nuns had inherited from Sri Lankan nuns in the fifth century. Consequently, they proceeded to favour a dual ordination conducted by East Asian monastics. Hence, the focus of the debate in Sri Lanka began to revolve around the question of the reputed difference between Theravāda and Mahāyāna practices and their ordination procedures in relation to a perception of Theravāda authenticity. As has been pointed out, the nomenclature of ‘Theravāda’ and ‘Mahāyāna’ is relatively recent and far from self-evident (Perreira 2012). Moreover, the affirmation of a Theravāda identity is imbricated in questions about authority and power (Abeysekara 2002; Salgado 2022). Concerns about the Theravāda identity of monastics often arise when certain Buddhist practices appear novel, or seemingly jeopardize preexisting norms.

The question of validating the authenticity of a pure Theravāda bhikkhunī lineage became central to both advocates and opponents of its reinstitution. The latter, wishing to maintain the status quo, asserted that a dual ordination conducted by East Asian monastics was unacceptable since it would introduce Mahāyāna practices that could potentially ‘corrupt’ the ‘pure’ Buddhism of Sri Lanka (Weeraratne 1994: 21). Moreover, they argued that such an ordination of Sri Lankan bhikkhunīs, effectively a Mahāyāna ordination, would render the Sri Lankan bhikkhunīs not as ‘Theravāda’, but rather as ‘Mahāyāna’. The alleged impossibility of establishing a Theravāda bhikkhunī ordination without the presence of Theravāda bhikkhunīs resulted in the Mahānāyake (leading senior) monks writing to the government, rationalizing their refusal to accept the bhikkhunī ordination (Wijayasiri 1998). The Mahānāyake monks (who in this case included spokespersons for two chapters of the Siam Nikāya as well as the Amarapura and Rāmañña Nikāyas) had increasingly become a force with which the state had to contend ever since independence. However, they could not be considered as representative of all Sri Lankan monks, many of whom supported the bhikkhunī ordination at this time.

Opponents of the ordination of Theravāda bhikkhunīs maintained that it was important to accept the original word of the Buddha (Buddhavacana) as found in canonical Pāli texts of the Sri Lankan Theravāda tradition. Kusuma agreed with them regarding the centrality of Pāli, stating ‘Pali is the language of the Buddhas and it is a language reserved exclusively for original Buddhist Texts and writings’ (Kusuma 2012: 117). Like them, she also advocated for teaching a ‘pristine doctrine’ of the ‘original Pali texts’ (Senanayake and Senanayake 2021: 11). However, she diverged from them in pointing out that the Pāli Vinaya itself evidenced textual inconsistencies, which raised questions about the originality of certain passages, prompting her (together with others) to maintain the possibility and authenticity of a dual higher ordination of Theravāda-lineage nuns.

At the First International Congress on Buddhist Women’s Role in the Sangha in Hamburg, Kusuma, in tracing the higher ordination of nuns from India to Sri Lanka and then to East Asian countries, stated that ‘[a]ll the Bhikkhunis in the world today are descendants of Sri Lankan Bhikkhunis’ (Kusuma 2007a). Discounting the ordination of Sri Lankan Theravāda nuns by East Asian Mahāyāna monastics as ‘Mahāyāna’, she added that the Sri Lankan ordination taken to China and then Korea was still extant and essentially no different from that of the Pāli Vinaya. She stated that ‘[m]ost of the objections came from monks who claimed that being a Theravada country we have received a Mahayana ordination [… but] there was no Mahayana or Theravada during the time of the Buddha’ (Kusuma 2007a). Kusuma publicized the case in favour of a dual ordination of Theravāda bhikkhunīs conducted by East Asian monastics of the Dharmaguptaka lineage both at international conferences and in Sri Lankan circles as she, together with other monastics, continued to train Sri Lankan nuns for the higher ordination.

2.3 The Eight Revered Conditions and the decline of the sāsana

An account of the Eight Revered Conditions (aṭṭhagarudhammā) and the demise of the sāsana (Pāli; Sinh: śāsanaya) are embedded in the Pāli ordination narrative of the first bhikkhunīs and proved relevant to the debate about the establishment of a Theravāda bhikkhunī lineage in Sri Lanka. Kusuma’s research and public presentations on these discounted the perceived centrality of their importance. According to some accounts, bhikkhunīs were required to affirm their lifelong acceptance of the Eight Conditions as a prerequisite for their receiving the higher ordination (Talampiṭiya 1981). The Eight Conditions are as follows:

1. A bhikkhunī who is fully ordained for a hundred years should greet a bhikkhu who is fully ordained but that day—for example, by respectful verbal greeting, rising up, greeting with palms together, and doing proper homage. This Condition is to be treated with respect, esteemed, revered, and honored and should not be surpassed lifelong.
2. A bhikkhunī should not spend the rainy season in a residential area devoid of bhikkhus […].
3. At the half-month a bhikkhunī should ask the bhikkhusangha [community of fully ordained monks] about two things: the question of the [date of the] full-moon and the approach for the biweekly instruction […].
4. A bhikkhunī who has observed the rains’ retreat should observe the [closing] ceremony [to declare any wrong-doing] in the dual Sangha in three ways—namely, [regarding] what has been seen, heard, or suspected […].
5. A bhikkhunī who has transgressed a garudhamma should observe the fortnightly penance before the dual Sangha […].
6. A female trainee who has trained in the observation of the six precepts for two rains’ retreats should request full ordination from the dual Sangha […].
7. A bhikkhu should not be reviled or verbally abused by a bhikkhunī in any way. [...]
8. From this day onward, for bhikkhunīs, a certain manner of speaking to bhikkhus is forbidden, but for bhikkhus that manner of speaking to bhikkhunīs is not forbidden […].
   (Adapted from Salgado 2013: 81–82; diacritics and translation modified)

