Indeed, but what I meant was, they were realists with regards to numerous dharmas which the Sautrantikas were nominalists about (such as the past and the future, “possesion” or prapti, etc).
I edited my post above 
Cool. I have read K.L. Dhammajoti, it is fascinating for sure.
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Wait, did you know Ven. K. Nyanananda personally?
I just wanted to say thanks for this thread. It sums up a lot of truths that should be pretty obvious to anyone with any exposure to SL Buddhism or academia. (No willingness to engage the history of ideas in general, monolithic concept of the canon).
Having the article on the Waharaka group is really helpful. They had a big impact in the Melbourne SL diaspora (world’s largest overseas SL community)…suddenly, every young engineer was weirdly interested in etymology? And I’m like, huh? Have you considered reading a dictionary?
Part of Waharaka in Australia was about funding, they had a big donor here. I am still trying to work out how on earth they managed to get such a foothold in general though. There is a section of the SL diaspora that is generally disengaged from temple and looking for something new. “Monk of the minute” is a known phenomenon that I just accept, but it was a bit extreme. We were actually doing things like teaching sutta, using PowerPoint and YouTube, and this group was still attracting people who normally support us?
The only thing I could really pinpoint is that numbers of people with a post-secondary humanities education in the SL diaspora is low. The normal occupation of a follower of this group seemed to be accountant or engineer. Waharaka group had better marketing (new!), and they never needed to make absolute sense, only enough sense to appeal to non-specialists.
I would be interested in hearing more individual stories from those who chose this group.
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Yes, I had that immense good fortune. Back then I went by a different name 
Bhante thought it fit to publish some of our conversations:
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Hey Jasom, welcome, and I appreciate that you seem like an intelligent and reflective fellow. But I don’t know how many times I need to say this: Waharaka views are nonsense. They are the flat earth of Buddhism.
Imagine that you were sitting in your kitchen with a friend. And a cat came in. So you said, “Nice pussy cat!” Your friend says, “Aww, she’s so pretty. Except, you know, it’s not really a cat. It’s a rat.” “I’m sorry, what?” “Yes, yes, the word that you think means cat is actually a rat.” “But … I don’t know what you mean.” “You see, the dictionaries have it all wrong. I have a special language beam in my brain that tells me what words really mean. So that’s how I know. A cat is a small rodent, and a rat is a small feline.” “But no, that’s not how language works. You can’t truly believe that everyone who speaks English, who ever has spoken English, simply gets the meanings of basic everyday words wrong.” “Yes, that’s right. For so many years, everyone who owns a rat has been calling it a cat! Funny, right?” “Not particularly. It’s crazy! That’s not how language works, like, at all. Language is about shared meaning for communication in a group. It’s not beamed into your brain. My friend, that’s not mentally healthy.” “Ahh, well, I see the problem. You’ve been trapped by the system. You just believe everything you’ve been told. Have you ever considered that maybe you might be wrong? That the experts don’t know everything?” 
To be clear, this seems like an exaggeration, but it really isn’t. It’s literally what the Waharaka folks do. No-one with any understanding of language will ever see it as more than a bizarre upside-down world. Forget about them.
Yes. I have made this a cornerstone of my meditation teachings for the past several years. The “objectification” of meditation is, in my view, the single biggest hindrance in progress.
Not at all, we’re here to have a conversation!
That’s true to some extent, although in the case of the Mahasanghika BHS, the language itself is later than Pali. But in the Mahavastu, in particular, we see a conglomeration of texts from many sources, with little attempt to reconcile them, so it seems likely that we have old texts there. There is, for example, an extra verse in the Ratana Sutta which appears authentic.
translation:
text:
http://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil/2_pali/3_chron/dipavmsu.htm
(search mahasangitika)
In the Dipavamsa, the Mahasanghikas are called Mahasangitika. That they are in fact Mahasanghika is proven by the fact that they are said to split into Gokulikā and Ekabyohāri, known subschools of Mahasanghika.
Indeed, in fact my argument was really about the Pali Abhidhamma. The northern Abhidharmas are quite different, and often much more useful. For definitions of technical terms, my go-to is Asanga’s Abhidharmasamuccaya.
We do, although AFAIK these were much later; the Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha being the most important. I wonder if they were inspired by the Sanskrit texts?
