Amila's Vesak dansala

It was Sunday, and as usual Amila woke up early morning to head out to the village temple where he and his brother Sunimal attended Sunday school every weekend.

“Malli hurry up”, shouted Amila as he was in a hurry to arrive early at the temple that day. He was really excited as today was the weekend before Vesak where everyone in the Sunday school will gather to decide on all the events they have planned for the Vesak festival.

When Amila and Sunimal arrived at the temple, many of their classmates had gathered already and the Chief Incumbent Ven. Saddhatissa Thera was addressing the group. “Come in Amila and Sunimal, sit down,” the Thera told them.

“I was assigning pupils to organize various events. Amila, could you please organise the Sunday school dansala this year”, the Thera said. “Of course loku hamuduruwo”, Amila eagerly agreed.

“Now that is settled, let’s start the day by observing the five precepts after which we will clean and sweep the temple grounds”, the Thera said leading the group in prayer.

As the group set about cleaning the temple grounds, Amila realised the temple had been littered with polythene bags by worshippers the evening before. People bringing flowers and bottles of oil in bags had discarded the polythene in different corners of the temple making it a terrible sight.

“Such a shame”, he thought to himself as not only did the bags litter the sacred grounds but he remembered that they were taught in school that polythene was harmful to the environment.

“Malli, gather all the polythene bags and throw them in the bin”, he told his brother as he too, along with others started picking all the plastic bags up. On Vesak Day, the temple was lit beautifully with small lamps, electric lights and Vesak lanterns. As villagers arrived at the temple, they saw Amila’s dansala. He had erected a small hut at the entrance to the temple.

“Aunty, please take this, it’s free”, he said handing out a cloth bag which also had items such as flowers, joss sticks and oil that worshippers needed.

“Please don’t use polythene inside and outside of the temple Aunty. Use this cloth bag instead,” he said explaining to her how polythene pollutes the compound and also bad for the environment. Having seen the pollution caused by plastic and polythene bags, Amila had decided on a different type of dansala this year.

That was to give bags made of cloth to all temple-goers and to show them the importance of protecting the temple grounds and also the environment.

“Now I understand son, I will not litter the temple nor use polythene again,” the woman said, blessing Amila before entering the temple.

“Amila,” called out the Chief Thera. “This is a very different type of a dansala indeed but a very good message to our village about protecting the temple and our environment as well,” he said.

Amila’s dansala with a difference was always talked about, every Vesak from then on with the bags he had distributed being used by all worshippers for many more years to come.

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