Metta Festival 2025 – Celebrating 10 years of Metta – by Kithsiri Senadeera
This year’s Metta Festival celebrated the 10-year anniversary of Metta Centre on 15 November 2025, at Burwood Park, Burwood, NSW. Buddhist monastics from various traditions flying in from all around the world attend this special event. The event was organized by the Buddhist Council of NSW.
The Metta Festival started in the morning with a ‘Mahadana’ or alms offering to monastics. The day was filled with guided meditation, group reflections, and community stalls. It was great opportunity to meet Buddhist monks, nuns and practitioners from multiple traditions.
It was a rare gathering of the ‘Fourfold Sangha’ viz Monks, Nuns, Laymen, and Laywomen across major Buddhist traditions in one place, connect with esteemed monastics, and share a day of compassion, mindfulness, and community.
One of the highlights of the Metta Festival was Buddhist cultural performances. All major Buddhist traditions took part in cultural performances. There were dancing, singing, music and drama of diverse Buddhist traditions. Sri Lanka was represented by ‘Sydney Sri Lankans Singing Group’. The choir led by Shanti Senadeera including the soundtrack and training.
The Group singers:1. Shanti Senadeera,
- Ruvee Nimnadi
- Seetha Liyanage
- Sumethra Dias
- K.K.Dias
- Kasundi Samarasinghe
- Damayanthi Kuruvita
- Lalith Kuruvita
- Kithsiri Senadeera