The announcement of the decline of the lifespan of the Dhamma caused by the ordination of women immediately follows the passage detailing the Eight Revered Conditions (Cullavagga X1.6; see Oldenberg 1880). It is usually seen as inseparable from the bhikkhunī ordination narrative by those who seek to authenticate the account as well as those who wish to reject its validity. According to a 2003 publication by Dhammavihari, a scholar-monk, the Eight Conditions are ‘the most vital issue in the founding of the Bhikkhunī Sāsana’ (Dhammavihari 2003: 41). It is likely that G. P. Malalasekera first drew popular attention to the Eight Conditions in his frequently cited 1934 article (Salgado 2013: 89). Malalasekera, a prominent scholar-diplomat and Buddhist nationalist, had a keen interest in the Pāli language, seeing it as the key to understanding Buddhist texts in ‘the Buddha’s words’ (Malalasekera 1928: 1–5). Opponents of the bhikkhunī ordination, also grounding themselves on Buddhavacana, sought reasons for accepting the Conditions and the śāsana decline as authentic (Salgado 2013: 77–78). Additionally, they pointed out that because the Eight Conditions laid out the necessity of an ordination by the dual Sangha and the loss of the Theravāda lineage of bhikkhunīs excluded their presence, a bhikkhunī ordination was now impossible (Weeraratne 1998a; 1998b).

Questions of authenticity and Buddhavacana had been a hallmark concern of some practitioners in previous decades. It is not surprising that such questions were now raised in connection with discussion about the bhikkhunī ordinations of the 1980s and 1990s. After the publication of Urugamuve Vangīsa’s Bhikṣuṇī Śāsanaya (The Bhikṣuṇī Order, 1986), the Eight Conditions received even more critical attention (Vangīsa 1986: 28–38; Perera 1994; Dhammaratana 1994). In her Vinaya research as well as her training of nuns, Kusuma echoes and expands on the views of Vangīsa, questioning the authenticity of the Conditions and their relevance to the ordination of bhikkhunīs. Kusuma’s discussion of the Eight Conditions, in tune with other practitioners of her time who prioritized the originality and purity of Pāli texts, sought to establish, among other things, whether they were Buddhavacana. Her research on each of the Eight Conditions, which highlights several textual inconsistencies, recommended rejecting them, indicating how they could not possibly be considered as Buddhavacana (Kusuma 2015: 56–87, 96; Kusuma 2003a: 316–335). She indicated that neither the first nun, Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī, nor the first bhikkhunīs had to accept the Eight Conditions as a prerequisite for their ordination, and that the Eight Conditions were a later accretion. Additionally, Kusuma maintained that since disciplinary precepts for monastics were not introduced in the Vinaya until after a transgression had occurred (and Mahāpajāpatī was not a transgressor, or even a monastic, at the time when she was supposedly asked to observe them) they were not relevant to her ordination (Kusuma 2015: 40–44). While Kusuma’s findings reflect those of others, such as Vangīsa, she was better positioned to publicize the questions at stake due to her popular appeal and the influence of her monastic networks. Since the establishment of the bhikkhunī ordination in Sri Lanka, interest in the Eight Conditions has abated and bhikkhunīs today nominally accept and observe them (Salgado 2013: 99–100).

The predicted demise of Buddhism and the contestation about the authenticity of the Pāli ordination narrative in which it was embedded permeated the bhikkhunī ordination debate. Opponents of the ordination, indicating that the narrative presaged halving the lifespan of the sāsana, warned against its restitution (Dharmawansa 1984; Talampiṭiya 1981). However, Kusuma and other advocates of the ordination, such as Vangīsa and Perera, disputed that (Kusuma 2003a: 342–345). Her Code of Conduct indicated that only two passages in the Pāli connected the establishment of the bhikkhunī order to the decline of Buddhism (Kusuma 2015: 93). Maintaining that those passages contradict what is found in several other texts, and are likely not Buddhavacana, she stated: ‘There are many other reasons given for the decline of the teaching, but the arising of the bhikkhunī order is not mentioned elsewhere as a cause of the decline’ (Kusuma 2015: 94). Further, her study argued that although Buddhism may possibly decline over time, there were indications that ‘the present age is a very favorable time for the practice and realization of the Buddha’s teaching’ (Kusuma 2015: 100). In keeping with other proponents of the ordination, her publications advanced the notion of the ‘Fourfold Community’, incorporating male and female monastics together with male and female householders as integral to ensuring the longevity of Buddhism (Kusuma 2015: 104–107). Given her bilingual ability, her popularity as a respected meditation instructor, and her own bhikkhunī ordination, Kusuma’s perspectives on the topic became particularly impactful, leaving her well poised to engage scholars and practitioners alike on a global scale.

3.1 ‘Authenticity’ and ‘originality’: publicizing a Theravāda bhikkhunī ordination

Kusuma was celebrated as a member and popular speaker by the Servants of the Buddha organization in Sri Lanka (Ñānasīha and Senanayake 2021: 62–63). One objective of the Servants of the Buddha was to focus on texts of the Pāli tradition known in Sri Lanka to ensure teaching of ‘the authentic word of the Buddha as explained in the Tripitaka’ (Ñānasīha and Senanayake 2021: 9). The construct of an authentic Buddhism, referenced by practitioners and nationalists alike, continued to inform the discussion about the restitution of a lineage of Theravāda bhikkhunīs, as well as the work done by Kusuma. The state had announced support of an ordination of Theravāda bhikkhunīs as early as 1974 (Ceylon Daily Mirror 1974). It is not surprising that the state had a vested interest in the matter, given the country’s relatively recent independence from the British. State promotion of the ordination, coupled with that of the World Fellowship of Buddhists, continued throughout the 1980s (Gampaha Correspondent 1985). In 1984, the state sent a delegation to China ‘to study the conditions of the Bhikkhunis and to promote the restoration in Sri Lanka’ (Iriyagolle 1997). The leading scholar-monk and nationalist Walpola Rahula visited China in 1986, together with Mapalagama Vipulasara, who was to later organize the first (higher ordination) of Sri Lankan nuns in 1996 (see below). At a graduation speech in 1992, Rahula, affirming that the Bhikkhunī Sangha in China could be traced directly to that of the Sinhalese nuns who took it there in the fifth century, stated that:

