Monthly Archives: August 2010

The Heretic Sage (Part 1)

Bhante Ñāṇananda is not the monk I thought he would be. He is much more. As I recall my first meet­ing with him in his small cave kuti, the first word that crosses my mind is “inno­cent”. For a senior monk who has been in the order for more than 40 years, he is dis­arm­ingly sim­ple, unpre­ten­tious and friendly. Child­like even. But you would not get that impres­sion from his clas­sics Con­cept and Real­ity in Early Bud­dhist Thought and The Magic of the Mind.