~ About Lara

About Lara Heaton

~ Among-Friends: A Network of Friends

Image: Lara

I grew up on Vancouver Island. After finishing high school, I spent several years in New York studying acting. When I realised that this was not the career for me, I travelled for a while and eventually ended up in India in 2000.

There, at the age of 21, I attended an introduction to Buddhism retreat in Bodhgaya that completely changed my life. I learned that the Buddha had taught we are not our body or personality, but pure compassion. A fire arose in my heart to experience this truth for myself, and with it came a great desire to be of service to others from that place of pure compassion.

Following the retreat I experienced a desire to do intensive meditation. I’d heard that there were really good teachers in Burma, so I left India and went to Burma. There I met my first teachers, the late Venerable Shwe Oo Min Sayadaw and Sayadaw U Tejania, and began practicing vipassana (insight meditation). In all, I went to Burma five times for retreats of 1 to 3 months. Early on I had a profound awakening experience that further revolutionized my life.

I learned many things from my teachers and from my experiences in Burma. Since then it has been a process of integrating what was learned into life outside of a meditation center.

The ideal of compassionate service took shape in my entering a BSc Nursing program in 2005, and let me tell you, trying to balance a hectic and highly taxing curriculum with daily meditations really put my resources to the test!

In 2008, in the middle of the program, a very close friend began losing her battle with cancer, so I took some time off to nurse her. After she died, I felt a great need to take a year off to reconnect more deeply with my life. For several years Nadhia had been encouraging me to meet her teacher, Ajay, so I decided to spend the year in India doing just that. All I can say is that I fell in love with him.

I finally finished my nursing program in July 2010 and will be going back to India soon to do more intensive meditation and retreats with our beloved Ajay.

When Nadhia went to India last year, she asked me to take over the weekly drop-in meditation classes she’d been giving in the Victoria area for the past several years. Reluctantly, I agreed, but to my surprise I found the experience both creative and satisfying. Now she’s nagging me to write this blah-blah (that’s what she calls it) about myself for the website so, for whatever it’s worth, here it is.

Contact Lara:

~Top of Page