Throughout 2009 and the early part of 2010 I worked on a text and translation of a collection of verses made by the Svejin Nikāya’s former Mahānāhimi, Ven. Rerukane Candavimala, who was one of the leading scholar monks in Sri Lanka in the 20th century.
The Svejin Nikāya is my ordination sect, and Ven Rerukane was the Mahānāyaka when I ordained, but by that time he was bed-ridden and unable to attend, so my preceptor was his leading disciple, Ven. Henegama Kalyānasiri, who was the Anunāyaka at the time.
Besides making the translation of the verses from the Pāḷi original I considerably enhanced the original work, breaking it into chapters, re-editing the text, providing synopses of the stories to accompany the translation, and in one or two cases changing the verse selection.
I think of all the works I have made this is possibly the most useful for people, as the collection mainly provides good advice in dealing with virtually any situation that arises in life, and can act as guide to understand the present and keep on thr right track.
Last year I published 70+ weekly excerpts from this work here on the blog, with a section a week, which was very well received.
Now I am happy to say that the book has been published in Taiwan by the Buddha Educational Foundation, with a first print run of 6,000 copies. The publishers – for once! – have been very helpful and co-operative, but I owe a lot of that to the help of my friend and supporter Andrew Lai, who was the mediator between myself and the Foundation.
Copies of the book can be found online at this address, and if you are thinking of having copies sent, try and take some to distribute also, if only dropping off at your local temple. That way we can get the book out to people.
Have a look through their listings and see if there are other books you may want also. One I can definietly recommend, is the book published immediately before mine, which is The Gentle Way of Buddhist Meditation by my teacher Acariya Godwin Samarararatne.
Also, if you are able, please consider making a donation to the publishers, who are doing a lot of good work in publishing Buddhist books throughout the world and in various languages, it will be a very meritorious contribution to the spread of the Dhamma.
