Good morning, everybody. It's a really great honor for us to have Dr. Aryaratne with us this morning. He's an extraordinary man, and we're lucky to get to hear him speak. He's from Sri Lanka, and he's the founder of a movement in Sri Lanka called Sarvodaya, which is a very large nonprofit organization, which has been growing for, I think, about 45 years. And it is a village self-help program which works in 15,000 villages in Sri Lanka. It has spread far and wide, done a lot of peace work in Sri Lanka in the decades of the civil war there. And it's done work to overcome the caste system in Sri Lanka. And Sarvodaya works at all levels with all ages of people. They have childcare programs and health clinics and they dig wells and it's based on Buddhist principles.

[01:09]

It's kind of a wedding of Gandhian principles, which Dr. Aryaratne has studied in India, and also Buddhist principles from his own Buddhist tradition. And so it's very much about socially engaged Buddhism. And it's a great inspiration to us at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. Also, Dr. Aryaratne is on our international advisory board at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. And I first met him 10 years ago when he came and offered some talks and workshops at a Buddhist Peace Fellowship gathering and conference that we had here. So he's been an inspiration to many people all over the world, really. And he's just a wonderful example of how one person can get a huge movement going with devotion and commitment and courage. So also some of you may have heard of the work of Sarvodaya through Joanna Macy, who has worked with Dr. Ari Ratna quite a bit and has spent time with him in Sri Lanka and trained there and has written about Sarvodaya.

[02:21]

And it was through Sarvodaya that Joanna first became introduced to the idea of socially engaged Buddhism. So in various ways, the ripples have gone out from Ari's work. And I also wanted to say that he's traveling here in part to raise money for Sarvodaya, whose funding sources have become more limited. So if anybody would like to make a donation to Sarvodaya after the lecture, you could give it to me, and I can pass it on to Ari. And if you want to make a check, you could make it out to Sarvodaya USA. Also, I'll mention that I brought some turning wheels from a few years ago, which I'll put on the book table outside that have an interview with Dr. Ari Ratna in it. So that might be of interest to people. Well, just one more thing about Sargodha that I think is particularly amazing and interesting for us to think about in the West is that they have a 500-year peace plan.

[03:28]

So this is the terms in which they think. And the reminder is we really, really have to take a prolonged view here. So with that, I'd just like to welcome Dr. Aryaratne to the Berkley Center. Thank you. With the blessings of the Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, and protection of all Devas, may you all be well and happy. Dear sisters and brothers, I am delighted that I am here at this spiritual center.

[04:37]

In my mind and heart, I am basically a spiritual being, but I move about with thousands of people, so they know me only as a man of action. They hardly know me as a man. Totally lonely in my mind and heart. Lonely because whatever outside work I do is only to pursue an inner ideal. For Buddhists, There is no other greater ideal than the ideal of supreme awakening. Completely eradicate all evil within us, evil springing from greed or hatred or ignorance, and try to see truth.

[05:54]

Lord Buddha used five very significant words in his first sermon. He said, awaken your senses. Chakkung udapadi. Awaken your eyes. Jnanam udapadi. Awaken the knowledge within you. Panya udapadi, awaken the wisdom in you. Vidya udapadi, awaken the science in you. Aloku udapadi, awaken delight in you. As a child, I learned these five forms of awakening, which had and which has a very spiritual, very deep significance, which could only be realized by very, very deep meditation.

[07:05]

But I thought I would try to apply it to the mundane world, to the children I taught as a teacher. After 1972, the people I met As a kind of adult educator, I thought I would give these five expressions of the Buddha a meaning which is, at the same time, mundane, so that they could practice in anything they do Buddha's way. For example, as a science teacher, I remember when I was teaching, say, botany, if I explained to them the process of photosynthesis, I tell them how in that scientific study you can see these five things.

[08:19]

For example, the fact that everything is subject to change every moment could be taught while you teach a lesson on photosynthesis, as I said. So there is a way that the deepest teachings of the Buddha could be brought into action in day-to-day life. I was born in a Buddhist family, and my parents were very, very religious people. And in them, I saw a difference, which I didn't see in many other religious people. They were not greedy. They were not rich, neither were they poor. But whatever they got, they shared with people in need.

[09:23]

so that our house was like a house where anybody could come in at any time and share whatever food we had at home. This principle of sharing, I thought, with Buddha taught, by the way, dana is most important. At the same time, in the family, we were told never to speak words that are unpleasant. We know that according to Buddha's teaching, if you talk untruth, if you carry slander in some people, use rough, cruel words, it's not good. Pleasant language brings us together as a community, whether it's a family or a larger community. Pleasant language Constructive action, if we get together to drink, that is destructive action.

