[Lal]

The following post is from Lair (Lvalio). Apparently he could not post it. He sent an email and asked mt to post it. Thank you, Lair, for sharing your experience.

Actually, my experience in Buddhism began when I was only 12!

My mother became seriously ill and almost died (a heart disease from which she would die 10 years later). That day I didn’t wake up in my bed as usual, but I woke up on the floor. Every day I slept on the floor and someone put me in bed, so I’d wake up at dawn and be in bed covered with blankets…(I think that was my father that did it).

In a few days I started to have a subliminal experience (I think). I started thinking about the world and what is the purpose of life?
– This is clear, is very unusual for a twelve-year-old boy and can only be the result of past lives…(I think) At the same time, when I closed my eyes, I always saw a flashing signal, a black point flashing, a different thing, and then an intense anguish inexplicable…(still now, sometimes I see it…)

I no longer believed in the Catholic and Evangelical Church,… The confession of the Catholic Church was one of the most abominable things I knew… (my mother was from the Italian Catholic family to the extreme and my father was evangelical and almost one of the owners of the Canadian Evangelical Church in my small town in the São Paulo´s state, Brazil)!
The anguish at first was very intense, but over time was decreasing and I joined a good class in school and became a good student …

Several classmates went to Curitiba (Parana´s state) to try the medical entrance exam… They were my friends, and I joined the group and started studying together… Three were going to take medical school, and one Engineering.
– From that group, I went to medical college and another went into engineering. The Faculty of Medicine of the University State of Paraná, was federal and free. When I was in third grade my mother died. This great loss (I was very attached to her) caused me deep disappointment with the world (anicca nature) …

At one point in life approximately after the year 2,000, I began to look for Buddhism, I’m not sure why… The first one I found was Mahāyāna and I embraced it like a burning man. Something told me the truth was out there…

I started visiting a Mahāyāna website, but I wasn’t completely satisfied…
I made handouts etc. Read a lot, but i didn’t convince myself. One day I found a website with Theravadas monks… I began to get interested and completely abandoned Mahāyāna when I tried to read a book translated into the Portuguese of lotus sutra… In the 16th chapter I couldn’t read it any more…

I abandoned Mahāyāna and by 2016, I was already Theravada 100%. In January I attended a lecture by Ajahn Sumedho in the auditorium of Cultura Bookstore at The Bourbon Shopping Mall of São Paulo, along with my daughter-in-law Zafia. I met Ajahn Mudito Bhikku (I think, first Brasilia Theravadin Monk) and it changed my life radically… I was so delighted to see 5 Buddhist Theravada Monks at once (I had never seen even one). I think I even scared him a little, but he kindly gave me his email and later I sent him an email so that he had mine.
About march he gave me a book to translate into Portuguese: “Issues from the Moss” (Através do Musgo), in Portuguese).

Although it was very difficult for me because the book was a scanned copy of the English original in poor condition… I had to first edit the entire book in Word format. And then the real work began. I translated it in record time and in August was already posted on the Dhamma forum of the Forest (Thai) of Ajahn Mudito with the title “Through the Moss”. Today already placed on the website of Ajahn https://dhammadafloresta.org/page/6/, for free download. It’s never been edited and printed.

Instinctively, I was looking for a Website in the internet with the pure Dhamma of Lord Buddha… I found two Pure Dhamma sites. One by MK and one by Mt. Lal.
I miraculously (?) chose Lal’s… I think the Law of Attraction pulled me there. I did not have an explanation for that.

Then August 2016 I found Lal’s website!
– And it has been my home since there… (thank you Lal, very much, for you made that website available for us!!!)
– My sincere desire is to you get Arahantship in this very life!!!

And it became my home. The teachings of Sri Lankan Monk Ven. Waharaka Abhayaratanalankara Thero, who completely abandoning the infamous Visuddhimagga, studied directly by the original Tipitaka as well as was maintained by the Monks of Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, etc.
So, the true and pure Dhamma of Lord Buddha came to light again…
As all his discourses were in Sinhala (Sinhalese-tongue-sister pali language and not Sanskrit as many think), it was necessary someone fluent in Sinhala and English and who was studying Theravada Buddhism. That is Lal Ariyaratna Pinnaduwage!
A very special person.
After read a lot in the Lal posts, at that time some 400 posts in his site: “Puredhamma.net”, after read about Anicca, Dukkha, and Anatta, someday after august, 2016, I saw clearly the First Noble True (in my sleeping room), the suffering hiding in the rebirth (and that could be stopped!). And the Buddha said that one who saw the first one, immediately see the other three, because one is the logical consequence of the other…
So, I think at that point I really was a Sotapanna (but only realized it 3 or 4 months later…) and finally in beginning June 2017, a Sakadagami…(I think?!).
Thank you very much, MR. LAL, for everything you did for us… The debt of gratitude that we all have with you, Mr. Ven. Lal, is inestimable…
About almost 3 years ago, when I went to an ophthalmologist (I almost had a retinal detachment and stayed there at the Eye Clinic for a full day, in treatment, August / 2017 – very painful, was that I realized that my previous experience had actually been, Samvega!; because that, I think I was possibly a Sotapanna Magga Anugami from a previous life…But I am not sure…
Because of this, I think that possibly I was a Sotapanna Magga Anugami (but I am not sure…) in a previous life…
Lair (Lvalio)

[y not]

Hello Lvalio,

I had missed this. Or it may also be I had read it but forgot. Anyway,

I was struck by “when I closed my eyes, I always saw a flashing signal, a black point flashing, a different thing, and then an intense anguish inexplicable…(still now, sometimes I see it…” because there is a connection there to what I experience, though not all that often lately.

In my case I see bright lights, like stars, sparkling, of different colours coming out of my eyes and darting out in different directions around me, but staying around me at the same time. They keep darting ,as it appears to me, out of my eyes at the start, then around the room, but always in different directions away from me. It happens when I have a powerful dream, but not always. I also have the feeling that it was the lights that opened my eyes to bring an end to the dream. No experience of anguish though. Marvel, wonder, rather. There also is a slight strain felt in the eyeballs.

“The debt of gratitude that we all have with you, Mr. Ven. Lal, is inestimable” I keep repeating that over and over again.

may you attain the Deathless.

[Lvalio]

Hi Y Not!
Y Not Said: “I was struck by “when I closed my eyes, I always saw a flashing signal, a black point flashing, a different thing, and then an intense anguish inexplicable… (still now, sometimes I see it…”
Because there is a connection there to what I experience, though not all that often lately.
Thank you very much for your kindly words…I appreciate very much!
Thank you very much Y Not, for as nice words… I think many of us here at the PureDhamma Forum have had or still have similar experiences.
We are all very lucky to live in a time when the True Dhamma of Lord Buddha is shining again and for having access to the teachings of Ven. Waharaka Abayarathanalankara Thero…
Through the Posts of Lal who is fluent in Sinhala and English… A rare combination…
But, Mr. Lal, are not a mere translator, but someone who understands the Sublime Dhamma of Lord Buddha and knows how to transmit it with his own words and through his own understanding, transmit the Dhamma Sublime in a way that we can understand it either.
May all of you attain Magga Phala in this very Life
Anumodana
Lair

[Author]

Posts