Guru C
　　 The third guru I will consider is, like the first two, also relatively orthodox in that he is well versed in the dhamma and teaches the classical path of Vipassana meditation. This guru, however, differs from the first two in that he has founded his own society which moves toward a sectarian identity within Buddhism. To the members of his society, Guru C is a teacher who has reached an advanced stage of spiritual perfection. This teacher and his society represent good examples of the evolution of the meditation movement in Sri Lanka: here we have a Guru who teaches a distinctive version of the dhamma and leads a society of followers who clearly see their identity as not being within "contemporary Buddhist orthodoxy." This guru and his followers not only break with traditional Buddhism, but also break with some of the teachings and emphases of the meditation movement in its original Burmese and Kanduboda form.

　　 Guru C is a retired educator who has built up a society that has, according to the leader, about 2000 members in some 21 chapters across the island. Most of the members are middle aged or retired although the society is making attempts to get young people to join also. Guru C leads the society by teaching them the way of dhamma and meditation. Although some meditation teachers emphasize their

p. 149

experiential knowledge rather than textual knowledge, Guru C seems to do the opposite. He has an extensive knowledge of the Tripitaka and the commentaries which he cites heavily in his teaching. On several occasions when I interviewed him at his home in Kandy, he brought out great stacks of suttas to cite and interpret for me. He does not, however, rely just on the textual version of the dhamma. Combining experience with study, he says that we have to know the "dhamma of the mind." This "dhamma of the mind" is the experiential dhamma that the Buddha taught. This dhamma is essential because, in Guru C's view, the textual dhamma cannot be trusted completely because the Buddha's followers may have added or subtracted ideas while the texts were being formed. Thus, Guru C has some doubts about many of the texts and urges caution when using them. In good Buddhist fashion, he says that we cannot simply learn the Buddha's dhamma, but we have to find the dhamma for ourselves. "Buddha did not ask people to accept." "We have to study the way, but that is not enough, you have to go on to experience the mind inside."

　　 These pragmatic Buddhist disclaimers notwithstanding, Guru C spends most of his time teaching his interpretation of the dhamma, and could be classified as a dhamma teacher as well as a meditation teacher. He has written some seventeen small books that expound his understanding of the dhamma. For his followers, the dhamma teaching and the meditation go together and both are taken as explanations of the path as it is constructed by their Guru. Perhaps the best explanation of where the authority of this guru lies comes from one of his followers who said that she "respects Guru C as a man who has a perfect knowledge of Pali and the texts. She feels that he has attained the advanced state because he knows the dhamma so well and is able to preach it for 10 or 11 hours straight. Something that an ordinary person could not do."

　　 One of Guru C's main teaching themes is that the world is inside the mind but we mistakenly look for it outside. By observing how the mind arises and passes away one can see the real nature of the dhamma. He relates a story from a sutta about a monk who had acquired the miraculous power to travel through the air and asked the Buddha if he could go to the end of the world. Buddha, however, told him that he could not go by that means for the world is in the mind.

　　 Up to this point Guru C and his society might seem to be perfectly orthodox Buddhists. But their relation to the prevailing Buddhism in Sri Lanka is complex. Possibly the best explanation of the relation between Guru C, his society and Buddhism is found in the following statement by him. "We have to understand what Buddhism is, and having gotten that knowledge, we then have to break that knowledge." A great admirer of Krishnamurti, Guru C made a significant comment about him. He explained that Krishnamurti said that he went to Buddha, was with the Buddha, and then left the Buddha to find his own truth. This may be an image that Guru C has of his own teaching and his society. Another statement of his relation to Buddhism is given in this comment, "The Buddha never expected his teaching to turn into Buddhism. Religion is the most harmful thing in the world. Because of religion people are fighting. But what the Buddha gave is not a religion, it is a teaching about how to live in the world. How to live in this impermanent world satisfactorily. That is the Buddha's teaching." Leading his followers toward this truth, Guru C is extremely critical of contemporary Buddhist orthodoxy on a number of counts. He declares that, "Today in Sri Lanka we do not have Buddhism. Buddhism only exists in books, not in