About
Venerable Pannavati is ordained in Theravada and Chan traditions and practices Vajrayana Buddhism. She is a former Christian pastor and co-founding abbot of Embracing Simplicity Hermitage. She co-founded Sisters of Compassionate Wisdom, a trans-lineage Buddhist monastic order. Her work includes ordination of Thai and Cambodian nuns, ministry to homeless youth in Appalachia, and humanitarian service in India. She teaches at Insight Meditation Center, Insight Retreat Center, and guest teaches at other communities including Insight NY and Spirit Rock.
Teaching focus
Venerable Pannavati's core teaching draws on shikantaza (just sitting), breath-counting, koan introspection. The frame is the Zen tradition of seated meditation and direct pointing, but the language stays plain. Venerable Pannavati doesn't lecture from height. The talks tend to think alongside whatever's actually present in the room. Recurring themes include zazen, samu, and sangha. None of those get presented as abstract ideas. They're worked into the body, into ethics, into how a practitioner shows up in family life or at work, so that the dharma stops feeling like a separate compartment. There's a steady invitation in the talks to keep practice human-sized. Sit when you can, return when you've drifted, and trust that small consistent attention does more over the years than dramatic breakthroughs. Format-wise, Venerable Pannavati teaches in in-person, online, retreat, and the tone moves easily between guided sittings, dharma talks, and Q&A. Questions tend to get answered the way they were asked, without being reframed into something cleaner. That alone tells you a lot about how the room feels.
Background
Venerable Pannavati is ordained in Theravada and Chan traditions and practices Vajrayana Buddhism. She is a former Christian pastor and co-founding abbot of Embracing Simplicity Hermitage. She co-founded Sisters of Compassionate Wisdom, a trans-lineage Buddhist monastic order. Her work includes ordination of Thai and Cambodian nuns, ministry to homeless youth in Appalachia, and humanitarian service in India. She teaches at Insight Meditation Center, Insight Retreat Center, and guest teaches at other communities including Insight NY and Spirit Rock. Venerable Dr. Pannavati, a yogini, former Christian pastor, founding Co-Abbot of Embracing Simplicity Hermitage, and a founding director of Sisters of Compassionate Wisdom (a 21st century trans-lineage Buddhist order), ordained in Theravada and Chan Schools, a Zen Dharma Holder and Vajrayana practitioner as well, Ven. Pannavati’s insight is rich with compassion, wit and humor. Known for her ordination of Thai and Cambodian nuns, work with homeless youth in Appalachia, and ministry to the "untouchables" in India, she is the recipient of multiple Outstanding Women in Buddhism Awards, and received a special commendation from HRH Princess Chulabhorn of Thailand for humanitarian service towards women and children. A guest speaker at Buddhafest in Washington DC this year, and returning next year, in 2013, she also guest teaches at many communities including Insight NY and Spirit Rock’s CDL program. Venerable Pannavati teaches across several communities, including Insight Meditation Center, Insight Retreat Center. That work sits within the Zen tradition of seated meditation and direct pointing, and the recurring concerns of Venerable Pannavati's teaching, ethical foundation, steady attention, and the slow softening of habitual reactivity, echo the older texts without sounding distant from a 21st-century practitioner's life. What stands out across Venerable Pannavati's talks isn't a single technique but a steadying tone. Practice is treated as something built slowly, in ordinary life, with care. There's room for the difficulties practitioners actually bring into the room, grief, restlessness, the body's complaints, family obligations, and the encouragement is consistent without being pushy.
Lineage
Venerable Pannavati teaches within the Zen tradition of seated meditation and direct pointing. Current affiliations include Insight Meditation Center, Insight Retreat Center. The lineage shows up less in titles than in the way Venerable Pannavati talks about practice, with steady reference to the older Buddhist vocabulary while keeping the door open for people who've never read a sutra. Whether that framing lands as monastic or lay depends on the specific talk, but the consistent thread is care for the form without letting the form become the point.
What to expect
Sitting with Venerable Pannavati, you can expect grounded instruction in shikantaza (just sitting), with space to ask questions and bring whatever's actually showing up in your practice. On retreat the structure follows a classical rhythm of sittings, walking practice, and dharma talks, with silence held between sessions. Online sessions tend to keep the same shape, shorter sits, a talk, and time for Q&A, in a format that's accessible from home. The teaching voice is steady. Venerable Pannavati won't push you past your edge, and there's a clear preference for slow, sustainable practice over breakthrough chasing. Bring a notebook if you like, or don't. Either way, you'll be met where you are.
