Dear Dharmacari Dhivan,

Thank you very much for your reply. I am much obliged.

One little query. What made you get interested 'meditation' and 'Eastern Religion'. Perhaps studying religion as a subject in an educational institution.

Religious studies (academic studies) consider faith or belief in the sacred as the motivator of religious behaviour. Do you subscribe to that view? If so, what do you consider as sacred in Buddhism?

Now I'll tell you a little about myself. My parents were Buddhists. We were taught Buddhist practices by our parents and elders; especially the female members. They go to the temple and we go along with them. They offer flowers. Mother would tell: "Here is a flower, you offer it to the Buddha". Well when we were very small, we would do ti, All of us generally want to please the mother. In a similar manner we would learn the Salutation to the Buddha, the Five precepts and the Three Recollections. At the beginning one word, then two and so on. As far as Dhamma was concerned that was all I knew until adulthood.

But the education continued at home in a different way. Any transgression of the five precepts were sharply criticized. It is simply things that 'good children do' These were supplemented with Jataka Stories. We never bothered about the historicity of these stories. They were just stories that happened long ago, really when king Brahmadatta was reigning in Benares and so on.
Not only we were told not to indulge in things like gambling, come home on time and so on.

The Buddha was the village temple' 'haamuduruwo's' (bhikkhu) teacher's teacher's ...teachers Teacher. "Buddha caritaya" or the 'Life of the Buddha' was the most imprtant story that one had to learn. So he was a human being. But he was the wisest, the kindest and the noblest. That we had absolutely no doubt. He was the kindest because he would never punish us. That was a consequence of your own actions. There were two things that was stressed all the time friendliness (mettaa) and sharing. Here is a little story I remember still. There were five children in a family. For a whole day they had nothing to eat. Then they got a 'weralu' fruit. A small fruit of the size of an olive. I think it belongs to the same family. They cut the fruit into 7 pieces, ate apiece each, and left two for their parents. Our elders would never finish their plate. There will be something left for the dog and the cat. If no cat or dog is available, that would go to feed the crows.
I hope this gives you a reasonable sketch.

Academic interest came later.

From the above account you'll see that studying Pali is not at all a requirement. That is if you wont to study early Buddhist. Dhamma is not there to be studied. It is for practising.

All the Dhamma you need is in the "sabba paapassa akarana.m". What is considered as evil or sin is common to all the religions.

Kindest regardd

D. G. D. C. Wijeratna

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