Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Discovering Nilambe.

I did Bhavana (Buddhist practice of Mind development), starting at the age of 14, and reaching to 4 Samadi states at the age of 25 (Why do one say of his Samadi achievement? I will come to this later). Since I practised alone, I had not met any practitioner of Bhavana, until then.

To practice Bhavana, I did not read Buddhism, but only read from Buddhist books and Nikayas (Lord Buddha's teaching in Tripitaka), how to practice Bhavana.

Then I started studying Buddhism, where my understanding of Mind, through Bhavana and Samadi, helped me to understand Buddhism more and more, and this is a continuing process.

Eager to meet people who practice Bhavana, I looked in Newspapers, posters, etc. and used to attend those discussions or lectures or even Bhavana sessions.

Every Saturday there would be a lecture by someone on Buddhism, mainly by late Mr. Alec Robertson, in the Maithree Hall, at Lauris Road, Colombo-4. Which I used to attend.

Then Anagarika Assaji from Western Buddhist Order had a centre in Dehiwala, and I participated in their activities. 

From this centre at Dehiwala, I learnt about the existence of a Lay Meditation Centre at Nilambe, Galaha. It is a new thing for me, hence I decided to visit it. There I met people of different types who practice various types of meditation, including Bhavana.

In continuing this blog, I would be only posting about the different practice people do and discuss, which helped me to understand and differentiate the practice and achievement I had in Bhavana.
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