Ranil senanayake biography sample

An interview with Dr. Ranil Senanayake who introduced the model of analog foresting to the world
By Frances Bulathsinghala

It is not just poetic nicety to say that forests, biodiversity and nature have an impact on our consciousness and mental wellbeing.

The founders of religions such as Buddhism, Christianity and Islam were closely associated with nature in the process of achieving an elevated mental state. The Buddha’s advice to his monks was to choose trees which suffered a natural demise for the construction of their forest habitat.

In the Buddhacarita, the epic poem on the life of the Buddha, spiritual practice is compared to a tree where the fibres are likened to patience, flowers to virtue and the boughs to awareness and wisdom which brings forth the fruit of Dhamma.

To find someone who is truly following the ‘Buddhist path’ in how we view and work with forests maybe difficult, but one of Sri Lanka’s eminent ecologists who set about finding a foresting concept that is n