If one wishes to reintroduce the Order of Nuns into Theravāda countries, it is absolutely necessary to receive the genuine and authentic Ordination from an unbroken line of Buddhist nuns in China, or some other country. (Liyanage 1995: 293)

The presence of such a lineage had already been affirmed (Weeraratne 1994: 17). The prospect of an unbroken lineage was underscored by the work of Hema Goonatilake, who having visited nunneries in China and Taiwan (in 1984) published a Sinhalese translation of the fifth-century biography of nuns in China (Chang 1994). Goonatilake’s historical research coincided with early state interests in establishing a Theravāda bhikkhunī ordination, along with Kusuma’s advocacy of the bhikkhunī ordination in the 1980s. Kusuma’s Vinaya research, which began around 1988, came to fruition about ten years later. It contributed to supporting the case for a Theravāda bhikkhunī ordination in tracing the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya lineage prevalent in East Asia to that of the fifth-century Sinhalese bhikkhunīs mentioned by Goonatilake. Kusuma consistently promoted the need to establish the higher ordination for Theravāda Buddhist women at home and abroad. As a regular attendee at SIABW conferences, she was well positioned to address a global audience. One of the aims of the founding conference in 1987, which Kusuma attended with support from the Sri Lankan government, was to ‘work toward establishing full ordination for Buddhist women in countries where it is [was] not currently available’ (First International Conference on Buddhist Nuns 1988: 36).

After the 1987 conference held in India, Kusuma continued to attend SIABW conferences in 1993 (Sri Lanka), 1995 (Ladakh, India), 1997 (Cambodia), 2000 (Nepal), 2004 (South Korea), and 2006 (Malaysia). At the 1987 conference, she presented a paper discussing the findings of her research on silmātās. Indicating that their marginal position could be overcome with state support, she suggested how implementing the bhikkhunī ordination might accord the nuns more respect (Devendra 1988: 258–266). She had already reminded Sri Lankans of the centrality of Theravāda Buddhism and of the ‘golden age prevalent when the Buddha’s word was adhered to [… and] society was righteous’ (Roberts 1993: 4).

She reiterated the appeal to a bygone era when Buddhism and bhikkhunīs once flourished to an international audience in her 1995 conference paper in Ladakh, ‘History of the Loss of the Bhikkhuni Order in the Theravada Tradition’. In that paper she drew a correlation between the decline of Buddhism after a ‘golden era’ ending in the tenth century and during colonial times, with the lack of interest in a bhikkhunī order (Devendra 1995: 3). The notion of a golden era followed by a ‘dark age’ of foreign incursions from South India and European colonialists is congruent with Buddhist nationalist discourse throughout the twentieth century and has been tied to the quest for an authentic Buddhism grounded in Pāli texts. Kusuma’s paper engages that nationalist sentiment in her support of a Theravāda bhikkhunī ordination. It mentions that Vinaya research shows ‘ample evidence’ that sections of the ordination narrative of the first nuns ‘are not Buddha word, but later interpolations by Brahmin misogynists’ (Devendra 1995: 8). The interpretation of the decline of Buddhism during a time of foreign domination echoes the thought of Buddhist nationalists such as Anagārika Dharmapāla (Amunugama 2016: 378–380). Its connection with the disappearance of the bhikkhunī order, together with the presence of Brahmin misogynism, is still voiced in Sri Lanka today.

At international conferences, Kusuma underscored the rationale for the loss of a bhikkhunī order in Sri Lanka, the need for establishing it, and the means for doing so. In the article ‘Nuns and Society in Sri Lanka’ (2004), which appeared in the Spring 2004 issue of the SIABW newsletter, Kusuma addressed the Mahāyāna–Theravāda question, and brought news of the work of the recently ordained bhikkhunīs in Sri Lanka. She spoke of the services of the bhikkhunīs in holding meditation sessions, conducting rituals, and teaching the Dhamma. She also indicated that some monks, fearing the popularity of the bhikkhunīs would undermine their own standing, preferred them to maintain a low profile. Her article, ‘How I Became a Bhikkhuni’ (2008) in the SIABW newsletter, provided details of her Vinaya study in Korea and her own journey towards higher ordination. At the SIABW conferences she attended, as well as the Hamburg Congress mentioned earlier, Kusuma continued to voice her support for the ordination of Theravāda bhikkhunīs. She often focused on detailing how textual traditions and ordination procedures in the Dharmaguptaka lineage could be traced to their Pāli antecedents.

Informed by broader appeals to authenticity and originality shared by other practitioners, Kusuma’s activism extended to audiences beyond Sri Lanka. Her teachings continued to promote the Theravāda bhikkhunī ordination, even as she approached her ninetieth birthday (Kusuma 2019a). After her ordination as a bhikkhunī, she became particularly renowned globally and was sought after for her insights and experiences as a scholar-bhikkhunī.

