A Life Well-Lived and Remembered: Celebrating Pannavati

Photo of Singing, guitars, a cello, and the piano as well as the remembrance of a life wellived were part of Ven. Pannavati's Memorial Service. — Singing, guitars, a cello, and the piano as well as the remembrance of a life well-ived were part of Ven. Pannavati’s Memorial Service.

I was so grateful to be able to make one more trip to North Carolina to give a personal farewell to a student of the Dharma who had brought a special kind of joy and compassion to our world. Venerable Dr. Pannavati Karuna, Maha Teri was born in 1950 in Washington, D.C. and ordained in both the Theravada and Mahayana traditions. She was a follower of Vajrayana and devoted to my Master, H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III. She had also formerly been a charismatic Pentecostal preacher. She told me that it was Jesus who told her to seek the Buddha, which she did. She also performed decades of work in service for humanitarian projects advocating and serving women’s advancement, education and community development work for Dalits (India’s Untouchables), the full ordination for female nuns, and much more.

When I reviewed what was on the internet about her, I found over 700 articles and learned things that she did that even I had never heard about. I was not, however, surprised. I was honored to join her in one such event–secret ordination of women in the jungles of Thailand that I will never forget. I had gone with her to Thailand and Cambodia when she received the Outstanding Buddhist Women’s Award (and gave the keynote address at the related conference) in 2009. We first visited Angkor Wat and the other jungle ruins in Cambodia as well as many Buddhist sites in Thailand, but I had not planned for the ordination ceremony in the winter jungles of Thailand. I added some more favorite photos from that trip below. My all-time favorite photo was the shot I took of of her leaving the ordination ceremony with her new nuns. I also included a YouTube short of her giving a Dharma talk and entire memorial ceremony in Hendersonville, NC.

She was a dear friend and a creative and inspirational warrior for the true Dharma which she often expressed in music and song and her own special and very inclusive vision. I loved her very much and will miss her greatly.