by Bhante Dharmapala/Claudio Torrero
In the Theravada tradition of Sri Lanka this full moon is Poson Poya. The introduction of the Dharma to the island by Mahinda, the monk son of Emperor Ashoka, is celebrated there. The latter had sent monks in the most diverse directions, even to the West, and to Sri Lanka his own son, as if foreseeing the particular role that the island would play in the diffusion of the Dharma, given that it would then be written there, after a few centuries of oral tradition, the Canon of texts in the Pali language.
By looking at that often inextricable tangle that is the human story, behind the history of states, wars, economies and technological changes, by observing more carefully we can see the flow of daily life over the generations, always different and yet also always the same. Well, looking even deeper it finally appears how each man or woman relates in every era to the meaning of their own life, according to the cultural horizon given to them: in short, spiritual history appears. And every time the profound truth that is in the human heart is no longer accessible in the forms in which it was handed down, different forms need to emerge.
Could this happen in our time, in the most shocking and rapid change in human history? And will there be missionaries able to reach everyone, making a gift of themselves for a great common rebirth?
Image by Olga Bellero