Ayya Khema (1923-1997) was the first Western woman to be ordained a Theravadin 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. Born Ilse Kussel in Berlin, Germany, she grew up in a prosperous Jewish family that was broken up by the Nazis in 1938. Fleeing first to Scotland, she then journeyed to rejoin her family in China, where she spent several years, surviving the Japanese invasion. But this was only the beginning. Her later adventures included - but were not limited to - living the life of a suburban housewife in Los Angeles, California; traveling up the Amazon; building a power plant in Pakistan; and establishing the first organic farm in Australia. Her encounters with meditation masters in India led to her formal pursuit of the spiritual life in her forties, culminating in her monastic ordination at the age of fifty-eight. Ayya Khema founded a monastery, the ‘Nun’s Island’ in Sri Lanka, and eventually returned to her homeland to found the Buddha-Haus im Allgau center near Munich, Germany, where she died in 1997.