Obviously a broad and long thing like the Abhidhamma has many dimensions and can’t be trivially reduced. The real point of my argument was to counter the reductive notion that Abhidhamma is an unimpeachable source of absolute truth, and to show that it serves many roles in a community that are far from rational.
Thank you for saying this. I’m sure there are many people reading this who are like, what, why is everyone so uptight about these silly ideas? But this is a pattern that’s been repeated everywhere: in Perth, in Sydney, on it goes. It’s exactly like the various kinds of conspiracy spreading in the rest of the world, just with a Buddhist flavor. It’s silly and toxic. There are real problems in the world, and Buddhists are wasting their time on this nonsense.
You noticed that too?
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As an aside…
The reason is it’s tough getting a residency visa to a western country with a humanities degree ( unless you’re arriving with a truck load of $$$, investments or got connections…). Or you need to apply through academia…
Plus, there’s the family pressures on 2nd generation kids to go into sciences…
Unless you are born into money, incredibly talented or have some really good kamma (!) it’s hard even making $ with only a humanities degree even in Sri Lanka. Of course, there are exceptions…
Although, if you are a politician….
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Right, I didn’t think of that. It’s so myopic!
Fun fact, my friend Lisa Anne came to Oz from Singapore years ago to study arts, there was no support at home. Now (or rather, some years ago when we had this conversation) she says it’s changed, and there’s better support for the arts in Singapore.
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Might also be because they teach in Sinhala!
Many of my cousins who migrated to Australia as adults prefer to listen to the Dhamma in Sinhala. They love to visit any temple and support all monastics, but if you ask who they listen to it will be a list of monks/nuns who teach in Sinhala.
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Sure, that’s part of it, and that then relates to the Sinhala-education policy.
Only a few decades ago, Sri Lanka produced many innovative, ground-breaking teachers who shaped how Dhamma is understood all round the world. Jayatilleke, Kalupahana, Vens Nyanananda, Gunaratana, Dhammananda, and many more. In different ways they all made global impacts. It’d be great to see that once more.
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What happened to education in Sri Lanka?
Hi Ayya,
This in interesting, as I’ve seen a little of this here in NZ. Some of my Sri Lankan friends have occasionally sponsored Sri Lankan monks on tours, and I recall that some of them had some quite idiosyncratic interpretations.
As @Ficus pointed out, immigrants who are “useful” are valued more highly in Australia and NZ. I’d add medical workers to the list…
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I think… Bhante might be referring to the fact that at some point after Sri Lanka became independent (from the British) Sinhala became the official language, so all schooling was then done in Sinhala. This is why you will find an older generation of Sri Lankans who speak good English (because they studied in English) and a younger generation who do not.
I also believe Walasmulle Abaya is himself an engineer and I guess that is why he is able to communicate so well to those who are like him.
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Indeed. And it’s also why the diaspora community is full of doctors, lawyers, and engineers. Which is great for us, but.
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Not meaning to tar everyone with the same brush (I really appreciated meeting Ven. Ariyananda of Na Uyana in Victoria…although he was not touring) but yes, I have also seen a high level of idiosyncrasy in SL diaspora touring monks in general, even without Pure Dhamma.
I once asked my SL friend about SL audiences in a different context. She said that people WANT to not understand, because if you don’t understand, “it’s because it’s deep”. @__@
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Ah, the monolithic ideology. This reminds me of Vaclav Havel’s post-totalitarianism (his description of Cold War Soviet society as exported to Eastern Europe). It was similar because communism was essentially a new type of political religion.
His incisive analysis of how it suppresses human life and how it can be countered by refusing to play it’s game directly in Power of the Powerless is quite good. His advice is to build a parallel society. In Buddhism, that would mean forming sanghas like Bhante Sujato’s and other Western Theravadins who want to move Buddhism forward. There are also simple ways to rebel in day to day life that make the ideology’s irrationality plain.
I’m getting the impression this is what the Waharaka movement is actually doing: Making a mockery of the etymological expertise of the religious elite to show how inflexible it is. People are probably drawn to it because it’s a way to escape the stifling ideological atmosphere. Havel called this “living in the truth” - that is, freely - as opposed to what the ideology demands, to “live the lie,” shut up, and conform.