3.2 Buddhism and interfaith perspectives

In 2005, the Elijah Board of World Religious Leaders (EBWRL) of the Elijah Interfaith Institute (EII), an interfaith organization founded in 2003, invited Kusuma to join them, and she would remain a member of their board until her passing in 2021. The EII planned biennial meetings to create ‘a community of religious leaders, scholars and practitioners from all faiths who are inspired to find novel ways of sharing the wisdom of their traditions with each other and to create bridges between faith and society’ (Elijah Interfaith Institute [n.d.]a). Kusuma attended EII conferences held in 2005 (Wu Lai, Taiwan), 2007 (Amritsar, India), 2009 (Haifa, Israel), 2012 (Oxford, UK), 2014 (Munich, Germany), and 2020 (online). During the meetings, she interacted with leaders from different religions, addressing world issues from a perspective rooted in a Pāli Buddhist tradition.

Although Kusuma had been little versed in interfaith dialogue until her association with the EII, she learned how to address the needs of that organization. Kusuma as a Buddhist practitioner spoke of Jesus as a ‘living god’. Though she did not profess belief in a creator God, she appended her name as a late signatory to the Elijah ‘Statement on Combating Terrorism’ (2003) which identified signatories, as believers in a creator God, who opposed terrorism. The 2005 meeting witnessed her participation in an interfaith dialogue about global crises which resulted in a publication, The Crisis of the Holy: Challenges and Transformations in World Religions (2014). At the 2007 meeting she, with other religious leaders, signed the ‘Amritsar Statement’ which reaffirmed respect for others’ faiths and collaborative work in reaching out to the world with wisdom in addressing global crises (Elijah Interfaith Institute 2007). In 2011, after the Japanese tsunami, she affirmed that loving kindness and compassion, central to Buddhist practice, should be directed to the people of Japan (Elijah Interfaith Institute 2011).

Focusing on the theme of ‘Friendship Across Religions’ at the 2012 meeting, Kusuma asserted that ethical and moral values of all religions must remain central despite advances made in science and technology. Her message about interreligious friendship, deriving from the Pāli Buddhist tradition, drew on a citation from the familiar verse (181) from the Dhammapada, stating that: ‘“Refraining from evil, doing good, purifying the mind” [is] the message of all Buddhas’. She also affirmed that ‘[i]nterreligious friendship means dissolving all differences and supporting the common good’; that the present rather than the past should be a focus; and that the Buddha’s message, including karmic responsibility, involves forbearance, not harming others, and moderation in all things (Elijah Interfaith Institute [n.d.]b). Like other religious leaders who were participants, she called for cooperation and friendship among practitioners of different traditions, in the hope of promoting solidarity in the face of global challenges. Her focus on the power of mindfulness and recognizing mental health conditions was shared with the interfaith religious leaders on more than one occasion and was captured as a video: ‘Sharing Wisdom: Desire and Mindfulness’ (2009).

At the 2014 meeting, Kusuma delivered two presentations. One of them, focusing on the Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta (Discourse on Loving Kindness), provided an explanation of key Pāli terms and centred on how any person might lead a contented life. The other discussed the importance of memory and indicated how it could equally be the cause of negative or positive attitudes and karma. That talk, similar in content to those which she delivered to householders, emphasized the importance of recognizing memory objectively ‘as an impermanent process’ rather than subjectively to avoid the formation of bad karma and not ‘be carried away by emotions of greed, attachment, craving…’ (Kusuma 2014).

Her last presentations at an EBWRL meeting were delivered at the 2020 (online) sessions held during the coronavirus pandemic. At the inaugural ceremony of that meeting she recited Pāli stanzas from the Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta, and translated them into English, wishing good health and happiness to all beings (Elijah Interfaith Institute 2020a). That Sutta was regularly recited by Buddhist monastics throughout the pandemic so as to promote universal healing. At a later session, ‘Sharing Wisdom from the 9th Biennial Elijah Board of World Religious Leaders’ (2020b), she explained the meaning of genuine friendship in Buddhism. As a Theravāda Buddhist representative to the EII – rather than focus on the intricacies of monastic precepts and procedures as she had in some global contexts – she consistently introduced general practices that were accessible to all and that were grounded in popular Pāli texts.

3.3 The Sri Lankan diaspora and lay practitioners abroad

Kusuma’s most productive period of teaching came in the wake of her bhikkhunī ordination. Among her audiences were medical professionals, scientists, university students, and garment factory workers. Furthering her community and international outreach were former students, friends, and relatives she had known prior to her ordination and who now arranged air tickets and hosted her at their homes, enabling a global ministry. Kusuma’s research for her M.A. thesis, published as Sati in Theravāda Buddhist Meditation: A Mental Therapy, Development of Mindfulness (Devendra 1985), informed many of her discourses. The thesis, an analysis of the concept and cultivation of sati (mindfulness) presented in Pāli canonical and commentarial literature, was influenced by The Heart of Buddhist Meditation, a well-known publication focusing on the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta by the (German) scholar-monk, Nyanaponika Thera (1962). The practice of sati became central to her later teachings on meditation. In her discourses she declared that ‘the whole training in Buddhism is all in the satipaṭṭhāna’ (Kusuma 2007b: 91, original emphasis), and that the ‘Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta […] is the direct way to nibbāna’ (Kusuma 2003b: 49). Affirming the connection of Buddhist practice to science as she did in her thesis on sati, she asserted that satipaṭṭhāna is ‘[v]ery scientific and logical and true’ (Kusuma 2003b: 58).

Kusuma often based her talks on renowned Pāli stanzas, translating and explicating them word for word. The lay audiences she addressed were generally familiar with their use and recitation, though not fully apprised of their in-depth Pāli meaning. She excelled at translating the stanzas into practical use in everyday life as is evidenced in her publications. While her talks mention specific texts, she referred to them only as needed, so as to accommodate a non-scholarly audience. She connected teachings from texts to the daily practices of working women engaged in raising children and dealing with sickness and death among friends and family. Texts that she often discussed included the Karaṇīya Mettā Sutta, Girimānanda Sutta (Discourse to Girimānanda), Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (Discourse on the Turning of the Wheel of the Dhamma), Dhajagga Sutta (Discourse on the Crest of Banner), and the Ratana Sutta (Discourse on the Jewels). Those were among her favourite, and were translated and elucidated in her final work, A Selection of Pirith Suttas in English (Senanayake and Senanayake 2021).

