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Monk in ‘state of Nirvana’, now betting on clearing his name of urea 

The fresh challenge was made in a video released this week, after social media alleged that bags of urea had been discovered at his ‘Umangdawa’, the expansive farming complex he owns in Kurunegala.

With his much vaunted boasts on his YouTube channel, claiming he had successfully used ancient organic methods on his agricultural land, the stakes were far too high for him to have offered anything less. If he had been found out with chemical dirt on his hands, he would have been exposed as a humbug; and his scrupulously cultivated claim to being an ‘arahant’, would have turned to manure.

SAMANTHABADRA THERA: The 'enlightened' urea bucket challenger

So who is this monk who has set so high a price on his image and has 50 million bucks to bet on its sanctity, lest it be soiled? Especially one who has, in the past, contemptuously dismissed worse allegations than the present canard, by merely stating that even the Buddha had to endure such infernal attacks during his life?

For instance, in an interview published in the Daily Mirror on 17 December 2013, he said he had faced allegations not from one but from many women. ‘One of them had distributed a leaflet saying that she had a child by me. She went to court. I did not appear in court. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe appeared for me and I was acquitted. ‘

He recounted another instance where a woman had come to him with a child. He said: ‘She came all of a sudden during a meditation class I was conducting and started shouting that I was the father of the child. The crowd caught hold of her and handed her to the police who found her unstable of mind. I faced problems similar to those faced by the Buddha.’

The monk was clearly referring to the one and only instance where the Buddha had faced such an accusation, found in the well-known story of Cinca Manavika who, with a bundle of wood tied round her waist, claimed she was carrying his child. The bundle of firewood suddenly fell to the ground and her preposterous sham was exposed.

In this week’s YouTube video where he makes his 50 million buck ‘urea’ challenge, he attacks his detractors in raw filth, labelling one by name as a ‘son of a prostitute’.  Asked whether it is right of him, as an ‘arahant’, to say so, the monk defiantly replies: ‘It is because I am an arahant that I have the right to say anything I want to anyone without being scared even of the devil.’

Perhaps, it was this same presumed ‘arahant’ right he exerted when he insulted the sacred Tooth Relic of the Buddha in the most despicable terms five years ago, deeply stabbing the sensitivities of all Buddhists in Lanka.  The wound deeper, since it was made by one in robes.

In 2017, for committing sacrilege against the Sri Dalada, in spite of his professed ‘arahanthood’ in 2013, he was summoned before the Malwatte prelates and threatened with expulsion from the Order. Admitting guilt, apologizing for profanity, he worshiped and begged for pardon from the monks of the Siam Nikaya to escape the ultimate punishment.

It must, surely, be the first time in the Buddhist annals, an ‘arahant’ was made to accept he was not perfect, and had to worship mere Bhikkus, begging their forgiveness.

In the Buddha’s teachings, once an arahant, always an arahant. Arahants do not lapse into error or revert to weakness once they are Arahants; and have no need to ask for forgiveness, since they conduct themselves at all times with ‘Samma Ditti’ or right view, which includes, right speech. It is the first step in the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path that leads to Nirvana.

So who is he, who, despite it all, still insists he is an arahant and has attained the state of Nirvana?

For all those yet unfamiliar with the meteoric rise of this monk, let it be said, he was born in Galle and was named Sanath Deepa Kumara.  After his ordination at Galle’s Wijeyananda temple, he took the name of Pitiduwe Siridhamma. He says, a gentle shower of rain fell, right at that auspicious moment.

In 2004, at the age of 29 – the same age at which Prince Siddhartha renounced his palace pleasures and left alone to live a hermit existence in the forest to find eternal Truth – Pitiduwe Siridhamma purchased the former residence of Sir Baron Jayatilleke, and founded his palatial ashram, calling it Siri Sadaham after his name, at Bellanthara, Dehiwela.

Here, he stepped off the beaten track to furrow his own path. He threw lavish parties for his guests to celebrate his birthdays on February 24, regaling them with choicest dishes which made headlines in the still evolving social media. It was here he felt supreme levels of ecstatic experiences.

As he says in his book ‘Triality’, he realized everything was an illusion. He experienced past, present and future all in the same moment. He was full of energy all the time. He realized nature’s way of life and the pathways. He changed his name again – as he says he does whenever he upgrades his mental status– to Samanthabadra, which in Sanskrit means, the ‘Universally Worthy’.

In the interview in the Daily Mirror, Samanthabadra Thera claimed he had attained enlightenment, gained Nibbana, he was an ‘arahant’ for whom this was his final birth on earth. ‘I have realised the truth. I will not be reborn’, he said, exactly 9 years ago.

In 2014, a year after his ‘enlightenment’ claim, he purchased a 70 acre land in Kurunegala, and established the impressively named ‘Umangdawa Global Buddhist Village,’ or ‘The Land of the Wise.’

Full of energy in ‘enlightened’ state, perhaps his path lay in the pursuit of growing vegetables; and he took to farming like buffaloes take to water. Using a volunteer force of Buddhist monks as free farm hands to till his land and a group of Bhikkunis as free cooks to prepare food in his kitchens, he showcased his sprawling estate as a prime example of a highly profitable organic farming enterprise.

But do the rules of discipline laid down to monks, permit farming as a recommended vocation for them when they should, as the Buddha exhorted as he breathed his last, ‘strive with diligence’ to attain Nirvana? Evidently his self-claimed ‘enlightened’ status has not debarred the monk but enabled him to transcend the dictate in the Buddha’s Vinaya Code for Monks, banning monks from following agricultural pursuits.

