Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Being a Buddhist by practice

This is about a group of friends who spend their free time on social service. All being inspired by the Buddhist teachings try to give something to society in their capacity.  The key members are Prasad and Indika. Both have few friends and relatives who support them for this worthy cause. As far as I know they started by donating medicine and some food items to the cancer hospital, Maharagama, Sri Lanka. This donation was dreams come true for Prasad. I can remember once him donating some stuff for his birthday. I also went with him on that day. He was very upset because he couldn’t cover the whole hospital. He and myself both being unemployed at that time couldn’t collect a sufficient fund. It was a very good start for him and now he has many friendly people following his footsteps. He also has the support and guidance of the Buddhist monks at the temple Mahamewnawa located at Pittugala, Sri Lanka. Visiting to the cancer hospital has become a monthly event now.  A Buddhist monk from Mahamewnawa also accompanies them and they take pirith threads (a band made out of threads to which Buddhist prayers have been charmed) to the patients for protection and good health. They also have a Buddhist teaching session which is broadcasted to the whole hospital. The hand out they print which has that day’s teaching for later reference caught my attention. I think that was very good thinking.

Memories

Prasad and Indika keep it as a practice to accompany a buddhist monk when ever they visit the hospital

The Donation

Paper work (from right: Director Cancer Hospital, Mrs. Visaka, Ms. Achala)

Medicine for Cancer patients










Join/Participate/Donate
Contact:Prasad
eprasadjaya@gmail.com
prasadjayanandana@ymail.com
Indika
indikabchandrasiri@gmail.com




Similar Stories

3 comments:

planet green said...

Cambodians Hand-Knit Monsters to Earn Their Way Out of Poverty
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/work-connect/cambodians-knit-monsters-poverty.html

ThE uSeFuL said...

The experience I got today was bit sad. The wards I got to visit today were crowded with patients and some patients getting only a chair (all beds were occupied), some on the corridor, some under a staircase, some under a bed and some under trees. The saddest part about my today’s experience was a grandfather creeping out from under a bed thinking that we didn’t see him (we were distributing pirith threads and the handouts which contained Buddhist teachings). Most patients you find in this hospital are poor. Medicine is very expensive when it comes to cancer. If you get hold of an official you can find lots of people who are need of help and some might even come near you begging…

ThE uSeFuL said...

Today was a special day for this young team as they managed to cook lunch for the whole hospital. I'm happy that I was there too and saw a lot of new faces among the crowd. Some being employees of the cancer hospital itself.