Bhikkhu Bodhi: A Mahā Kassapa for Today

American monk Bhikkhu Bodhi via Ven. Ānandajoti (dharma-records.buddhasasana.net, May 13, 2012); Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Painting of one the Buddha's great disciples Ven. Maha Kassapa (Kizil Caves, China)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This reflection about Ven. Ñāṇavimala by Bhikkhu Bodhi is part of series of articles. Others include Ajahn Brahm meets Ven. Ñāṇavimala, Chittapala’s Ven. Ñāṇavimala’s Advice, and Ven. Ñāṇatusita’s Life of Ñāṇavimala Thera.

A Mahākassapa for Our Time

Ven. Ñāṇavimala (formerly Friedrich Möller) circa 1955

It has often struck me that certain Buddhist monks I [American Theravada Buddhist monk Bhikkhu Bodhi] have known bear an uncanny resemblance to great disciples of the Buddha, at least in so far as we know them through the sutra texts.

This has raised in my mind the intriguing question whether the great disciples represent human archetypes (fixed molds that shape human character and behavior) or whether, to the contrary, Buddhist monastics tend to model themselves on their great predecessors.

I have no way to answer my question with any certainty, but I believe the correspondence I have noted is real and not merely my projecting or a figment of my imagination.

There is no doubt at all which of the great disciples the late Ven. Ñāṇavimala represents. Ven. K. Ñāṇananda (author of Concept and Reality, The Magic of the Mind, and other works) expressed the fact most succinctly one day when I met him in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

He said, “If you want to get a sermon from Mahā Kassapa, go see Ven. Ñāṇavimala.” The austere deportment, the ascetic bent of character, the firm self-assurance, the individualistic mode of practice: all these traits of Ven. Ñāṇavimala are reminiscent of Mahā Kassapa [Thera] (a kind of founding father of Buddhism).

 

Chinese painting of Mahākāśyapa in patched robes

And though we have, of course, no portraits of the great elder, I could not help noting the resemblance in physical stature and facial features between Ñāṇavimala and Mahā Kassapa as he is depicted in Chinese Buddhist statuary.

They even share the same penetrating eyes, the broad forehead, and the large ears. My relationship with Ven. Ñāṇavimala goes back almost 40 years, to my first year as an American Theravada Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka.

In June 1973 a few weeks after my higher ordination, my teacher, Ven. Balangoda Ānandamaitreya, brought me to the Kanduboda Meditation Centre for a course in insight (vipassanā) meditation.

At the time, another American monk, a novice (samanera) named Samita, was living at Kanduboda. When I arrived, he was in Colombo taking medical treatment, but he returned to the center a few days after I started my retreat.

One day after the midday meal, he came to see me, and we struck up a conversation. He told me that he had recently met Ven. Ñāṇavimala in the General Hospital in Colombo and had been deeply impressed, even awed, by the encounter.

I had earlier heard of Ven. Ñāṇavimala from another German monk but was led to believe that, because of his itinerant lifestyle (always wandering in the style of the ancient Buddhist ascetics), it was almost impossible to meet him in person.

Now that door was about to open. As a result of his encounter with Ven. Ñāṇavimala, Samita said he had lost faith in the type of vipassanā meditation that was taught at Kanduboda, the “dry insight” practice stemming from the Burmese meditation teacher Mahasi Sayadaw, under whom the Kanduboda meditation master, Ven. Sumatipāla, had trained in the 1950s.

The novice Samita told me that Ven. Ñāṇavimala had claimed that absorption (jhāna) is necessary as a basis for insight (vipassanā) and that there can be no genuine insight not rooted in the absorptions.

Since I was just beginning to read the Sutra Collection (Nikāyas) in Pāli, I had been struck by the role that the absorptions/i played in the “gradual training” sequence of the Middle Length Discourses (Majjhima Nikāya).

I felt this report (on the firm conviction of Ven. Ñāṇavimala) conveyed an important point. More

The German Dharmaduta Society

Society Founder Asoka Weeraratna, Sri Lanka

Eight prominent Theravada Buddhist monks led by the German monk Ven. Ñânatiloka Mahâthera and including Ven. Balangoda Ânanda Maitreyya, Ven. Galle Anuruddha, Ven. Akuretiye Amaravamsa, Ven. Ñânaponika Thera (German), Ven. Kudawella Vangîsa, and Ven. Vappo (German) were attached to the Center. These monks offered their services to train German Buddhists and others in the study of Buddhist philosophy. Friedrich Möller, a teacher from Hamburg and the first German recruit of the Society, arrived in Sri Lanka in 1953. He completed his period of training and received ordination under the name of Ven. Ñânavimala. More