So what is his esoteric secret? The secret of his success that has eluded thousands of Lanka’s farmers and sent ex-President Gotabaya home? They faced ruin after being forced to farm with only organic fertiliser and their wails are still heard from wasted lands.

While Samanthabadra maintains a stoic silence on his secret, what amazes many is why, when he claims his mind isn’t swayed by praise or blame – the monk who said his mind was not distressed when a paternity suit was filed against him – he has let a simple allegation of urea found on his land, not worth a second thought to an arahant, ruffle his feathers and shatter his equanimity?

With warnings already sounded of an imminent food shortage next year, perhaps it is economically prudent for the Government to top up his ‘urea’ challenge with another 50 million bucks to induce him to reveal the secret that makes him not only earn large profits from growing vegetables on his land but also enables him to gamble 50 million bucks on a mere bet just to prove a trivial point?

If, however, the government is not in the gaming business, then, perhaps, the taxman can fill the Treasury’s coffers by claiming a ‘tithe’ out of this money-spinning agricultural venture, set in a ‘Global Buddhist Village’? But, alas, if it has been accorded ‘non-profit charity’ status then, unlike for the rest of us not yet arahants, it will be immune to the tax reaper’s scythe.

BASIL: Weighs the sacrifice ‘I won’t give up US rights but wait and see. Look what happened to Gota’ The saga concerning the return of the prodigal whose guests feasted on the airport’s fatted calf still rages. American dual citizen, former MP Basil Rajapaksa finally admitted this week he had not paid the airport’s VIP Lounge bill for his hundred odd guests who arrived to welcome him on his return last month. Instead, a State Minister had paid for it with his ‘own personal funds’. He disclosed this in a television interview aired on Monday night. He said; ‘When I inquired, I was told that a State Minister, who had organized the party, had paid the bill from his personal funds. No funds from the state institutes had been used.’ But he did not reveal the State Minister’s name. Pity. People would have found it interesting to have known who forked out 7.3 million bucks to host a hundred guests for a couple of hours at the VIP Lounge. Neither did Basil disclose the total amount paid. A sum of USD 200 is charged per person for the use of this VIP facility. Basil and wife, duly paid USD 200 or Rs.73,000 each. As per the charges levied at the VIP lounge, the bill for hundred people at USD 200 per head amounts to USD 20,000 or Rs. 7,300,000. The question now posed is: ‘Was this entire amount due to the State paid by the State Minister? In the event of a lesser payment, who will be held responsible for the loss of revenue to the state? The Minister of Civil Aviation, Nimal de Silva, should answer but remains silent as if it’s none of his business. Corruption and wastage have been largely blamed for the country’s bankruptcy. They have been the main drain on the nation’s coffers. While the Government has started to pile up more taxes on the people to minimise the deficit, it has increased expenditure and not made efforts to crackdown on corruption and wastage. But Basil’s mind was far from the cost of the bill. It was more intent on weighing the cost of personal sacrifice. During Monday night’s TV interview, Basil was asked whether he doesn’t want to sacrifice his American citizenship to serve Lanka. Unlike some of his family who vow Motherland first, Motherland second and Motherland third, Basil was admirably frank. He said, ‘I can do it. But at the moment, no such need exists for me to do it. If the need arises, I will decide at that time. Not now.’ Then he cited an example as to what can happen when rash sacrifices are made. And this must serve as an eye opener to all expatriates, planning to renounce their citizenships and return to serve the country. He said: ‘Look what happened to Gotabaya. He sacrificed his citizenship to serve Sri Lanka. Now he is suffering.’ For once it was refreshing to see a candid Basil reveal he is truly a man after his own heart. That, if a sacrifice is called for, it would be for his own self-interest and not for Sri Lanka ‘Palamuwath mang venuwen, devenuwath mang venuwen, thevenuwath mang venuwen’. No wonder he is credited with seven brains.

SAJITH: Parliament’s Professor Higgins It pains in vain when Sajith reigns on the English terrain Sajith Premadasa showed this week that he is not merely the Leader of the Opposition but also the Chief Whip on the correct pronunciation of English in Parliament. And can play Professor Higgins to any SLPP MP’s Eliza Dolittle, as Shaw would have ordered for his Pygmalion. It got Sajith’s goat when he heard State Minister Shehan Serasinghe murder the English tongue by placing the stress on the first syllable instead of the second in the word restore, not once but repeatedly. In his speech in Parliament, Shehan had said in his own inimitable accent: ‘Let us re-store this economy. We can go for elections but let us re-store the economy. You were offered by the former President the PM post but did not accept it. So I urge you, please let us re-store this economy. So let us get together and re-store the economy. If the economy is not re-stored then we are all finished. So let us re-store the economy.’ Painfully for Sajith, this was too much to take. Every repetition of the word ‘re-store,’ in that context, was a jab in his ear and a stab in his heart. It was not only a matter of phonetics but one of meaning as well. The improper stress meant something else. Condemned by the wrong syllable he had uttered, poor Shehan had to take the verbal lash from Professor Sajith who cracked the whip mercilessly. He said: ‘Small correction. You don’t re-store an economy. You restore it. Re –store is to put it in a storeroom again. And why I did not accept the PM post is because I didn’t want to be sworn in by a people rejected illegitimate president.’ He singled out the new class distinction – the English accent – that keeps people in their place. Shehan is in good hands. With a few more lessons, he will be fit to be presented at the forthcoming IMF Ball in Washington.