Lay Life
Hannelore was looking for religious meanings and in early summer 1949 she came across the teachings of the Buddha. Hannelore was so impressed that she came to the seminary group of Debes, one of the most prominent lay Theravada teachers at that time, and took part in her first “weeks of investigation” in an Adult Education College in the Lüneburger Heide area. She worked as a private teacher. In June 1954 the Sinhalese monk Ven. Nārada turned up in Hamburg and Hannelore took the opportunity to request to go to Ceylon and become a nun. Ven. Nārada gave Pali names to many Buddhists and Hannelore became Vajirā. After much turmoil she finally got her chance to go to Ceylon. She took on the 10 training rules and was ordained as Sister Vajirā by Ven. Nārada on the full moon of July in 1955 at the Vihāra Mahā Devi Hermitage at Biyagāma near Colombo, where other Buddhist nuns (dasa sil mata or dasa sila upāsikā) lived.
Read more about this topic: Sister Vajira
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