Dear Friends of the Dhamma,
A recent comment posted by a keen listener of Dhamma is given below;
I am listening maha Sathipattana Sutta sutta chanted by most venerable Dhammajiva between 2006 and 2008. I noticed some dhamma desana is missing, like when you listen to 38 th desana it is the 36th again and 37th missing.
You are doing great thing. Definitely You will be rewarded.
Chandana
I felt it is important to provide an open reply as it will be an insight to an important chapter of the recent history of Nissarana Vanaya Monastery.
Dear Chandana,
Thank you very much for your comment. There was a mix up in the links given to audio files 36 and 38. This has been corrected now. However as I had written originally in the web page on Maha Sathipattana Sutta, the file no. 37 is missing. Please read that on the web page.
It is appropriate to write down the background now. These were recorded originally using some old cassette tapes. That’s the reason we miss ending of some of the Dhamma sermons. The cassettes could record only 60 minutes. Unlike digital recordings such as WAV or MP3 – what is recorded in cassettes degenerate over time.
I realized the importance of preserving these invaluable and priceless Dhamma and tried to convince the Maha Thero about an action plan to preserve these along with the talks of his teacher Most Ven Sri Ňānārāma Maha Thero. It took many visits to the monastery and meetings. Once Most Ven U Dhammajiva Maha Thero got convinced the rest started to follow easily. The Maha Thero assigned a monk and a lay Yogi from within the monastery to convert from tapes to digital format. Some of the tapes were full of fungus and couldn’t be restored. Some others were taken by various Dayakas and never returned back to the monastery. So those are the lost ones.
In the meanwhile I started to learn a totally new subject – audio editing while being engaged in a highly demanding full time job. Later I learned with the help of a dear IT fellow Dhamma practitioner (Thilina Peiris) as to how to set up a web site and to run it. damsara.org was the result.
To explain it in another way will be like this. A group of us worked as a team to fulfill a need. It was a very important need. We didn’t do that for any ‘rewards’ or didn’t do it for the fear of any ‘punishments’. It was beyond that reward/punish system or concept.
Dear Chandana,
I would be very happy if we could have given all of the missing files. However, it is not possible. Those are gone – forever! Just like what Buddha preached! However, let us rejoice and get the best of what is available because Maha Sathipattana Sutta discourse which was originally given to the monks of the monastery is priceless and precious.
Let us look at the water container as half full! Fill the container drop by drop with Dhamma. The container will become complete and full – within this very life!
With Metta,
Aruna
Readers of the English category: Kindly note that the Sutta discourse is in Sinhalese language.