the cow in the cybercafe
daya dissanayake (2004)
‘If I stay here for one more day, I’ll have to kill myself’ said the girl in khaki shorts and white t-shirt.
‘Why?’ asked the girl in the flowered cotton frock, without taking her eyes off the book she was reading.
‘Because I don’t want to end up in a loony [...]
Corruption breeds corruption
Today the United Nations is “celebrating” corruption.
A few decades ago, corruption was not a word heard often, bribery was a word which was never used openly. Bribery then would mean palming a one rupee coin to the gate keeper at the hospital to get in to the hospital outside visiting ours, to a [...]
sweetheart
he offered
his heart to her
and
got back
a blood pump
in return
vaccines and “swine” flu
The whole world has panicked with the spread of the new strain of influenza A, named H1N1. The original misnomer ’swine flu’ made some of our officials consider banning the import of pork! Two years ago it was the ‘Bird flu’, with some people giving up on eating chicken!
When there is an [...]
R.A.S. & the RAMAYANA
The Hindustan Times has reported today that our Royal Asiatic Society has claimed “The Tourist Board has been over the last couple of years marketing Sri Lanka to India as the abode of Ravana of the Hindu mythological epic the Ramayana. This is a total travesty and a future danger for the [...]
Some of the recent deaths of animals in captivity in our zoological gardens, had been blamed on the visitors.
The real blame should be accepted by the authorities who manage these prisons. Who collect innocent animals from around the country, and from around the world and who keep these animals in small cages for life. The [...]
In the Supina Sutta of the Anguttara Nikaya, we hear of the four different coloured birds who alight at the feet of the Buddha and all of them turn white.
Today the many coloured birds who alight at the feet of the statue of the Buddha, not only remain in their original colours, but they also [...]
In our country, we claim we have the purest and highest form of Buddhism and that we have preserved it for 2500 years, and with about 75% of the people in the country claim to be Buddhists.
Most of these 15 million Buddhists recite the Five Preceots regularly, often several times a day.
1. Panatipata veramani sikkhapadam [...]
Transformation of Buddhism
In Sri Lanka, the Dhamma preached by the Buddha has gone through many transformations.
First we had the Hinduization, bringing in Hindu deities into our temples, sometimes converting them to ‘Buddhism’.
Next came the Christianization, which led to the coining of the term ‘Protestant Buddhism’. This was influenced more by Christians who turned to Buddhism, [...]
The early part of the Mahawamsa dealing with the origin of the Sinhala race is probably a bag of bullshit. Vijaya, if he ever arrived in Lanka, with half shaven head, bansihed from hi sown country, is considered to be in the 6th cent. B.C.
the latest archeological excavations have unearthed a settlement with a house [...]