Dhamma Wheel Buddhist Forum

Dear Friends,

I feel I've been blessed to find myself involved in a monumental undertaking in my first few weeks in Sri Lanka. It seems that next May is the 2600th anniversary of the Buddha's enlightenment by Sri Lankan reckoning. In honour of this, Sri Sambodhi Viharaya and The Buddhist ( http://www.thebuddhist.tv ) are working with the government and sangha council to, among other things, start a 500-acre (may be an exaggeration) forest monastery for meditation training. As a part of this project, they will arranging the ordination of 100 bhikkhus at the Temple of the Tooth Relic in Kandy for the anniversary. I have been asked to participate in this, as one of the teachers for the new monks, and have been given permission to open the project up to international applicants. Details:

• Applicants are required to send a CV outlining both their experience in Buddhist study and practice as well as worldly study and work (send an email to yuttadhammo at gmail).
• A minimum anagārika period of one month is required before the ordination (earliest acceptance will be March 2011).
• The May ordination, in accordance with Sri Lankan tradition, will be, I am told, a sāmanera (novice) ordination, followed by upasampadā (full ordination) after 4-6 months.
• Applicants may be required to stay at the Sri Sambodhi Viharaya until enough space is available at the forest monastery, though there should be enough room for everyone by May.
• As it stands, the quota for foreigners is 5, but I imagine this can be stretched. Preference will be given, if we need to limit the number of applicants, to those who have experience in intensive meditation practice and/or involvement with forest monasteries (letters of reference might help).
• Bhikkhuni ordination is still not officially recognized by the sangha council, but sāmanerī ordination will be conferred upon request (and as I understand, bhikkhuni ordination can be pursued in Sri Lanka at a later date).
• Applications will be probably be accepted up until March or April, 2011.

Maybe this could be bumped up to the announcements?

thanks for sharing this

Greetings Bhante,

yuttadhammo wrote:Maybe this could be bumped up to the announcements?

Done.

Wishing you well with this meritorious project! Please keep us informed as to your progress.

Ben

Actually, if you read his blog posts, I'm not so sure he is too enthusiastic about this project any more..

See: http://yuttadhammo.sirimangalo.org/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hi Viscid,

I don't see anything in this blog suggesting that he is not. Just because he lives in a cave we shouldn't forget that he is into blogging and taking his laptop/camera around with him. If he is against 'too much meditation' (re his stay at Kanduboda, according to the blog -I am paraphrasing) maybe he does have time to organise this really amazing thing- or at least help out by what he can do via the Internet.

With metta

Matheesha

From my reading of the blog-Bhante Yuttadhammo is talking about twice as much sitting as walking meditation.
I teach that we should walk and sit in equal parts, i.e. 1 hour walking,followed immediately by 1 hour sitting.
Bhante also mentioned that sitting meditation was done immediately after having eaten.
Walking meditation,in my opinion is a better form of meditation to do after taking a meal.
I say this for two reasons:
1. Walking assists in digestion.
2. After eating(and Bhante implies 1 meal per day so this would be a largish meal to sustain the body for 24 hours) we tend to become sluggish and can become tired quite fast.) Walking meditation gives us energy that enables us to sit.
In regards to other things mentioned in the blog-scorpion stings can be really painfull experiences(been there, done that)
Leeches not only suck your blood,after taking their fill and falling off, the bleeding continues for some time.(been there, done that)
A monkey taking a dump on your head is probably not the best experience on the planet(not been there, done that- in this life at least)
I wish everyone involved in this venture all the best.
With metta