Hon Dinesh Gunawardena is seen here with Shri SN Goenka and Smt. Ilaichidevi Goenka. Hon Sumedha Jayasena is on the extreme right.
Hon Dinesh Gunawardena, Minister of Urban Development and Sacred Area Development, paid his respects to the leading teacher of Vipassana Meditation, Shri Satya Narayan Goenka on 30 October 2009 in Mumbai.
Shri Goenka, who was born in Mandalay in Myanmar in 1924, studied Vipassana Meditation under the renowned Burmese meditation teacher U Ba Khin. Later he opened the Dhammagiri Meditation Centre at Igatpuri, in the Western Ghats Mountains in Maharashtra, India. He has trained over 700 teachers and now has a network of Vipassana Meditation Centres all over the world. More than 100,000 people attend Vipassana Meditation courses under his network every year.
Shri Goenka is a writer and poet who has published works in English, Hindi and Rajasthani. He has lectured to audiences around the world, notably to the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland at the Millenium World Peace Summit of the United Nations, both in 2000.
In conversation with Hon Dinesh Gunawardena, Shri Goenka revealed that government officials, police officers and even prisoners were being given meditation courses in India. He emphasized that the students of Vipassana were not being converted from one religion to another, but were being shown a portal to escape from misery. He explained that even prisoners convicted of murder were able to obtain inner peace through meditation.
Hon Dinesh Gunawardena reminded Shri Goenka that there were already two Vipassana Meditation Centres in Sri Lanka, including one in his own home village of Kosgama. He invited Shri Goenka to open another centre in the north of the country, to help the citizens of the country who were traumatised by the recent conflict to find inner harmony.
Shri Goenka invoked blessings on the President and people of Sri Lanka.
Women’s Empowerment and Child Development Minister Hon Sumedha G Jayasena also participated on this occasion.
Goenka Nor Snakracharya are Final Authorities to Decide whether Buddh was Avatar of Vishnu or Not.
ReplyDeleteHinduism is not religian ids science of Living, every activities is in Harmony with nature and through the nature. Biddhism was not religian but after 400 years Siddharthas way of Hinduism become a Buddhist religian.
For all of you Buddh or Buddha Never Invented, Nor Created Buddhism . Buddha Practiced or Followed his way of Hinduism or his branch of Hinduism. Buddha was hindu, He Practiced was Hindu, and His Nirvana was as a Hindu, He left his Knowledge as Hindu.
Buddhism was created by his innocent followers in Far East after about 400 Years of Buddhas NIrvan