Venerable Gunaratana and I left for Sri Lanka Sunday November 7^th with over 50 pieces of accompanied baggage. All were transported by courtesy of Sri Lankan Airlines. The Airport Manager in Colombo met us and speedily urshered us through Immigration and Customs. Early Monday morning we took the five-hour ride to Kandy and directly to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. When the Buddha died, his body was cremated in a sandalwood pyre in India and his left canine tooth was retrieved from the funeral pyre. It was later taken to Kandy 371 C.E. where it is at present, in the Temple of the Tooth. It is viewed as a symbolic presence of Buddha and it is on this basis that offerings, rituals, and ceremonies are being conducted.. The Director of International Buddhist Affairs, Gamini Bandara, received us and in the evening we were given the rare privilege to ascend to the inner sanctum where the tooth is enshrined.

My last visit to Kandy was to attend my first international ecumenical conference in the early sixties upon the invitation of D.T. Niles. We met at the idyllic colonial hotel, Queen’s Hotel, built in 1895 alongside Kandy Lake and was the former Governor’s Mansion. It has since been rebuilt on this heritage site and is the “Raffles” in Kandy. .

The Chief Minister of the Central Province. Sarath Ekanayake, invited us to lunch at his Residence before the Special Public Event at the Buddhist Cultural Center honouring MP Basil Rajapaksa, the brother of President Rajapaksa. He is in charge of development in the Northern and Eastern Provinces in his office as Senior Advisor to the President. We met him and he told us that he has favourably considered our request for the establishment of an Interfaith Centre for Education and Peace in Vavuniya and has already informed the Government Agent there. The religious ceremony was in honour of the elevation to top leadership of a senior monk in a four-hour long ceremony. Maha Kuruna Society in Singapore donated 500 robes which we brought over and offered to the hundreds of monks gathered at the celebration.

After the Kandy event we proceeded to Anuandhrapura after another five-hour journey and reached the Army Headquarters near midnight where Major General Kamal Gunaratne had arranged for us to stay at their Guest House. Early at six we were saying our prayers at the foot of the Bodhi Tree which is reputed to be a sapling from the tree where Buddha had his enlightenment. It was brought over to Ceylon and planted in 288 B.C.E.

We visited the camp for the LTTE teenage soldiers in a re-education camp in Manik Farm. We had supplied them with chairs for the hall and erected sanitary facilities for them since our visit last September. Almost half the number have been released and there are only about 200 students. It is an encouraging sign.

We had an appointment with the Government Agent, Mrs P.S.M. Charles a Catholic, in Vavuniya and she has assured us of her support in acquiring a piece of government land for the building of our proposed Interfaith Centre for Education and Peace.

We then met individually with The Chief Buddhist Monk of Vavuniya, the Priest of the largest Hindu Temple, and priests leading the Catholic, Anglican and Methodist churches in the city. The Imam of the Mosque was not in his office when we visited the main mosque. In our conversations with these interfaith leaders who had been meeting for religious dialogue regularly we sensed their excitement of having such an innovative centre which could be used to further the cause for peace and reconciliation. Vavuniya is a unique town in the country where the numbers of devotees are almost equally balanced and there has been religious harmony.

We are of the view that this Centre for Education and Peace should be locally managed by this interfaith group of leaders. This is an opportunity for them to work together to render community services initially through education of English and Computer skills. We are targeting the O and A level students especially those who have been released from the IDP camps. We will offer computer training to them and upgrading others in the community in the use of new computer programmes.

The Centre will further the development of interfaith relations through the existing dialogue sessions of the leaders. It will be the base for educating the public about the different faiths and promoting other activities leading to religious harmony, reconciliation and peace.

Hopefully we want to be operational early in 2010 and we solicit your prayers and support.