Heartwood Mandala Capital Fund - heartwoodmandala.org

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“In the proper season they give, those with discernment, responsive, free from stinginess. They have a share of the merit… So, with an unhesitant mind, give where the gift bears great fruit.” AN 5.36

We ask your support in preserving the legacy of Venerable Pannavati and Venerable Pannadipa by Creating a safe and enduring AMERICAN BUDDHIST MANDALA

A residence for the monastics of the Embracing Simplicity Order
An operational base for expanded outreach programs and services;
Headquarters for Learning from Buddha Academy; and
A Dharma hall and small retreat quarters for practitioners

For more than 25 years as the first (and for 20 years, the only) fully-ordained Black American Theravadan Bhikkhuni (female monastic), Venerable Pannavati has worked tirelessly to spread the Buddha Dharma and to serve living beings.

Along with Venerable Pannadipa (deceased 2022), she established Embracing Simplicity Contemplative Order in 2004 to provide residential training for monastics, chaplains, ministers, and dharma teachers. Many of the service programs she has undertaken through the past two decades were groundbreaking:

providing housing and certified job training to homeless youths and teen mothers in Western North Carolina
building wells and toilets and refurbishing schools for the Dalits (Untouchables) in southern India;
ordination of fifty (50) Bhikkhunis in Thailand, the first female monastics to be ordained on Thai soil;
ordination of more than one hundred (100) Buddhist lay ministers and dharmachaya in the United States;
ordination of the first Dalit nun and the second Cambodian Bhikkhuni.

Venerable Pannavati is universally recognized for her example and teachings of fearless compassion and wisdom. She has received numerous national and international Buddhist and humanitarian awards, including a Special Commendation from Princess Chulabhorn of Thailand.

Our beloved Teacher, now 75 years old, is looking ahead to the time when she will be departing this body. It is her greatest wish to leave behind a secure and lasting American Buddhist Mandala, to continue Heartwood’s legacy of service, to provide a permanent home for the Order’s resident nuns, and to expand the spreading of true Buddha Dharma through Mandala Houses throughout the country where practitioners (both monastic and lay) can live, study, and practice together in community.

From 2004 through 2015, Venerable Pannavati gave her attention primarily to cultivating a sincere monastic life and establishment of a western Buddhist order for women sensitive to the cultural and political conditions of the time.

Heartwood Refuge (2016 – 2025)

In 2016, she acquired a run-down, 90-bedroom hotel property on Osceola Road in Hendersonville, NC. Investing over $1.5 Million in renovating the property, Heartwood hosted residential retreats attended by thousands of practitioners, opening up the South to prominent American and international Buddhist teachers and masters. These retreats and other events provided the financial underpinning for the Center. Heartwood was also home to a small community of lay residents, a dedicated local (rural) sangha, and to Pannavati’s and Pannadipa’s national dharmachaya training program.

The COVID pandemic arrived in 2020, putting an end to residential gatherings and Heartwood’s primary means of sustainability — retreats. The entire landscape for retreat centers (both spiritual and sectarian) shifted towards on-line events. Given the worldwide economic conditions, the property stayed on the market for 2 years before being sold for the amount of the mortgage.

Heartwood Mandala (2023 – onward )

In December 2022, Heartwood relocated to 389 Courtland Boulevard, Hendersonville, where the monastics continue to reside and where our sangha meetings, dharma talks and studies, workshops and events, and other programs are based.

The Courtland Boulevard property includes about a half-acre land, a main building and an ancillary two-level cottage. The main building consists of three floors, housing the Dharma Hall and Sangha Fellowship Hall; kitchen, living area, and office; and a total of 7 bedrooms for the resident monastics and visitors. The Cottage houses Heartwood’s recording studio and includes bedrooms, bathrooms and full kitchen to accommodate up to four people seeking transmissions, solitary retreat or small group meditations.

Heartwood Mandala is the heir of Heartwood Refuge. It will continue and expand the Heartwood Legacy, fulfilling a multi-faceted mission:

It will continue as the residence for the monastics of the Embracing Simplicity Order.
It will continue as the meeting place for the Heartwood Sangha and the venue for workshops, training programs, and outreach events, to preserve, edit, and share precious dharma teachings that will lead sincere practitioners to liberation.
We will promote the development of “Mandala Houses” in communities throughout the country, based on this affordable Heartwood model.
We will continue to develop and share the Five Vidyas, focusing on inner realization, music and health and wellness.
Finally, Heartwood Mandala will be the base of Correct Cultivation Learning from Buddha Academy which consists of live in-person classes as well as an on-line community to propagate the non-sectarian teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha as imparted by Dorje Chang Buddha III and elucidated by Venerable Pannavati.

The Courtland Boulevard property provides a home that meets the requirements for Heartwood Mandala programs and our monastics for the present and foreseeable future. We have planted our roots here, and we are flourishing. We are blessed with the support of a deeply committed sangha of Venerable Pannavati’s national and international student base; and of a principle-driven property owner (seller) who is devoted to keeping Heartwood in this location.

We need to raise $350,000 by April, 2026

Heartwood Mandala has the opportunity to purchase the Courtland Avenue property at a favorable price and extremely reasonable payment terms.

Will you help?

Very few western Dharma centers flourish if not supported by Eastern practitioners because the practice of supporting monastics – those who have given up personal gain to devote their lives to mastering the Dharma and serving living beings – is not part of their cultural history and tradition.

King Ashoka, who sent his own son, Mahendra, and daughter to Sri Lanka to establish Buddhism there, asked (when they returned to their homeland) if the Dharma was well established. Mahendra said, the Dharma “is firmly established, when, in this land, both laypeople and monks live according to the Dhamma.”

I have dedicated my life to training Americans while appreciating and supporting Buddhism in the east. Now is our time to establish a non-sectarian Western sangha and relationships that will reflect and respond to the unique characteristics and karma of this land and its people. – Venerable Pannavati