Pure Inspiration

Ven. Bhikkhu Guttasīla – 66
Ven. Ñāṇavimala was a solitary monk. It was very hard to get close to
him. I think, in the ten years that he stayed on Island Hermitage when
Ven. Ñāṇamoli was still alive, he tended to isolate himself from the
other monks. From what I understand, Ven. Ñāṇavimala had a very
conservative attitude. I was coming from a later generation which was
more open-minded. But Ven. Ñāṇavimala would have kept himself
apart from the more ‘hippy-ish’ personalities, the more open liberal
truth-seekers who came to Island Hermitage at that time – there must
have been many. Ven. Ñāṇavimala was what we would call very
‘straight’ – kind of narrow in personality. There was a kind of severity,
not wanting to waste his time, not wanting to be frivolous, not wanting
to become involved in meaningless talk. So that’s why he would have
kept himself apart. He was so self-contained, he didn’t need to talk to
others and this made him a little bit unapproachable.
Something that happened to me slightly changed my attitude to Ven.
Ñāṇavimala. In 1984, I decided to go back to New Zealand as my
mother had a stroke and my father had a by-pass operation and
pacemaker fitted. My parents were too old and sick to visit me in Sri
Lanka. The last time I had seen them was in 1973 in Australia when
we spent a couple of days together. I hadn’t had a long meeting with
my parents since 1970. I stayed in New Zealand till the end of 1984. I
couldn’t take New Zealand any more, so decided to come back to Asia.
I was in Thailand on the way back to Sri Lanka when I heard that my
mother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, so I decided to go
back to New Zealand for the 1985 vassa also, as I wasn’t sure how long
my mother had to live she died toward the end of 1986. So after my
mother died, I decided it was time to go back to Sri Lanka.