Mahatma Putra

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 born

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