A Safe Space

By Radhika Coomaraswamy –APRIL 4, 2019

Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy

I recently attended an event organized by the Walpola Rahula Institute. In just a few years Ven. Galkande Dhammananda Thero has created a safe space where Buddhists, women and minorities can have a discussion about the important ideas of our time and the best way forward for reconciliation. Venerable Dhammanada Thero has no strong view that he imposes on others but he is a facilitator for frank exchange and dialogue, an enabler who makes you feel secure and cared for no matter who you are. When you are with him you have a strong sense of compassion and belonging.

The occasion for the get together by the Institute was the release of the English translation of Ven. Walpola Rahula’s book Sathyodaya,translated initially by Padma Gunasekara. Niranjan Selvadurai translated the final version. Ven. Walpola Rahula, a Buddhist legend, was, as we all know, a graduate of the University of Colombo, University of London and the Sorbonne and was a Professor of History and Religion at North Western University. He was the first Buddhist monk to enter university and first one to be a professor in a prestigious university outside Sri Lanka. He was also once the Vice-Chancellor of Vidyodaya and the Chancellor of Kelaniya University. Sathyodaya was his first book but he went on to write many definitive works including What the Buddha Taught, which is his most famous work.

The speakers at the event put forward many ideas from the text of Sathyodaya that are relevant for our times and are valid across all the religions. Much of Sathyodaya is a critique of mindless rituals, especially offerings of food and medicine to statues when there are so many poor, underprivileged people in our country.  Dr. Prabha Manurathna from the Department of English at Kelaniya quoted from Sathyodaya and made the audience realize the moral unacceptability of all these actions, especially when they are done in excess. According to Dr. Manurathna, within the Buddhist world of explanation such offerings do not reflect an understanding of his teachings and when the material offerings are so excessive as to be grotesque, they actually impact the society.  Born into the Hindu religion I can also totally identify with Ven. Rahula’s words and Dr. Manurathna’s approach. Ven. Rahula stated in Sathyodaya that all this excessive offering of material things to Buddha images was a sign of “low moral maturity” and he urged that all such material things should be given to the poor and that would be a proper and worthy way of honoring the Buddha.

Dr. Sunil Wijesiriwardena, though, had an interesting analysis of this whole debate. He argued that when a person cooks a meal and gives the first portion to the Buddha, or when a simple lamp is lit there is something beautiful in these gestures. They evoke a sense of the sacred that is also important in the spiritual life of many people. One could argue that much of art is focused on the symbolism of these small gestures, a common language for the community of believers.  It is the excess, the pomp and artificial ceremony when resources can be better used that cuts against the grain of radical thinkers like Ven. Rahula. The genuine gestures of beauty and spirituality would be exempt but where excessive material offerings are substitutes for moral rectitude, there is a serious problem

The written style of  Sathyodaya  compelled Professor Asanga Tilakaratne ,the keynote speaker, to address the question of rationalism and logical positivism in Buddhist thought. One could argue that most of the world’s religions do not give the rational thought process as much emphasis as does Buddhism. Hinduism, especially in its Bhakti form, and Sufism in its manifest form rely on a mystical union with the divine. Rationality is not part of the immediate religious process though some Hindus point to the Vedantic texts as their rational structure. Even Christianity and Islam in their initial texts were “revelations “ though later theologians like Saint Thomas Aquinas argued that God was reason and rational thought was his gift. It is the dominant view that Buddhism from the very onset valued a rational thought process, drawing on logic and reason.

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