[10:30]

If we get together to have a few minutes of silent meditation, that is constructive action. No two people are equal, but if we can associate everybody as equals, equality in association, this is something that we can practice. caste, colour, race, religion, party politics, nationality. All these things have divided people. But if we can get over those divisions and look at everybody as an equal, that is what is required. So dana, sharing, kriyavachana, pleasant language, arthacharya, constructive activity, Samanatmata, equality and association were four principles that Buddha preached which we thought we should practice in our day-to-day life and in an organized way in transforming our society by all kinds of social services.

[11:40]

So nearly 45 years ago, Groups of students and teachers, along with me, started going to poorest villages in my country, trying to translate these thoughts into action. We taught our students that try to cultivate the quality of metta, loving kindness, respect for all life during this period of, say, 10, 12, 14 days you are living with the community. Try to look at every human being as your own brother or sister or uncle or aunt, mother or father. Every animal you see around you, develop respect to every tree, every living being. Try to develop that loving kindness. And whatever you do,

[12:43]

While you are there, that is translating that loving kindness into compassionate action. That is combining metta with karuna. Karuna, the word karuna, that has action. Meditation, we can develop loving kindness. We can develop one-pointedness of our mind. by long periods of breathing in and out, observing. Once the mind is silenced, be able to slowly develop an understanding of this body consisting of, say, 20 solid parts.

[13:46]

twelve liquid parts, looking at it, and trying to understand what this body is, how these four elements, the hardness, the liquidity, the expandability, contractability, heat, etc., are the ultimate components of this body to which we hold with such attachment. So we begin to see that this body is also subject to impermanence, not that satisfactory, and there is no self in it. You can't find that. So through meditation we realize, looking at our own body, a very principled truth.

[14:47]

We look at the emotions, the feelings that are attached to this body and we begin to realize in this kind of feeling also there is nothing substantial. Non-substantiality Unsatisfactoriness, non-self is what we find. If we look at our thoughts, how they spring, how our five sensory organs, or the six along with the mind, bring in all the time eye contacts, ear contacts, et cetera, how these contacts are converted into sensations, how these sensations create perceptions, how these perceptions create thoughts in our mind, volitions, and how they together build a stream of consciousness within us that it goes so fast and is not in control.

[16:05]

So by meditational exercises, we try to Slow down, slow down, slow down the stream of consciousness. Then go to the root where contact is made. The moment eye contact is made, sensations arise. You perceive the object. You immediately try not to get attached, nor to get distanced. Try to be liquefied immediately. That way, when we go into the field to work, you can't get little children to understand this kind of deeper thoughts. But at least the adults can understand and tell them, while we dig wells, open up cut roads, put up houses for the homeless, put up sanitary facilities, toilets,

[17:08]

start reforestation campaigns, or build irrigation canals, or water reservoirs, gifting our labor. Underneath all this, try to observe the reality of this body, the real nature of the body, feelings, thoughts, and the principle, the dharma, that really controls all this. So once you understand the dharma, then such a person can easily get the directions in which he or she will go. And Buddha has told us very clearly, try to understand dukkha, supposing One day, none of my children are ever hard on me.

[18:15]

They're all grown up. But one day, one fellow, who is an airlines captain, a pilot, in very harsh words, he said, you shouldn't have done this. Immediately, I got hurt. I realized I was wrong. He was right. But I'm so used to getting respectful words from my own children. Here, when this fellow said this, I thought. And I forgot that he's over 35 now. So, immediately, I thought that is what is called suffering. That my reaction, instead of responding in the right way, That is suffering. So Buddha said, try to capture this. Some people say, I'm not suffering. I'm fine. I have money. I have everything. We need only three cars for three of us at home.

[19:16]

We have six. They think they're happy. You see? So sometimes, something has to happen for those people to realize that even they are not happy. Their happiness is very temporary, limited to five gratification of the five senses. So try to find out the cause of this suffering. And he said it is craving. So then it can be removed. That is develop non-craving. And there is a path you have to develop. that we call the Noble Eightfold Path. Right understanding, right thoughts, right words, right actions, right deeds, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

[20:23]

Now, how can these eight components of the Noble Eightfold Path we practiced in daily life. Now these were the challenges I tried to meet right through the last 45 years. How can you link up building a well for a community who has no clean drinking water with this philosophy within your mind? And how can you get other people also to look at this external activity you are doing with that internal, intense personality awakening, which we call. So Sarvodaya movement basically is, therefore, an exercise in putting into

[21:27]

practice in this lay life we are leading the teachings of the Buddha and any community or any human being practicing this will not miss the path I used to tell people that basically as Buddhists we are trying to cut this cycle of birth and death, existence, which we feel is supreme happiness, nirvana. But until that time, we have to hold on to this life. Therefore, Sarvodaya teaches how to live without losing track of detachment. In other words, how to be detached while being attached. Now I am attached to my wife, my children, my grandchildren, my work, my friends.