In addition to holding retreats, Kusuma addressed numerous communities of householders abroad. Her 2001 visit to Australia resulted in the first Living in Peace publication, appearing twice in print (in 2002 and 2003). In that work, she translated central Buddhist ideas and indicated how meditation could impact the everyday practice of a householder. She subsequently visited communities in Australia in 2003 and 2007. She donated collections of her published discourses to individuals residing in countries in four continents, promoting their wide, albeit private, distribution. Living in Peace was gifted to people she met during her 2004 visits to USA, Korea, Canada, and Malaysia and at the Elijah Interfaith Institute meeting. Between 2004 and 2012, Kusuma visited the UK four times and the USA and Canada three times (Kusuma 2012: 185). In the course of her 2005 visit to the UK, she was invited to speak to audiences at the University of London, and at homes of expatriates including at Brighton, Eastbourne, and Cardiff, as well as at Theravāda Buddhist temples. Temples she spoke at included the London Buddhist Vihara, the Amaravati Monastery, and other Theravāda Buddhist centres at Leicester, Letchworth (Hertfordshire), Chithurst, Manchester, Redbridge (Ilford), and Croydon. Living in Peace III was a publication that resulted from the recording and compilation of her talks during that visit (Kusuma 2007c). In 2012 she also addressed communities in Germany, and organized meditation retreats in the Netherlands and Belgium (Kusuma 2012: 183–185).

In addition to speaking at the homes of her hosts during her visits to the USA, Kusuma addressed communities at the Bhavana Society (the Forest Monastery of the renowned monk, Henepola Gunaratana), the Buddhist Viharas of New York, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Chicago, the Bodhi Monastery of New Jersey, the Dharma Vijaya Temple in Los Angeles, as well as university students at Augustana College and Northwestern University in Illinois. She frequented the Brickfields Buddhist Maha Vihara in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for several years, where she conducted temporary ordinations almost annually and led retreats. She became a featured speaker at the memorial talks for the chief monk of that temple, K. Sri Dhammananda, many of whose works she translated into English (Kusuma 2012: 176–177). A nine-day meditation retreat that she led there in July 2010 resulted in the publication of her presentations, A Step in the Right Direction (2018), of which 1,000 copies were printed for private distribution. Interestingly, Kusuma did not generally identify herself as the translator of the texts she made available for others (some of which were given to the author), though most of them are listed in her autobiography (Kusuma 2012: 111).

Living in Peace II was a publication of talks in Sinhalese and English that Kusuma delivered in Bahrain and Sri Lanka (Kusuma 2007b). Sarath Kuruppuarachchi masterfully titled the preface he wrote for it as ‘Ama Vessa of the Desert’ (Kānthārayē Amāvӕssa), playing on the term ‘amāvӕssa’, a common synonym for Dhamma, also literally meaning ‘eternal rain’.

Kuruppuarachchi also commented that:

One of the special qualities of Ven. Kusuma is her unique ability to reach out to everyone irrespective of their education, social status or age. Even the most complex and deep concepts of Dhamma were explained in a way that anybody can understand, laced with interesting examples and studded with humorous remarks […]. Each word of hers was a precious raindrop falling on a parched land […]. In short it was not just rain, but an ‘Ama Vessa.’ (Preface, Kusuma 2007b: v–vi)

Unlike the talks of most other Buddhist teachers, Kusuma’s discourses were almost, if not entirely, made available through the work of volunteers who recorded, compiled, and edited them in the form of book publications or YouTube videos. Five hundred copies of her final work, Pirith Suttas, were published posthumously, of which 120 copies were sent to Buddhist centres in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and the USA, and the rest distributed privately (Gunewardene 2024). Though Kusuma’s discourses are accessible in both Sinhalese and English as YouTube discussions and publications, the latter may generally be found only at the homes of individuals to whom they were gifted, and select monastic libraries. They are otherwise mostly unavailable to the public at the time of writing.

4.1 Teaching style and context

Kusuma was a popular radio discussant on the Buddhist Forum of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) and a well-known teacher of Buddhism in Sri Lanka before her ordination (Ratnaweera 1998). As a teacher, she was perhaps best known among lay practitioners for engaging in dialogical discussion with smaller private groups at homes, where her presentations differed in style and content from those delivered to larger conference gatherings. Mahinda Deegalle mentions how Buddhist monastic preachers of the late twentieth century were innovators in adapting their messages to an urban audience and utilizing new technologies such as those of the radio, TV, printed materials, and audio recordings. Moreover, he notes that they introduced a new preaching style, drawing on their own experiences and applying Buddhist teachings to everyday life (Deegalle 2006: 147–169). Kusuma’s discourses generally reflected that pedagogical innovation.

She often began with the introduction to a text which she then explained in some detail, a familiar style of teaching in her time. Additionally, she connected central Buddhist practices, such as meditation, to the practical concerns of working people (also in keeping with the pedagogy of the time). For example, she emphasized that renunciation and the elimination of unwholesome thoughts in the everyday lay household were equivalent to ‘real renunciation’ (Kusuma 2003b: 144) and that ‘it is not our responsibility to correct others […]. [W]hen others talk ill of us, we should not take much notice as they do not know enough about us’ (2003b: 31). Her talks, not unlike those of K. Sri Dhammananda, included a distinctive Question-Answer (Q/A) session with the audience, promoting a dialogical mode of discourse still uncommon in her time. That mode had been considered ‘revolutionary’ when introduced by Walpola Rahula in the 1930s (Liyanage 1995: 44). Such Q/A sessions appear to have become more popular when teaching to audiences outside Sri Lanka for the monastics who delivered online talks, especially at (and since) the time of the coronavirus pandemic. Kusuma’s discourses were often tailored to smaller groups of about ten to thirty householders that possibly constituted a more widely varied global audience than that of most other Sri Lankan monastics.

