Mindah-Lee Kumar is a Buddhist teacher and practitioner from Canberra, Australia. She has been studying Buddhism for over seventeen years. She was ordained as a nun for three years in the tradition of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism and completed a total of three years solitary retreat in the same tradition. Her aim is to make Buddhist teachings as relevant and as practical as possible and she posts her work on her website, The Enthusiastic Buddhist. Among her various methods of spreading the teachings, her main focus is creating videos on Buddhism.
During a two-month retreat in Bodh Gaya in India (the place of Buddha’s Enlightenment), she met her husband Rajnee who was working as a travel agent next to the hotel she was staying in. Four years later, and after the completion of Mindah’s solitary retreats, they were married and it was during a one-month pilgrimage with Mindah’s teacher in India that the idea of leading their own pilgrimages came to mind. The blending of Mindah’s enthusiasm for Buddhist teachings and practices and Rajnee’s expertise in tourism in India, seemed an obvious choice to help achieve their aims of bringing the Buddha’s teachings of peace and compassion into the hearts of many. Moreover, Mindah had now completed four Buddhist pilgrimages to the holy sites in Nepal and India and since she was always encouraging people to go on pilgrimage, this seemed a perfect way to be able to provide others with a way to do this.
Rajnee Kumar was born in the blessed town of Bodh Gaya, only a few hundred meters from where the Buddha attained Enlightenment. At the age of 14 he met a Hindu guru who came to live and teach in Rajnee’s house, laying the foundation for a deeply spiritual life. After experiencing much hardship in his youth and wanting to improve the living conditions for his parents and siblings, Rajnee started a small internet shop near the Mahabodhi stupa. He later expanded this into a travel business and began arranging Buddhist tours for international clients, mostly from Thailand. After meeting Mindah, Rajnee trained his elder brother to take over the business so he could move to Australia with Mindah. In June 2014, Rajnee attained a Certificate III in Travels at the Canberra Institute of Technology.
Mindah and Rajnee outside the Ajanta Caves
