Unity Village

Bhante Wimala at Unity Village, MO
Rev. Thomas Shepherd, Unity Institute Faculty

Traveling Buddhist monk, the Venerable Bhante Wimala, has been my friend for almost five years. I claim him as a friend, even though we have spent little time together—he's usually on the far side of the globe, walking dirt paths to deliver humanitarian aid in places where the U.N. fears to tread. He brings the same kind of kindly, serene, humanitarian spirit to the classes he teaches in a spiritually starving Western world. My students and fellow faculty members here at Unity Institute were impressed, again, by the depth and conviction with which he speaks.

This was not an ethical discourse on love of God and neighbor delivered in the rare air of academia; Bhante's rust-colored robes have graced AIDS orphanages in Africa, tsunami-ravaged towns in Sri Lanka, and villages devastated by earthquakes in Pakistan. He works to stop female genital mutilation in Africa. A vegetarian, he distributes cookware to Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim tsunami victims so they can prepare meals for their families, regardless of their culture's menu.

Bhante is a gentle, wise, deeply spiritual presence—intelligent without being overly intellectual. His talk on the meaning of compassion has literally changed the way many people here think about love itself. I feel that Bhante’s spirituality is like pure gold, so his qualities of mind and heart are acceptable in any marketplace of the human experience. This safron-robed, Theravada Buddhist from Sri Lanka walks the back roads of the world as a citizen of all lands, operating his one-monk relief agency, practicing a discipline sorely needed in our strife-ridden global village today—the way of compassion for all.