One morning at the Buddhist Vihara

Rome Buddhist Vihara. Rome, 13 February 2022

This is a strange coincidence. A few days after the last post about Faatu's birth, I was invited by my friends from Sri Lanka to a Buddhist Vihara.

What I wrote then confirms me, namely the honor of being invited as a witness to private and important family moments. This time moving to the opposite side of the journey of existence: from birth to death.

It was September 2010 when I was invited for the first time to the Buddhist Temple of Santacittarama to attend the celebration of the anniversary of the death of a relative of my friend Valentina. I had just begun to know these recurrences and religious celebrations.

I was very struck by the act of pouring all the water into the cup for the monk's blessing.

 

Santacittarama Buddhist Temple. Rieti, 19 September 2010

Twelve years have passed and my friend Bianca, the same family as Valentina, invited me to the private event on the third anniversary of her father's death.

The Rome Buddhist Vihara is located in Via Arzachena, in Rocca Cencia, on the outskirts of Rome, and is inhabited and managed by the Theravāda Sinhalese monk Molligoda Dheerananda Thero.

Theravāda Buddhism (literally “school of the elders”) is the dominant form of Buddhism in South Asia and Southeast Asia, particularly in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, and Laos, but there are minorities of Theravada Buddhists also in Bangladesh, India, China, and Vietnam.

The celebration was short, with an offering of food to Buddha and the monk, his prayer with the reunited family, the moment in which they – gathered in a group – poured the water from the jug to the cup, for the blessing of the monk, as a symbolic gesture in memory of the deceased father.

Rome Buddhist Vihara. Rome, 13 February 2022

And then, before leaving, the monk tied the pirith nuul on each wrist, the white thread that carries the monk's blessings with it until its natural breaking.

 

Another private moment to take with me as a memory.

Another fragment of culture and religion.

Another door opens in the rich rooms of Rome.

 

One family, three generations.

Italian version