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+ | ====== Der Ehrw. Balangoda Ananda Maitreya: Eine persönliche Würdigung ====== | ||
+ | <span hide>Der Ehrw. Balangoda Ananda Maitreya</ | ||
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+ | Venerable Balangoda Ananda Maitreya was one of the great personalities of Theravada Buddhism in the twentieth century, and it is testimony to his vast store of past merits that his life span stretched clear across this century from its beginning almost to its end. In the course of his exemplary life this outstanding Mahathera has held some of the most prestigious academic and ecclesiastical posts in the country. Yet such honor and fame hardly touched him inwardly: at heart he always remained a simple monk whose greatest joy was quiet study and meditation at his small village temple near the town of Balangoda. For me it is a personal honor to be able to name Ven. Ananda Maitreya as my own ordination teacher, the one who brought me into the Sangha and guided my first steps in the life of a bhikkhu. | ||
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+ | The background story to my meeting with the Mahanayaka Thera goes back to the year 1971. At that time I was living at a Vietnamese Buddhist meditation center in Los Angeles. I had been ordained as a samanera (novice) in the Vietnamese Mahayana Order and was lecturing in world religions at a local university. One day our center received notice that a Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka would be arriving in Los Angeles. We invited him to stay with us and give a series of lectures on Theravada Buddhism at our center. That Buddhist monk was none other than Ven. Piyadassi Nayaka Thera of Vajirarama. I served as Ven. Piyadassi' | ||
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+ | The next year the decision had crystallized in my mind to go to Asia to take ordination as a Theravada Buddhist monk. I wrote to Ven. Piyadassi to remind him of his invitation, and he wrote back, giving me the name of a senior prelate who, he said, had previously ordained Westerners. The name was that of Der Ehrw. Balangoda Ananda Maitreya. I wrote to the Mahanayaka Thera, telling him of my background and of my desire to come to Sri Lanka to ordain as a bhikkhu and to study Pali and Buddhism. The Venerable promptly replied, extending me a warm welcome and assuring me that he could oversee my ordination and my instruction in the Dhamma. | ||
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+ | It was at the end of October 1972 that I at last arrived in Sri Lanka, and a week later I made the trip out to Balangoda. I was accompanied on this trip by the late Ven. Baddegama Vimalavamsa Nayaka Thera, who had been my host in Colombo, and by Ven. Pimbure Sorata Nayaka Thera, in whose vehicle we traveled to Balangoda. Though both spoke highly of the excellent qualities of my prospective guru, all along the way I felt somewhat apprehensive about my impending meeting with the Venerable One. Again and again the doubts plagued my mind: Would I make my prostrations in the correct manner? Would I fumble hopelessly for words? Would I make some blunder that would immediately convince the Mahathera that I was unsuited for ordination as a monk? | ||
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+ | We arrived in Balangoda in the middle of the afternoon and headed for the Sri Dhammananda Pirivena, where we were to meet Ven. Ananda Maitreya. As we approached the room where he was awaiting us, my mind was torn between a keen desire to see my chosen teacher and the anxious thoughts that played havoc with my good intentions. My anxiety increased even to the point where I wanted to flee — back to the familiar smog-drenched roadways of Los Angeles, which I had left a few months earlier — abandoning this "noble quest for the Dhamma" | ||
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+ | As soon as I crossed the threshold and set eyes on the Ven. Ananda Maitreya, all my fears were dispelled like the morning mist before the rising sun. It was no stern, cold, ascetic glare that met my questioning eyes, but a bright radiant kindness, a natural simplicity, and a twinkling immediacy of presence which instantly put me at ease. At once I felt delighted that my kamma, and the good offices of Ven. Piyadassi, had brought me into contact with such a luminous being. My fears of bowing in the wrong way were also laid to rest. As soon as I came up close to the Mahanayaka Thera to begin my bow, he waved me towards a chair, as though he thought he should not impose Asian monastic formalities on a visitor from urbane America. Of course, I did not accept his invitation but made the customary triple prostration — with no fear at all that a pair of censorious eyes would be watching to see where I would trip up. | ||
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+ | Later that afternoon, after tea and light talk, the two Nayaka Theras who had so kindly brought me out to Balangoda departed, and the Ven. Ananda Maitreya, a few novices, a lay attendant, and the American postulant piled into the quaint, ancient British-made car that was to take us to Sri Nandaramaya, | ||
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+ | Over the next few days I had the chance to explore the full extent of Sri Nandaramaya. Earlier, while living in the U.S., I had heard worrisome reports about the comfortable living standards that Sri Lankan prelates were inclined to stake out for themselves. Though Ven. Piyadassi had already warned me that I must be ready to "rough it" at Udumulla, on my first morning there I had still been half-expecting a monastic palace to emerge from the mist. Well, one quick walk around the Mahanayaka Thera' | ||
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+ | The main part of the temple, the " | ||
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+ | Over the next few months I came to learn, as a hard lesson, that the diet at Sri Nandaramaya conformed to the same austere standards as the temple' | ||
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+ | For two and a half years (1972-75) I lived with Ven. Ananda Maitreya at Sri Nandaramaya. During this happy period I received regular instruction from him in Pali, Suttanta, and Abhidhamma, fields in which his erudition was impeccable. The guidance he gave me so generously at that time has continued to benefit me right up to the present. In this early stage of my monk's life I faced considerable confusion trying to find the proper key to understand the Dhamma correctly. Western interpreters of Buddhism are often prone to invent their own versions of the Buddha' | ||
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+ | My meetings with the Mahanayaka Thera in those days were not all devoted to religious instruction. Ven. Ananda Maitreya was widely read, had a rich store of experience, and was an original thinker and writer. Thus every so often we would lay the books aside and he would dilate on his theories ranging from the origins of Christianity to the scientific basis for extrasensory perception. During this period I also discovered one of the secrets to the Venerable' | ||