In addition to teaching diverse practitioners in Sri Lanka, including those from the wealthiest areas of Colombo, she addressed, as we have seen, diasporic Sri Lankans, and spoke at Theravāda Buddhist temples, and universities abroad, all of which contributed to the versatility of her talks. YouTube recordings and publications of her presentations indicate that she was often called on to address the quotidian concerns of her audience, as well as more universal worries such as those ensuing from the coronavirus pandemic. For example, during the pandemic she advised people not only to think of themselves, but also think of others by developing mettā, saying: ‘loving kindness is invaluable to overcoming the stress of today’s Covid’ (Bhikkhuni Kusuma 2020).

4.2 Scientific empiricism

Since the nineteenth century, Buddhist practitioners and nationalists have appealed to the compatibility of Buddhism and science, seeking to underscore Buddhism’s ‘rationality’ in contesting prevalent Christian and colonial discourses (McMahan 2008: 89–116). Attempts to draw connections between Buddhism and science may be traced to the sixteenth century, which witnessed Christian missionary encounters with Buddhism. While such encounters sometimes sparked debates between Buddhist monastics and Christian missionaries, they also resulted in a wider cultural impact (Lopez 2008: xi–xii). Kusuma, like other Buddhist practitioners, sought compatibility between Buddhism and science. Yet, being formally educated in the sciences and a one-time grade-school science teacher, she stood apart from most Buddhist preachers in drawing on an empirical knowledge of the sciences to inform her pedagogy. In some ways, her teachings connecting Buddhism with science may possibly be likened to those found in the writings of the physician Paul Dahlke (1865–1928), the renowned founder of the Buddha Haus in Berlin, Germany (Dahlke 1913). Albeit rooted in divergent cultural contexts and addressing different audiences, both Kusuma and Dahlke had a formal training in the sciences and used an empirical understanding of the sciences to further Buddhist teachings. They also both asserted that Buddhism, unlike science, could answer existential questions. Among her contemporaries from Sri Lanka, Kusuma may be considered remarkable in both the extent and usage of scientific analogies.

Using the Pāli term vijjā, which can literally be translated both as ‘knowledge’ and ‘science’ (and, according to her, ‘logic’), Kusuma likened overcoming ignorance to the pursuit of the sciences (Kusuma 2019a: 63; 2007b: 43, 74). She reminded her audience that meditation encourages training the mind to its greatest capacity, evoking scientific findings on the potential of humans’ cognitive ability. She explained how multiple thoughts must be watched carefully – for no two thoughts arise at the same time and a thought arises and passes as fast as the speed of light, which is 186,000 miles per second (Bhikkhuni Kusuma 2007). In explaining rebirth and karmic energy, she stated:

If you know quantum physics you will realise that when speed exceeds the speed of light, there is no time and no distance. Whether the second thought arises in the same body or whether it arises in a body hundreds of millions of miles away has no difference. No time, no distance, it is the same theory in modern physics. The Buddha is so scientific. He saw this. (Kusuma 2018: 162)

Indicating that kamma (Pāli; Skt: karma) cannot be proven since it is not a physical phenomenon subject to scientific methodology, she still suggested that observations of thoughts and actions resonated well with scientific findings:

Millions of thoughts are associated with this body and that is how we hear and see […]. [T]hanks to modern science we can just visualize how millions of thoughts are arising and passing away and body muscles are working. (Kusuma 2003b: 15)

Kusuma appealed to scientific empiricism in undermining the very notion of an unchanging and permanent self, stating that the latter could not possibly be connected to a changing body: ‘It is ridiculous, it is not scientific, it is not logical, it is foolish’ (Kusuma 2003b: 20). Discussing meditation on the Five Aggregates (comprising the human being), Kusuma explained how the aggregate of sañña (recognition or perception), works:

When an inverted image falls on the retina, and the image is transmitted to the brain and if the mind can remember the image, then there is recognition of the image. (Kusuma 2019a: 50)

Pointing out the similarity to Narcissus, who did not believe that the image he saw was his own reflection, she then proceeded to draw a parallel with impermanence:

[W]e are made to believe that the outside object is the image in the mind. […] They [the outside object and the mind-image] look the same but they are not the same. All perceptions are impermanent. They arise and pass away. (Kusuma 2019a: 50)

Extending the common analogy found in Buddhist texts of perception as a mirage, she discussed the illusory nature of the refraction of light, explaining that the body itself, under an electron microscope, comprises only atoms: ‘And they split the atom. It is not even anything, only energy. There are lots of atoms, millions and millions of atoms in the material body’ (Kusuma 2018: 114). She similarly indicated the fallacy of conflating language and reality. Using the example of a leaf, she indicated that although we call something a ‘leaf’ that is only a name, for under a microscope it would instead be called ‘cells’ constituting only energy (Kusuma 2018: 115), and pointed out that ‘the Buddha went beyond the atom’ and saw in a leaf the energy of the four elements of solidity, fluidity, heat, and air that also form the body (Kusuma 2003b: 127, 169).