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I think the above statement needs to be understood in the context that modern Sri Lankan society at large is only nominally and culturally Buddhist. The average citizen, like in any modern society, is not deeply interested in the religious life. The majority of the “religious” people also practice more of a ritual based folk religion. Visiting a temple or attending dhamma sermons is largely done for social reasons, and in the case of the average “religious” person, with the intent of collecting merit by the mere act of paying obeisance or listening to a sermon.
Please note that this is just an impression of a Sri Lankan and is not based on a scientific study. 
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Thank you for this reference: it will come handy for a project that I’m currently working on, about the Theravada fundamentalism in the Sri Lankan forest sangha.
Alas, this is quite accurate, based on years of anecdata. Gananath Obeyesekere had a phrase for this: ‘the relentless piety of the masses’ 
Relating to OP, this is an important way Waharaka distinguishes itself from mainstream Buddhism: there’s a strong focus on actually realising the Dhamma—and at least in their eyes, it is already happening by the dozen while listening to the Dhamma (the Waharaka variant) in group settings. There’s a strong appeal to the average lay Buddhist there, as listening attentively is all one has to do.
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That’s by no means a SL thing. You heard that a lot from the Trungpa devotees.
Of course there is some truth to this, however there is a big danger of de-legitimizing people’s spiritual practices. Especially because a large percentage of the people doing these practices are women, poor, or both, and their religious experiences are frequently minimized and labeled as “not real Buddhism.”
As well, were it not for ‘the relentless piety of the masses’, it is unlikely that 2500 years later we would be here discussing the teachings as we are. And my biggest issue with people making the “their just making merit” argument is how dismissive it is, fueled by a long history of orientalism. The Buddha did, in fact encourage people constantly to collect merit both by showing respect and listening to the teachings.
However, it is true that this underlying devotion that Buddhists in Sri Lanka have makes it much easier to quickly develop enthusiasm for a new group. I often describe it as coals buried deep below ashes that can flame up as soon as they are given oxygen. When people learn the meaning and value of the paritta chants they have been reciting for 50 years, there is a natural excitement. Which brings me to…
This kind of relates more to the Tripitaka conservation bill, but if the government is going to be in the business of religious education, there ought to do a better job of it. This is what would actually help preserve the teachings.
It’s my understanding that a common religious wish in Sri Lanka is “May I be reborn in the time of Maitri Buddha and attain nibbana under him.” The push, as I understand it, from Mahamevnawa was to “Realize the four noble truths in this Gautama Buddha’s dispensation.” It may not seem like much, but this is a serious difference. But they have never said, “the only worthwhile spiritual practice is one that leads to noble attainments in this life.” And, of course, neither did the Buddha.
If any change has happened, it has been, I think, in response to all these monks claiming to be arahants and then bestowing ariya status on disciples. Reminding people that the good karma they have been doing in this life leads to heaven is simply devanussati. And reminding people that in the heavenly world, a mind prepared with Dhamma can also have a shot at noble attainment is a good counter to the disastrous problem of claiming false levels of enlightenment. People are not being told to ease up on urgency. They are not being told to stop meditating. They are not being told to stop learning Dhamma. In my experience the monks of Mahamevnawa have always encouraged a very broad range of karmically powerful spiritual practice. It just so happens that the more devotional ones are more likely to have photos taken of them and posted on Facebook.
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I don’t think it has to be seen as delegitimising or dismissive: the motive is, in fact, to acquire merit, with the hope of eventual realisation at some point in the future (preferably not soon). As I understand, we also seem to have moved beyond the ‘not real Buddhism’ argument: I think there is a general understanding that, for a lot of people, this is Buddhism and that is alright.
Yes, one of the great services done by Mahamevna was to almost completely get rid of the Metteyya wish—we never hear it anymore, whereas it used to be the default at the end of meritorious deeds. The late Ven. Gangodawila Soma Thera also contributed to this change, before Mahamevna came into the picture.
However, the Tusita/Tāvatiṁsa wishes of Mahamevna was a gradual development that is quite independent of the arising of various arahants in Sri Lanka. After a decade or so of teaching, it seemed Ven. Ñāṇānanda came to have a deeper appreciation for the difficulties of current times (as evident in his Dhamma talks), and came up with this as a more viable path for realising the Dhamma. It was not a part of their teachings in the early days. Even if everything else has remained the same (which they have for the most part), this is a more recent development.
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