JOURNEY TO MINDFULNESS: The Autobiography of Bhante G, by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana with Jeanne Malmgren, Wisdom Publications, Boston, 2003, ISBN 0 86171 347 8, pp. 288, ￡12.95.
摘要
Dr Henepola Gunaratana Nayaka Thera, known as Bhante G, is the author of Mindfulness in Plain English. He was born in 1927 in a small, poverty-stricken village in Sri Lanka and first took the robe at the age of 12. His initial forays into monastic life had their trials and tribulations. Bullying teachers and a discipline system based on beatings caused the young Gunaratana to run away more than once.
Soon he experienced his 'calling', to teach the Dhamma in English, which many of his teachers found bizarre. His first work overseas was a five-year stint in India serving the untouchables (harijana), newly converted to Buddhism by Dr Ambedkar. This was followed by 10 years in Malaysia, where he began to teach the Dhamma in English, much to the bewilderment and annoyance of the parents of his middle class pupils, who, as Singhalese expatriates, preferred their children to be taught in their mother tongue. In 1968, Bhante G moved nearer his original vision of teaching the Dhamma in English when he was invited to help set up a Buddhist vihara in Washington, DC. Subsequently, he established the Bhavana Society and became the abbot of a new monastery in the Shenandoah Valley in western Virginia, where he lives today, now an American citizen.
Spiritual teachers who write autobiographies are not always candid about their more human characteristics, but Bhante G's book is humorous and open. There is no romanticism in his descriptions of rural poverty in Sri Lanka under British colonial rule or of the Buddhism of his youth. While recounting the interesting details of his life, Bhante G conveys what it is like to live the Buddhism he teaches. He is refreshingly honest about his failings, such as his tendency to annoy older, more traditionally-minded brethren. There is no doubt when reading Bhante G's autobiography that this is the story of someone who chose to go his own way and live his vision. Like all good teachers, his story can inspire us to live our own.
