My religion and me

My early widowed mother insisted we observe sil with her at least for Vesak and Poson. My older sisters had much more to do – you know, they being cloistered teenagers in Kandy and the brother just older than me was THE man in the house since the eldest was away in his DRO Pattuwa.

So it was invariably me who was conscripted. I wore a white dress, threw a white cloth across one shoulder, sat beside mother on a mat and merely existed from breakfast to special lunch till I was released at six in the evening. When I reached maturity, I made it a point of observing sil at least for the major poyas. As time went on and I had less family responsibilities and more desire and time for religious observances, my gratitude to Mother for inculcating the sil observing habit increased.

I was educated in a Methodist missionary school but home background was firmly Buddhist. In my maternal grandparents home religion was given prime place. Grandparents supported the local temple and held an annual all night pirit. In our home in Kandy, chanting of the thun sutras was on average once in three months or so.

Any illness or a horoscope reading prophesying an apala period for any family member meant a pirit chanting in addition to the annual dane in memory of Father. Marriage of my eldest sister meant pirit chanting before her engagement, marriage and when she was expecting her babies.

We were weekly participants in the bodhi poojas and dane in the Halloluwa temple and of course visits to the Dalada Maligawa were frequent. I must add that, thankfully, we were not devotees of gods and devales. Mother broadmindedly allowed learning of scripture in school, and once I was boarded, Mother giving up house in Kandy, I happily went to church on Sundays. All with benefit to me.

Association with Bhikkhunis and kalyana mithra

It was a superb karmic benefit that I met Ven Ayya Khema, a German nun residing in her wonderful aranya in the Ratgama Lake in Dodanduwa. With the first meditation session with Ayya Khema came the added good fortune of befriending silvath, gunavath Ratna Dias. We went often to Parappuduwa Nuns’ Island for meditation retreats and then when in 1989, Bhikkhuni Khema left due to the JVP insurgency, we formed a committee and managed the island for many years.

It was during our earliest visits that we came to know the Australian ten preceptor Ayya Vayama: so gracious, so committed in meditation, palpably emanating an aura of metta. Both became Bhikkhunis: Ayya Khema receiving higher ordination in California and Ayya Vayama under Ven Brahmavamso. She managed a nuns’ retreat in Perth, seeing it develop from scratch, but very unfortunately a nerve condition forced her to retire and reside with Ayya Seri in a home gifted to them, where soon enough meditation sessions were conducted. Bhikkhuni Vayama visited Sri Lanka to meet her friends and supporters and stayed with me, but her last visit was in a wheelchair and staying in a Colombo hotel.

Once we handed over Parappaduwa Nuns’ Island to the Polgasduwa Island Hermitage, our maintaining it as a women’s retreat having failed, Ratna and I went to Dhamma Kuta in Hindagala. We were among many who crowded the newly built meditation centre perched on a hill when Most Respected Goenkaji, accompanied by his wife, resided in the glass fronted house built in the premises,. Morning chanting was extra special because the two of them were present and walked past us, lined along the meditation hall.

Many were the retreats I participated in which helped immensely. Now it’s more staying in-house but sil is observed at home on every full moon poya and meditation is attempted. Bana, mostly over the Pragna Channel is listened to and there is the maintained effort to follow the advice of the Buddha as expounded by the learned, erudite monks that bless Sri Lanka.

Just as abiding by the five precepts every day, cultivating the four brahma viharas is very important to me. Metta is easy since spreading of loving kindness is second nature; karuna or compassion is easily felt; muditha – being happy at others success and well being is easily possible as not a trace of envy nor grabbing exists within. Upekka or equanimity I find very hard to maintain, shaken as I am like a bamboo in adversity.

Even more than personal, money or health concerns, the mind is unsettled by how things are in the country. For instance, the mayhem the mob emerging from Temple Trees on Monday (May 9) caused, and the marauding that followed in retaliation disturbed me completely. I woke depressed from a sleep-disturbed night, but mercifully at 7.00 a m Ven Chandakitti preached on impermanence and equanimity and maintaining sati – mindfulness.

The Buddha’s last teaching was:

Annicca vata sankhara/ Uppada vaya dhammino

Uuppajjitva nirujjhanti/ Tesam rupa samo suukho

All things are impermanent. They cease and pass away

Having arisen they come to an end. Their coming to peace is bliss.

And the Buddha’s final words:

“Behold O Monks, this is my last advice to you.

All component things in the world are changeable.

They are not lasting. Work hard to gain your own deliverance.”

What comforting thoughts, what wonderful advice. And truly the idea of death is not frightening.

Inspiring persons of the

Buddha years

The most inspiring, comforting, to be revered and also affectionately admired is the Buddha himself, a human being who reached a super-human state and showed mankind the way to deliverance from samsara. He propounded the Four Truths and showed the Path; we have to follow his teaching and gain salvation for ourselves, by ourselves. His life story is the most poignant and inspiring biography of all time.

His faithful attendant, carer and friend from the time he turned 50 to his parinibbana at age 80, was Ananda – so human, so simply ordinary, yet extraordinary in his devotion to the Buddha. It is said they had very friendly conversations; laughed much and Ananda Thera would apply medicine to the Buddha’s back as he was prone to backache. In Kusinara, he could not bear watch Buddha dying, so he moved away to shed tears. He was still mundane. But needed at the first Council to set down in memory the unadulterated words of the Buddha, three months after his passing away, Ananda Thera became an arahat as he lay down to sleep. So he was at the Council, the person who knew best the Word of the Teacher.

Among the women of Buddha’s time including his stepmother Prajapati Gotami – the first Bhikkhuni, Visakha the devoted lay person, I find Yashodara exquisitely engaging. It was Prof Sunil Ariyaratne’s 2018 film Bimba Devi hewath Yashodara that brought the true woman to attention. She had travelled along with the Bodhisatva (Buddha in his previous births) for very long and this was to be their final union.

Siddhartha Gautama informed his father, stepmother and wife he had to leave lay life and seek the truth of existence. She consented unlike King Suddhohana but with one condition.”Leave me when I am asleep.” When she heard of his ascetism, she followed suit, giving up palace luxuries. And when the Buddha visited Kapilavastu, she waited until he came to see her. She sent her son to his father, knowing full well the Buddha would ordain him. She became a Bhikkhuni and when old and near death, she journeyed to where the Buddha was.

Thus we have to direct our minds during this Vesak weekend to the significances of the poya of May and also remember those supreme lives. Practice sathi, remember everything changes, nothing is permanent, and karma always brings deserved results to any action.