In the 1970s Ronald Erye made a series of films by travelling around the world looking at Man’s Religious Quest, which was entitled The Long Search. A couple of them concern Buddhism and will be shown here.
In the first of the films Eyre travels to Sri Lanka to find out more about Buddhism, and he has an excellent guide in Ven Ananda Maitreya, one of the most respected Sri Lankan monks in living memory.
They start off by talking to the venerable monk, and looking at life in his very simple temple at Balangoda, in the up country region, which includes going on piṇḍapāta with the monks, seeing the workings of a Sunday school, and eventually attending a sāmanera ordination.
He also travels to Waturawila, which is the HQ of one of the forest dwelling sects, and visits another forest monastery I didn’t identify and spoke to some of the monks living in caves there.
Along the way he learns more about Buddhism and shares what he has learned with us, and he does seem to have understood quite well, and the whole programme is very sympathetically presented.
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to see a set of stills click on the screenshot below