[22:28]

At the same time, you work very hard. Build a road, is the example, to the top of a hill. Four, five thousand people work for three months. Suddenly, there's rain and floods and Landslides, all that is gone. So now, even that should teach us equanimity. Not only gain, but loss, how to face it. So we say we build the road, and the road builds us. When a few hundred of us get together, I saw when I came, a number of you were cleaning this place. I knew, as Zen practitioners, I may be wrong, but I think, I guess, every time you are sleeping, I mean sweeping, you are awake.

[23:36]

Every time you sweep, you know that you are not sweeping the dirt, you are sweeping a glacier within you, defilement within you, your pride. you are erasing so every action therefore if done mindfully becomes a meditational process and problem is in this world where the biggest temple is in Washington called the World Bank and biggest bank accounts could be filled by them. What happened to the merit banks we all have inherited as we were born? After millions and billions of years of slow evolution, getting certain instincts developed, develop a mind, finally end up as human beings.

[24:50]

It's like climbing a ladder. You climb on and on and on and on, and you have come to the highest in the ladder when you are born as human beings. But you cannot remain there if you violate the five precepts, or you become a person who takes to killing or stealing or sexual misconduct or lying or intoxication those defilements you can fall right down there that's why through precepts meditation or what we call dana sila bhavana sharing, discipline, meditation sila samadhi prajna discipline developing Samadhi, one-pointedness of mind, Prajna, developing the wisdom that tells us the way to cut this cycle of births and deaths.

[26:04]

So, we developed over the last 45 years a large number of programs, Gift Your Labour, Gift Your Land, Gift your skills. Gift your knowledge. Whatever you could gift for the well-being of other people, gift it. That way, learn to practice dana, beneficence. Similarly, try to develop sealer, discipline. And for that, we created physical, psychological, social environments, called Shramadana camps, where young and old, people belonging to all faiths, or some who have no religious beliefs, get together and practice this while doing something for the community.

[27:14]

Now, last, about two months ago, We had unprecedented floods, rain, floods, landslides. There are several hundred people were killed, several thousand houses were destroyed. I have never seen, during the last 45 years, such a devastation caused by a natural disaster of that type. So immediately we went into action. Now as we have 15,000 villagers, we are working, in the five affected districts, 125 of our villagers also got affected. Immediately, before the government or anybody, relief agencies or some of the movement from the headquarters could come in, those villagers which were not affected, cooked food and took the food to them because some of them were on housetops or hanging on to trees for two and a half days.

[28:22]

If this is, the whole responsibility should be taken by the experts who designed development for our countries during the last 50-60 years. They couldn't think of development without concrete, without damming a river. They couldn't think of development without devastating forests. They couldn't think of development without completely using whatever natural resources available for quick growth, quick production, because their interest was growth rate, gross national product, and things like that, and not gross national happiness and security of the people. That is anathema to World Bank and such people. So now, when this kind of thing occurs, all these people come with aid packets.

[29:30]

They call it aid, but they are actually loans. You have to pay back. So in that kind of situation, We have to awaken our people while doing these activities as to the causes of what happened, why these floods occurred, why people helped. I myself visited all the districts. First, I too joined in carrying about 6,000 cooked food packets, then lorry loads of Raw material collected from all the unaffected districts was sent there. Then we started the housing program now. Started helping school children who have lost everything, their uniforms, their books. So that in the process of rehabilitation now they are taking place.

[30:31]

So I got a little donation which I give it to that flood donation activity. Whatever I got here, I already sent, and some I am taking. So we are working, as I said, 15,000 villages. In every department of life, from meditation to appropriate technology, we are practicing in those villages. And we build... We build on the self-reliance and community participation of the people and trying to tell them we have to do it in a scientific way. You have to get your village psychologically together. Best way is to sit down and meditate before we do any work. Just sit down and meditate for a few minutes. Then build a social infrastructure so that every

[31:34]

Even unborn children now, children while they are still in the mother's womb, get them to attend meditational programs so that mother knows how to communicate with the child who is still in the mother's womb. That way bring about a child who is mentally and physically healthy. And having got about 1,500 mothers and their husbands together, we see positive results, 100%. As I told somebody yesterday, law of averages didn't work here. Every child born was healthy mentally and physically so far, according to the monitoring we did. So that from the children yet to be born to a preschool child, then through young ages at school and youth, adulthood, and even the elderly people, we have designed programs.

[32:35]

For that, you have to build a social infrastructure. Then you have to build an infrastructure where they get legal. So we have legally incorporated villages now, thousands of them, nationally incorporated 14 bodies. That way, we have built up quite an infrastructure and a superstructure to practice Buddhadharma in development activities. This does not mean that we don't go to temples or we don't have the retreats like the ones you have. We have all that plus this kind of mass kill activity where maybe 60-65% of the population in the country, which is not small, is involved. That's why it's called engaged Buddhism. That's why it is called a non-violent. Thank you very much. Please ask me questions if you have.