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+ | Writers who have eulogized the Mahanayaka Thera after his death have often extolled his lofty titles, his numerous writings, and his extensive missionary work all over the world. A very different image of the Mahanayaka Thera remains fixed in my mind as a summation of his character and attitude towards life. The image stems from a scene I witnessed one afternoon about 25 years ago. We were on our way back to Sri Nandaramaya from the pirivena, and the Venerable decided to stop off at the Thumbagoda temple, near the approach road to Udumulla. He often liked to stop off here on his way back to his own temple — to rest, enjoy a cup of tea, and chat with the incumbent monk, a close friend of his for many years. On this particular afternoon the weather had been cool and rainy, so the break was especially welcome. | ||
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+ | I sat out on the verandah sipping my tea while the Mahanayaka Thera and his friend spoke inside. About an hour later they still had not emerged. Darkness was starting to set in and the rain clouds were rumbling, so I thought I should remind the Venerable of the time. I did not find the Mahanayaka in the main part of the temple, though the incumbent monk was milling about there, so I went all the way back into the kitchen. There I found him, sitting on a small stool next to the fireplace, chatting amiably with the temple servant, who was sitting on a mat on the ground. I could not help being struck by the utter simplicity, the lack of any sense of self-importance, | ||
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+ | In recent years I did not have frequent personal contact with Ven. Ananda Maitreya. He had spent long periods abroad, and when he was in Sri Lanka he was residing at Balangoda while I have been in Kandy, looking after the late Ven. Nyanaponika Mahathera and supervising the publications programme of the Buddhist Publication Society. But from the reports of newspapers and friends and from my own occasional meetings with him I often heard of the Venerable' | ||
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+ | I was fortunate to have three delightful meetings with the Mahanayaka Thera in the past three years. During the Vassa of 1995, which he spent at Giriulla, about halfway between Kandy and Colombo, I went out with a friend to visit him. I was both amused and impressed to see how assiduously he had taken to the computer, a skill he had learned at the ripe age of 94 and in which he had become quite adept. It was altogether in character for him not to think he was too old to learn something new, and to achieve an effortless mastery over it in minimal time. We even exchanged views on the relative merits of different software programmes and computers. At this meeting he told us he had a strong intuition that he would live to the age of 105. So sure was I that his intuition was correct that when I heard he was seriously ill in Colombo this past July I had no doubt that he would recover. | ||
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+ | A second meeting took place almost exactly a year before his death. With a group of friends I had gone to Colombo on Ven. Piyadassi' | ||
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+ | My third meeting with the Mahanayaka Thera took place only a month before his death. On a trip down to Colombo, this time to visit an ailing Ven. Piyadassi, I had heard that Ven. Ananda Maitreya was also in the hospital, warded on account of a buildup of phlegm in the lungs that had developed during a trip to Taiwan and Thailand that he made in May. Together with a few friends I went to the hospital to see him. On our arrival there we were told that the Venerable had been discharged that same morning and was now at his temple in Maharagama. We set out for the temple at once and found him in apparent good health, though still complaining of "a little phlegm trouble." | ||
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+ | As I drove out to Balangoda with some friends to attend the Venerable' | ||
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+ | May the great Mahathera, the light of Sri Lanka' | ||
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+ | ===== State Funeral for Ven. Ananda Maitreya ===== | ||
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+ | ===== From the Daily News, Monday, 20 Juli 1998 ===== | ||
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+ | ==== By Lionel Yodhasinghe ==== | ||
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+ | (Translation of titles, etc. and a few comments in brackets by Bhikkhu Bodhi.) | ||
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+ | The Most Venerable Abhidhaja Maharatthaguru Agga Mahapandita Balangoda Ananda Maitreya Maha Nayaka Thera passed away at the Sri Jayawardhanapura General Hospital on Saturday. He was 102 years. [Actually, one month short of his 102nd birthday, on the Western way of counting; in the Sinhalese way of counting, one's age is given by counting one's day of birth as ' | ||
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+ | A state funeral will be given to the late Most Venerable Ananda Maitreya Maha Nayaka Thera at Balangoda on Thursday, July 23. The body of the Ven. Mahanayaka Thera will be carried from the Sri Chandrasekeraramaya at Maharagama to the Ananda Maitreya Bhikkhu Centre in New Town, Ratnapura, today at 3 pm. On Tuesday morning [21 July] the body will be conveyed from there to the prelate' | ||
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+ | Large crowds, including bhikkhus and members of other clergy, paid their last respects to the late Nayaka Thera at the Chandrasekeraramaya, | ||
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+ | Cabinet members and representatives from Myanmar, Thailand, India, Japan, Britain, Canada, Switzerland, | ||
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+ | Ven. Ananda Maitreya was born in Kirindigala, | ||
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+ | Ven. Ananda Maitreya visited Yangon to receive the ecclesiastical title in March last year. | ||
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+ | A disciplined Buddhaputra [son of the Buddha, i.e., monk], he was well versed in the doctrine and discipline. He has written nearly 50 books on Sutra, Vinaya, and Abhidhamma, and on Pali and Sanskrit grammar. His book " | ||
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+ | Seit ihrer Gründung im Jahre 1958 hat die BPS eine große Auswahl an Büchern und Broschüren über eine weite Themenpalette veröffentlicht. Unter den Veröffentlichungen finden sich sowohl sorgfältige, | ||
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+ | Buddhist Publication Society\\ | ||
+ | P.O. Box 61\\ | ||
+ | 54, Sangharaja Mawatha\\ | ||
+ | Kandy, Sri Lanka | ||
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