In a further critique of the notion of a substantial self, she adduced the biochemical working of the body in relation to the four elements (well known in the Pāli texts), over which one has little control:

Why does your body not cool off? Even if you bathe in cold water, or use fans and A/C, the body doesn’t cool off. It maintains 98.4 degrees temperature. How is it possible? By the oxygenation of carbohydrates in the cells, heat is produced. It’s a slow burning process, like a slow fire: the body produces heat […]. The circulatory system carries blood to every single cell of this body. The blood carries oxygen, carbon dioxide and heat and circulates all the time to keep the temperature even and regulated […]. You think this is ‘My body’. Am I doing this or is it due to causes and conditions? (Kusuma 2019a: 18–19)

The analysis of the body with reference to causes and conditions echoes a Buddhist explication of the factors of dependent origination (also called dependent arising). However, rather than undertaking a deep philosophical analysis of them – something with which she might engage in addressing a select audience at a meditation retreat – Kusuma focused on a soteriological strategy accessible to a general lay audience. In the following instance, she accommodated the daily practice of the busy householder, and related the conditioned nature of the body to the non-substantiality of the person, centring more on linguistic conventions than on in-depth philosophical inquiry:

There are many causes and conditions […]. But you think you are causing this body to function and calling it ‘my body.’ Once you are properly convinced, will you call it ‘my body?’ You will only call it ‘my body’ because you want to use language to distinguish one from another. But is it mine? This is where the ordinary person is confused. They take everything to be mine—this house, these children, this body, this eye, ear, etc […]. This is the language we use to consolidate and substantiate me, I and mine. (Kusuma 2019a: 19, original emphasis)

She then proceeded to liken ‘absolute ownership’ to mere legal convention insofar as any object (including one’s self) is subject to constant change – undermining the permanence of both perceived object and owner (Kusuma 2019a: 19–20).

Responding to a question about the inadequacy of mettā (loving kindness) meditation in certain situations, Kusuma encouraged a meditator (in pain) to shift their focus instead to the practicality of overcoming discomfort and meditating on pain itself, whereby ‘blood circulation improves, the pain disappears’ (Kusuma 2019a: 30). Kusuma frequently used scientific analogies in her discussions about the body. She likened the impermanence of the body to processes taking place at a cellular level:

The body is not the same for two consecutive moments. There is the dying process, some of the cells break down and new cells form […;] you think and feel it is the same person. But it is not the same person […;] all the cells die and new cells arise. Is that not what is happening to the body? (Kusuma 2018: 98)

She proceeded to explain how the body, which she likened to foam, functions in terms of ‘anabolism and catabolism and metabolism’ (Kusuma 2018: 98). Ultimately, she proposed, this indicates that there is no self or soul, as the body, like the cells, has ‘no core or substance which you can say is me or I or mine’ (Kusuma 2018: 99).

In response to a query about how the entire body may react angrily to an unpleasant sound, Kusuma explained how just as a scientifically observable ‘electromagnetic field that arises because of the sound […] reaches every cell of the body’, every thought, whether it be of anger or loving kindness, reaches every cell of the body (Bhikkhuni Kusuma 2021c). In a similar vein, she provided a scientific parallel to focusing thoughts on the present when in meditation:

Just like the convex lens that converges diffuse light into a focus, and creates enough heat to ignite a match stick, we need to concentrate our diffused thought and bring it to focus. (Kusuma 2003b: 41)

Kusuma’s appeal to science extended to her perspective on the implausibility of a creator God. In discussion about the nature of the world as found in the Cūla Māluṅkya Putta Sutta (The Shorter Discourse to Māluṅkya Putta), she reminded her audience that ‘scientists of course have proven that the world is not eternal’ and that Galileo lost his life in defence of his theory about the Earth – a theory which was later proven true: ‘[i]t is easy for the whole world to think wrong […]. Now the belief in the ancient theory that God created the earth has no more validity’ (Kusuma 2018: 145).

Though finding an ally in science, Kusuma maintained that science was limited in ways that Buddhism was not:

One of the most important things that the Scientists have not understood is this Karmic Energy. They know all about electrical and mechanical energy, gravitational pull, cyclic rotation which is all physical energy. They do not know about mental energy – how the mind is working and how Karma is formed. This is why I gave up science. Because I believe they do not address all of it. I found the answer in Buddha’s teachings. (Kusuma 2017a: 10)

Kusuma’s position on the congruence of Buddhism and science, along with her claim that Buddhism could answer questions elided in scientific discussions, was echoed by other Buddhist practitioners of her time. However, her teachings were distinctive in foregrounding such a focus and tailoring them to the medical-care providers and scientists in her audience. Her unique background as a science teacher equipped her well to address such an audience.

4.3 Rebirth and kamma/karma

Some Buddhist teachers who live in countries where Buddhism is practiced by a minority of the population, such as Stephen Batchelor, seek to teach a ‘secular Buddhism’ geared towards promoting meditation. Batchelor, maintaining that belief in certain Buddhist notions is not necessary for practitioners of Buddhism today, states that ‘[s]ecular modernity provides an entirely adequate alternative’ (2015: 303). He maintains that ‘compared to the emergence of life from the singularity of the Big Bang […] the theories of karma and rebirth appear crude and simplistic’ (Batchelor 2015: 304). In this perspective, notions of kamma and rebirth may alienate religious seekers who, while attracted to forms of Buddhist meditation, live in cultures where Buddhist thought and practice is generally unfamiliar. Indeed, some Buddhist monastics may rarely discuss kamma and rebirth when addressing an English-speaking readership outside Sri Lanka, partly perhaps for that very reason. It is noteworthy, for example that Venerable Henepola Gunaratana’s Mindfulness in Plain English (2014), a bestseller on meditation (ranked on 14 June 2026 by Amazon as #3 in books in Theravāda Buddhism), excludes mention of rebirth and kamma. Yet, Kusuma, who spoke to audiences outside Sri Lanka, often integrated those notions into the practice of meditation. It is likely that she readily did so because most of the people in her audiences identified as Buddhist and were already familiar with those concepts.