[33:37]

Yes, we have a few minutes for some questions. What are the prospects for peace now in Sri Lanka? I understand that there has been a negotiated settlement between the government and the Tamils. And do you think that peace will finally come to Sri Lanka from this effort? Yes. We are very much involved in the peace process, but not with the talking process between the government and the tigers. That they are doing. We have been involved in the peace process right from the beginning, for 45 years. First, we tried to prevent this happening. I remember second year after we started our movement, we took trainloads of singular people from the South to the Tamil areas in the North and brought Tamil people there to here.

[34:48]

That way we worked. But political forces were faster than, destructive forces were faster than the constructive forces. So in 1983, Terrible communal violence occurred. So we came forward, and we risked our lives to save the lives of people who were in danger. We saved many. Then we started what is called a five-hour program. Relief, rehabilitation, reconciliation, reconstruction, and reawakening. Reawakening means to bring in those villages that were affected to the same normal village development program. Then while doing that, we realize that we should hit at the root cause, three causes. One is consciousness. So consciousness can be attacked only through a, not only individual, but a mass meditational process to the economy.

[35:57]

Right at that level, we have to fight poverty. by bringing economic development to their level. Three, decentralize power right down to the village level. Now, with regard to the first consciousness tracing, we have so far done 147 mass meditation programs. In each, more than 5,000 participated. The biggest participation was one in Colombo, where 200,000 participated. Then one in Anuradhapura, where 650,000 participated. I don't know any occasion where 60,000 people silently in walking meditation. In walking meditation, they arrived at the path. This is sacred city of Anuradhapura, where the sacred Bodhi tree, under which would attain enlightenment is there.

[37:03]

And all religions, not only Buddhists, they all came in walking meditation. Actually, I gave two booklets to her. We teach them how to come, all dressed in white, came and sat down there. Then for two hours, They silently meditated. Of course, I guided the meditation. Somebody, otherwise it's difficult to... First, the unbreathing. Second, developing loving kindness to oneself and the people there. And trying to take it around to the sentient living world. Thirdly, directing it. Resolve with a resolution, with determination to the minds and hearts of people who perpetuate war, who have violence, hatred here. And then, of course, they claim that they did it. We don't claim that we did it.

[38:04]

We had no doubt that peace would come, so they signed a ceasefire agreement. So that energy still holds. We continue our work. That energy still holds. We continue these three programs. I'm not going to describe the other two, like Tamil village, say 150 people coming and living with 150 families in the south. These people going and living there, direct. Peoples to peoples, we are doing that. And we believe that that is the right way to build peace. But we cooperate, fully cooperate with the peace process with the government and when they signed the agreement, I think I was the first neutral national person who was contacted by the press I said, I haven't read your agreement and I don't want to read it but I totally approve of it because killing has stopped even if a single human being is spared, it's a success

[39:15]

So, I don't know. It may succeed. We are giving our very best to make it succeed. I couldn't follow. You were working about the caste system, trying to overcome the caste system? Caste system. How is that going? We destroyed the caste system by 1961. We started with the outcaste villages. This is India's problem. India can never progress till caste system lasts. So our first camp, where I took these high class children, to a village where they were living and begging. Women were not allowed to wear even jackets.

[40:18]

They had to wear like that. They were denied all human rights. And we started work there, sitting and eating with them. And of course, we had so many. 141 such villages were there in the single areas. Our first 141 camps were in those villages. And by that time, now nobody even talks of caste. At least in single areas. In Tamil areas also we did the same thing. But we are working in over 2,000 Tamil villages in the North and East. Even during war we were working. There it's more difficult with the Hindu caste system. But even we are succeeding. At least we are mixing Hindus and Muslims very much together, which is one of the main problems in India. Very successful. Destroying the caste, racial and other barriers. Now for the Anuradhapura Peace Meditation Program, head of the Catholic Church, Archbishop of Colombo came.

[41:24]

He is the head. And Muslim leaders were seated with them. And Hindu leaders, of course the Buddhist leaders were there, monks. So that way we are very successful. Very successful. Thank you very much, Dr. Ratna. I think we should stop now. You have a busy schedule today. Thank you very much. Thank you. Please close your eyes. One minute. Yes, of course. And while I chant, think that may I be well and happy in my body and mind. May all of us be well and happy in body and mind. May the entire world be well and happy. body and mind. Dukkha Pattachani Dukkha, Bhaya Pattachani Bhaya, Sokha Pattachani Sokha, Kuntusabbe Pipanino, Bhatusabbe Mangalang Rakkantusabbe Devata, Sabbe Buddhanubhavene, Sabbe Dhammanubhavene, Sabbe Sanghanubhavene,

[42:37]

Thank you very much.

[42:41]

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