I’m Sadayasihi. I was ordained in 2016 in Akashavana, Spain and I currently live in a Buddhist community in Dublin, Ireland with two other women. I work full-time for The Buddhist Centre Online and I’m also involved in activities around the Dublin Buddhist Centre. In my spare time I like reading, playing cooperative board games and continuing my attempts to learn the ukulele! I’m looking forward to the day when I can go for a long hike in the Wicklow mountains again with my partner, Vajrashura.

I started 2020 living with my parents, optimistic about the chances getting a new women’s community up and running by the summer after the previous women’s community I had been in ended in October 2019. Covid put a spanner in the works of that plan – instead I moved out of my parents’ house just before the first lockdown started and spent nine months’ living on my own in a friend’s house on the far side of Dublin.

I have never had an ambition to live alone – so, while it was not as bad as I feared it might be, I still very much missed the ordinary human contact, the casual conversations in the kitchen; just being alongside other people. One of closest friends moved to the UK last March and lockdown made the whole thing surreal – and this was compounded by the fact I have not been able to visit her. I miss her loads but am glad I can continue to speak to her weekly online.

My working life became at once far more intense as our team at The Buddhist Centre Online responded to the pandemic by offering events and resources – but it was also one of the sole points of constancy for me in a very changed and changing set of living circumstances. At one point I felt I was getting burned out and had to take a step back and figure out new ways of working. I feel like I’ve learned more about myself: how I work, what supports me to thrive, the importance of team, and not to compare myself with others – and I’m very grateful to my team members, my partner and all my friends who helped keep me afloat when I was a bit at sea!

And where there’s a will there’s a way – in December Laura and Ciara and I moved into a community together (into a house Laura bought) after over a year of meeting up weekly in person (and then online). It still feels like a minor miracle that this happened in the year of a global pandemic! I’m so delighted to be back in a women’s community again. Subhadramati, my preceptor (who ordained me), gave our new community the name “Maitrigandhi” – fragrance of Metta / loving-kindness – a beautiful name that I hope we can do justice to.

See all posts on marking International Women's Day 2021