Emphasizing the uniqueness of the human rebirth and its capacity to accumulate good kamma, Kusuma frequently referenced heavenly and hell realms of rebirth (2007b: 41). She taught that it was important to accept kamma as a constant companion/relative and refuge (Kusuma 2003b: 90; Bhikkhuni Kusuma 2021a). The idea of kamma as a refuge derives from her discussion of a text indicating that one needs to accept that kamma is not only present at birth and death, but throughout life. Quoting the text she says:

kamma paṭisaraṇo – kamma is your only refuge. The word saraṇa [refuge] comes in places like saraṇagamana [the act of taking refuge], but the Buddha said not even the Buddha is saraṇa, even the Buddha is no refuge compared to one’s own kamma. (Kusuma 2003b: 90)

She considered kamma a ‘natural law’ akin to the laws governing gravity and electromagnetic fields. However, unlike the laws of science where ‘action and reaction are equal’, she noted that kamma was not proportional in terms of its action and result (Kusuma 2003b: 92). She indicated the necessity for understanding how vipāka (results of kamma) only bears fruit if permitted by causes and conditions. According to her, the fruition of bad kamma can be nullified if one or two particular conditions are present. The first condition involves a person who consistently did good kamma, while the other condition involves the development of sainthood within seven rebirths (Kusuma 2003b: 94).

In her explanation of the fruition of kamma due to causes and conditions, she discussed the popular Buddhist simile of the seed and the fruit it eventually bore (Kusuma 2003b: 92–93). Her pedagogy appears to have provided some rationale and solace to an audience who faced the vicissitudes of tragic events and daily life activities. For example, she accounted for how some people escaped the (Sri Lankan) tsunami and others did not, due to ‘causes and conditions’ of vipāka, allowing for the fruition of good kamma in some cases and bad kamma in others. She encouraged her audience to develop the right view (sammā diṭṭhi) since doing so would promote an understanding of the roots of kamma (Kusuma 2007b: 44).

Her rendition of kamma and rebirth became particularly meaningful in analogies and examples in everyday life. She would remind her audience that though previous kamma could result in present-life challenges, practitioners could shape their own futures by responding appropriately. In her discussions of kamma, diverging from most popular teachers of Buddhism, she highlighted the central place of memory as a vehicle for recurrently creating more kamma. She often taught that simply by reflecting on past events, people could victimize themselves by harbouring negative thoughts, such as anger or hatred, thereby recurrently creating more bad kamma (Kusuma 2007b: 59–60). Albeit emphasizing the seriousness of creating new kamma and urging the necessity of developing mindfulness and mettā, her teachings were tinged with a humour that was present in many of her presentations:

We make karma. What is the use if there are 100 people here and 100 of them are doing 100 wrong things and I sit here and get angry 100 times. How foolish […]. Other people do the wrong thing and we get angry […]. You are wasting time, making bad karma. Always be very kind, helpful, and gentle and apply Mettā meditation in daily life. (Kusuma 2003b: 3, original emphasis)

Kusuma frequently referenced the analogy of a robber in her discourses, a trope introduced to her as a child when observing precepts on a full-moon day. Asked to remain awake all night, she had been told that if she fell asleep, robbers would steal her sil (Kusuma 2012: 11). In her discourses, the robbers represented negative attitudes such as anger and greed, which if not recognized ‘steal our good thoughts [and] damage and destroy the peaceful state of mind’ (Kusuma 2003b: 46). Conversely, she likened loving kindness to a precious gem, which could be stolen by robbers who enter a house (Kusuma 2003b: 86). The meditator was warned that ‘stray thoughts are robbers that enter [your] mental household’ and have to be chased away in order to continue meditation and do good kamma (Kusuma 2018: 70). Placing the responsibility of watching their own mind squarely on the shoulders of the meditator, Kusuma’s compelling analogy of the robber provided an effective means of managing disruptions to meditation.

Another analogy that Kusuma frequently used likened the perception of reality and the creation of kamma to jugglery and a magic show (Kusuma 2003b: 36–37, 60). For example, she referred to māyā (illusion) as well as consciousness as a ‘trickster’ (Kusuma 2018: 46), stating:

Consciousness is a juggler. Who is a juggler? Like a magician who magically conjures things that are not there and makes things vanish that are there. Your mind is like that. You think and it comes alive […]. What you want to think, you think, and you believe it. And you act on it and you punish it also with all the magic of the mind. (Kusuma 2018: 118–119)

Though the sources she uses are often uncited in her discourses, the analogy of the magic show is well known in Buddhist discourses, such as the Pheṇa Sutta (Discourse on Foam; Thānissaro 1999). Her use of the analogy likely also derives from the lesser known exposition of the Kālakārāma Sutta (Discourse at Kālakā Monastery) and its commentary (Ñāṇānanda 1974). Kusuma’s use of this analogy and its explanation in relation to the observation of consciousness (viññāṇa) and feeling (vedanā) is strikingly similar to what is explained in these texts. Her discourses, however, focused on a direct practical explanation of the teachings in emphasizing the need to arrest the arising of negative attitudes in memory by cultivating yoniso manasikārā (right fundamental attention) which could prevent the generation of kamma: ‘Always see your mind and know your mind […]. Memories are not real […;] you live in your memories […;] let go. Know it and see it’ (Kusuma 2018: 48).

Kusuma’s teachings, rooted as they were in the texts of the Pāli tradition and focusing on encouraging practitioners to undertake simple steps in addressing everyday stresses, echoed those of other distinguished Theravāda Buddhist monastics publishing in English, such as Henepola Gunaratana and Walpola Piyananda (author of The Bodhi Tree Grows in L.A. [2008] and other works). Yet Kusuma’s published discourses differed from those of such teachers insofar as they were generally transcribed and edited by volunteers from recordings of live talks. Their dialogical style and conversational tone were particularly geared to promoting a lived practice accessible to anyone.