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    Living with Awareness: Teachings of late Godwin Samararatne
    Living with Awareness: Teachings of late Godwin Samararatne
    Living with Awareness: Teachings of late Godwin Samararatne
    Ebook60 pages53 minutes

    Living with Awareness: Teachings of late Godwin Samararatne

    By Upul Nishantha Gamage

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    About this ebook

    What we are trying to do is to develop insight, to develop skills, not to have only pleasant and calm experiences. So these are the insights I have in mind, because when you are here, if you develop these insights, if you develop these tools, then when unpleasant emotions arise in everyday life you will know how to deal with them. An important insight based on the Buddha's teaching is to realise that these things are impermanent. Whatever arises passes away. I hope you'll also develop that insight. So please don't try to get rid of them through your will, by controlling, but when they are there just let them be there and let them go away; let the impermanence operate naturally. Another insight is to realise that they don't belong to you because they are visitors. So visitors come and go. It means that they don't belong to you.

    Try to make your own discoveries. Are the thoughts mostly about the past? Are they mostly about the future? Are the thoughts racing one after another? Are they slowing down? Is there a space between two thoughts? Do you get involved in some thoughts? Do you judge your thoughts? Make your own discoveries about the different aspects, about the different dimensions, about the structure of your thoughts. Have moment to moment awareness of the way you are relating to each thought that arises.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUpul Nishantha Gamage
    Release dateJul 2, 2017
    ISBN9781370241668
    Living with Awareness: Teachings of late Godwin Samararatne
    Author

    Upul Nishantha Gamage

    Upul Nishantha Gamage, present resident meditation teacher, has been guiding thousands of people from different backgrounds who come to Nilambe to practice meditation. According to the article titled “Mistakes” published in Dhammaja (Nilambe Buddhist Meditation centre Newsletter-Volume 2, Jan 2009), he started meditation in 1977, at 13 years of age. At that time, he was instrumental in establishing a Youth Society at a Buddhist Temple near his parents’ house and got involved in many activities as the Secretary of the Society. In late 80’s, he had offered to help Godwin at a point where someone’s assistance with the activities at the Meditation Centre was vital. Subsequently, he had been introduced to those at the Centre by Godwin as the “new boss” of Nilambe. Ever since he has been a very dear friend and an outstanding Dhamma teacher for thousands of people who attend programs conducted by him, also many others who are yet to attend his programs and a counselor for those who are in need of counseling. Besides teaching at Nilambe, Upul conducts programs at prisons, schools, monasteries, private residences etc. He is regularly invited to conduct meditation retreats in Hong Kong, Germany, Switzerland and Sweden. According to his teaching, practice of Meditation paves the path to help ourselves, to understand ourselves and to change ourselves for better as we are becoming more and more mindful about all our day-to-day activities. Moreover, Upul’s great ability to speak to our hearts and practical and philosophical way of presenting Dhamma has enormous power to make us practice Meditation in a joyful manner.

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      Book preview

      Living with Awareness - Upul Nishantha Gamage

      Living with Awareness & Watching Thoughts and Emotions

      Godwin Samararatne

      Published by

      Nilambe Deshana Publication Board

      Nilambe Buddhist Meditation Centre

      Nilambe, Sri Lanka

      For further readings and audios

      www.nilambe.net

      www.nilambe-deshana.net

      For further information

      upulnilambe@yahoo.com

      ISBN 978 – 955 – 0332 – 01 – 4

      Graphic design by Lahiru Naveen Muthukumarana

      Copyright © Nilambe Deshana Publication Board

      July 2012

      Printer:

      Sanduni Offset Printers (Pvt.) Ltd.

      No. 4/1, Sarasavi Uyana Good Shed Road,

      Sarasavi Uyana, Peradeniya

      Tel./Fax 081-2387777

      The idea of Buddhist meditation is to free ourselves from suffering, but sometimes the way we practise creates more suffering. When we practise this simple way, we can experience the absence of suffering right at that moment. So when thoughts come, you don't suffer, you just know it. When you hear sound you don't suffer, you know that you hear it. When there is physical pain, you don't suffer. You just know that there is pain. When the mind is not calm, you don't suffer, but you realise that the mind is not calm. When you realise that you are not with breath but somewhere else, you don't suffer as a result of it. You realise that you have not had awareness, so you re-establish awareness and come back to the breath.

      Godwin Samararatne

      Previous Publications of Light of Nilambe

      1. What is human life?

      2. Be an outsider if you want to change the inside

      3. Seeing emptiness

      4. Suffering is a dream

      5. In between happiness and unhappiness

      6. Buddhism = Heartfulness + Mindfulness

      7. No colour no shape

      FOR INFORMATION ON OBTAINING OR SPONSORING

      ANY LIGHT OF NILAMBE BOOKLETS PLEASE

      CONTACT: upulnilambe@yahoo.com

      info@nilambe-deshana.net

      Table of Contents

      OUR TEACHER GODWIN, A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

      1. LIVING WITH AWARENESS

      2. WATCHING THOUGHTS AND EMOTIONS

      OUR TEACHER GODWIN, A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

      Acarya Godwin Samararatne was one of the best known lay meditation teachers in Sri Lanka in recent times, based at his meditation Centre at Nilambe in the central hill country near Kandy. After his death in March 2000, letters and tributes poured in as many people around the world attested to the impact that Godwin and his teaching had made on their lives.

      Godwin was born 6th September 1932. He grew up as one of seven children in a Kandy-based family, in the central hills of Sri Lanka. He attended a well-reputed Buddhist school, but later admitted to neglecting his studies there in favour of exploring the deeper philosophical questions of life. After school he became a Librarian, serving in libraries in and around the Kandy area before being promoted to the post of Chief Librarian at the main Kandy Public Library.

      While his brothers and sisters all married, Godwin remained living at home, devotedly supporting his widowed mother until her death in 1977. By that time Godwin was already involved with a Buddhist lay group who were studying the Dhamma and practising meditation, so when in 1979 this group founded a Meditation Centre at Nillambe, at the top of a tea estate some distance outside Kandy, he gave up his work as a Librarian and took up residence in the new Centre.

      He subsequently became the Centre's chief meditation teacher. Godwin based his teaching on his own practice and the understanding he gained of the Dhamma through that. He had no particular teacher himself, but he discussed the Buddha’s teachings widely with many experienced monks, scholars, and other meditators.

      News soon spread about Godwin and the new Centre, passed on by word of mouth by those who had been there and benefited from their stay. Young Westerners who were seeking a spiritual dimension to their lives were attracted to the Centre, appreciating Godwin’s ability to translate the Dhamma into a language relevant to people’s everyday lives and concerns.

      Godwin's reputation as a meditation teacher grew steadily throughout the 80’s both in Sri Lanka and abroad. By the mid-80's Godwin had already been invited to teach in Europe and South Africa, and he became over time an internationally acclaimed and much loved teacher.

      In the 1990’s his teaching tours extended to many more countries, including England, Germany, and Switzerland; and other Asian countries such as India, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Fortunately many of the talks and retreats he gave on these tours were recorded, and it is transcriptions of these recordings that form the basis of Godwin's website (www.godwin-homc-page.net) and

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