Ayya Khema
| Ayya Khema | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Religion | Theravada |
| Personal | |
| Nationality | German & American |
| Born | Ilse Kussel August 25, 1923 Berlin, Germany |
| Died | November 21, 1997 (aged 74) |
| Senior posting | |
| Title |
bikshuni dasa sil mata |
| Religious career | |
| Teacher | Ven. Narada Maha Thera (first ordination) Ven. Hsing Yun (second ordination) |
Ayya Khema (August 25, 1923 – November 2, 1997) was a Buddhist teacher, and the first Western woman to become a Theravadin Buddhist nun. She was very active in providing opportunities for women to practice Buddhism, founding several centers around the world. In 1987 she coordinated the first ever Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women. Over two dozen books of her transcribed dhamma talks in English and German have been published, and in the last year of her life she also wrote her autobiography: I Give You My Life.
Born as Ilse Kussel in Berlin, Germany in 1923 to Jewish parents. In 1938, her parents escaped from Germany and traveled to China while plans were made for Khema to join two hundred other children emigrating to Glasgow, Scotland. After two years in Scotland, Khema joined her parents in Shanghai. With the outbreak of the war, Japan conquered Shanghai and the family was moved into the Shanghai Ghetto in Hongkew where her father died five days before the war ended.
At age twenty-two, Khema married a man seventeen years her senior named Johannes and they moved to an apartment in the Hongkou District. In 1947, her first child, a daughter named Irene, was born. As the People's Liberation Army were on the cusp of taking Shanghai, Khema and her family fled for San Francisco, California, United States. From San Francisco, Khema moved to Los Angeles and then San Diego where she gave birth to her second child, a son named Jeffrey.
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