Venerable Galkande Dhammananda’s visit to Australia

Venerable Galkande Dhammananda, Executive Director of the Walpola Rahula Institute of Sri Lanka visited Australia in early February and participated in several events in Perth, Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide and Melbourne. His visit was prompted by the invitation he had received to address a symposium on Australia and Buddhism in Perth. During his visit, he met with Sri Lankans of all ethnicities and religions, as well as many other Australians.

His message throughout his presentations was that real and lasting peace amongst individuals, and communities, could not be achieved without first healing the mental wounds everyone suffers from to varying degrees of intensity. Through such a healing process, first by healing oneself, and then extending that to others through a better understanding of the wounds others may be suffering from, and assisting them in the healing process, equanimity and peace with oneself and with others would follow.

Venerable Dhammananda also reminded audiences that Buddha’s teachings, in particular, pattichcha samuppadaya or dependent origination, would assist one to understand the need for healing as a pre requite towards peace and equanimity. His message was that dependent origination was about linkage, and how every act arising from a thought has a preceding thought and a successor thought, and in this context, those who have wounds, and who may be labelled as “victims”, and some others who may be labelled as “perpetrators”, or a third category, “bystanders”, could be the same person who may have been a victim at one point, a perpetrator at another point and bystander at other times.

The ever changing thought processes and their linkage, accompanied by physical acts related to such thought processes as articulated in dependent origination, could cause the same person to be all three categories at different times due to their linkage. They would carry psychological wounds and mental scars, and these needed to be healed if that person is to understand another person who might be passing through a “victim’ stage, but who may have passed through a perpetrator stage or a bystander stage earlier.

Venerable Dhammananda mentioned some of the programs and projects that the Walpola Rahula Institute is engaged in to promote a better understanding of the healing process or “suvapathveema” as a pre requisite for peace and reconciliation. He mentioned some of the programs were meant for lay persons and some were meant for Venerable Monks and Nuns.

He mentioned the monthly Metta Day Program as a fundamental effort to reintroduce loving-kindness as a tool for inner healing and conflict transformation at personal level, family level and in social level), and other like Buddhist approaches to Conflict Transformations – training programs for Venerable nuns and monks, Sanghas dialogues – Intra religious dialogue program Mindful Children and Teens for social healing  Inter-religious dialogue on Social Healing, Disaster preparedness and community resilience trainings for venerable monks and nuns who are living in natural disaster prone areas. Healing of Memories programs that support to heal from painful memories of those who directly affected by conflict.

He spoke at length about the latest effort on social healing that aims to heal divided communities in two small villages in the north and south of Sri Lanka through school children, the Rahula Thangaraja Twin Schools project, where two schools, one in Mallavi (a Tamil village which was in the thick of the armed conflict that ended in 2009, and the other in Kebitigollewa, a former Sinhala border village which had also experienced violence and terrorist acts during the armed conflict) have been linked to advance a healing process amongst students, teachers and parents.

This project is being done with the assistance of Sri Lankans in Sri Lanka and Australia through their personal involvement in different aspects of the project. Financial assistance, although needed, has not been the primary criteria for involvement by these well-wishers as one of the key objectives set out for the project is the healing of everyone associated with the project, including those providing assistance, and developing a better understanding of others by such participation.

Among these, projects like the Buddhist approaches to Conflict Transformations – training programs for Venerable nuns and monks, Sangha dialogues, Intra religious dialogue program, Inter-religious dialogue on Social Healing, and Healing of Memories programs are projects that are done over varying periods of time from 2 to 6 monhs, interspread with sessions on actual learning experiences as part of the program. The Rahula-Thangaraja Twin Schools project is initially a one year project.

Venerable Dhammananda urged his audiences to think differently about how inter and intra reconciliation amongst communities and within communities may be achieved and give thought to the idea of social healing as a path towards peace and reconciliation.

More details about WRI activities may be viewed on their Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/walpolarahulainstitute or their website https://www.walpolarahula.org/

GALKANDE DHAMMANANDA THERO

Executive Director, Walpola Rahula Institute for Buddhist Studies

The Venerable Galkande Dhammananda Thero is a Sri Lankan national and a monk of Theravada Buddhist tradition. After completing the monastic training Dhammananda Thero joined to the university of Kelaniya and received his B.A. Degree in History. After winning the commonwealth Scholarship in 2003 he completed his Masters and M.Phil degrees at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, India and is now reading for his PhD. Dhammananda Thero heads the Walpola Rahula Institute for Buddhist Studies where educational and training programs are offered for religious leaders and lay persons with an aim to support social healing. He is a full-time lecturer attached to the Department of History, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. Dhammananda thero is actively engaged in issues related to social justice and harmony that promotes an inclusive plural society. He has been actively using social media to propagate the message of nonviolence during resent interreligious and interethnic conflicts in Sri Lanka. Some of his videos titled Bahujana Hitaya (for the betterment of all) can be found at the following link: Over the years he has been in dialogue with religious leaders on issues related to social justice and healing and wishes to support others to enter in to similar dialogues. He is inspired by the Buddha’s teaching of ‘Bahujana Hitaya’ (for the betterment of all) calling for one to work beyond religious, ethnic or social labels to actively uplift the society – especially supporting those who are vulnerable, marginalized and discriminated.