Source: The Buddhist Channel/St Petersburg Times
http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=61,3791,0,0,1,0
PINELLAS PARK, Florida (USA) -- The petite woman with a shaved head, saffron robes and slippers carefully selects fruit and vegetables from the produce stand bins.
Here, she doesn't turn heads. She's a regular. But it's not unusual for Bhikkhuni Sudarshana Peliyagoda, 37, to stand out in a crowd.
In Sri Lanka at 16, and against her mother's wishes, she became a Buddhist nun.
She went on to defy her country's traditions by earning the coveted "high ordained" title, a distinction reserved at the time only for monks. She then trained others to follow her lead. Now Bhikkhuni Sudarshana is believed to be the only Sri Lankan Buddhist nun to run her own temple in America.
This week the intrepid nun will be honored in Thailand at a conference for outstanding Buddhist women. She's also been invited to speak next year at an international event in Germany.
She works to straddle both her worlds.