This is one of my finest day here in Sri Lanka. Meeting some new friends. This is the first time in my life to make friends with monks. They are all around my age, around 25, some are younger. Spending time with them everyday gives me insight of being a monk. Amazing yet very simple life. Everything make sense when we lead this kind of life. Being not attached to various things in life somehow is a liberation for me. Why we have to cling to something that is subject to decay and death, if we could understand that ourself is subject to decay and death? Something else must be there. Money and material things are subject to decay and death, wife and children are subject to decay and death, fame and glory are subject to decay and death, even religion & philosophy are subject to decay & death. These are not kind of understanding that everything is vain & empty. Just the opposite, where there is an understanding that everything is impermanence then something great are b...
Photo: Mahatma Putra 's Personal Archive The room was black, as black as his past. He sat there alone, in his black Victorian-chair, accompanied only by his books. He had no friends, for he thought there were no one he could speak to, he thought everyone else was dumb and that if he socialize with them, it could lead him away to reach enlightenment. So he locked himself in his black painted office, where he could spoke and listened to Heidegger and Machiavelli -some of his few imaginary friends. They told him -and he believed- that when he had enlightened, his black-painted office would transform itself into a brilliant white box. When someone was too lonely, sometimes there was a voice that one couldn’t differ whether it was real or not. He had been a director in Mayhem-Factory for almost a thousand years. This job was no different than any other job; it had its ups and downs, and maybe this time, right now was the most-down side his job. He mourned a lot, for everything ar...
Sri Lanka has always impressed me. First, I came to this country to learn the basic philosophy of Buddhism, for Sri Lanka is a country that has a root of Theravada Buddhism, often known as "The Ancient Sound", the oldest surviving Buddhist school in the world today. My arrival here coincided with the end of the Vesak Lantern Festival in Colombo, that held up to one week after Vesak. For me this is a special opportunity to see the national lantern festival that is very popular in Sri Lanka. My encounter with a monk in SIBA (Sri Lanka International Buddhist Academy) --a place where I took a short course of Buddhist Studies-- in Kandy, Sri Lanka's central province, brought some fresh air for my adventure here. Hemaloka, I called him Bhante Hemaloka - Bhante is a call for a monk. Bhante Hemaloka majored in Buddhist Leadership for his undergraduate concentration in SIBA. Lucky for me, Bhante Hemaloka's monastery is in Colombo, where the national ...
Comments