DEVOTION IN THERAVADA BUDDHIM

        The Pāli word vandanā means literally “bowing down”.  It is a word used in Theravada Buddhism to signify the heart’s response to the highest objects of veneration; hence it may be rendered as “devotion” or “homage”.  The idea of vandanā covers both aspects of the devotional responses – on one side the feelings of faith, reverence, and love, on the other the act of homage, bodily and verbal, which express them.  In the ideal practice of vandanā these two aspects fuse together into a unity, the feeling spilling forth into the act and the act of giving concrete form to the feeling.

          The devotional element is often omitted from accounts of Theravada Buddhism, which usually depict this ancient Buddhist school as dry intellectual system without much room for religious emotion.  Seen firsthand, however, the Theravāda tradition reveals at its core a vibrant current of devotional feeling which permeates the Theravāda lives of it followers.  Its tone may be quiet and restrained but it is unmistakably present.  The devotional strain has firm roots in the Theravāda doctrinal perspective.  Theravada teaching does not encourage emotional oppressive, as this often leads astray, but it does proclaim an electric message of deliverance capable of sparking off the higher emotions.

          The teachings of the Buddha (Theravāda scriptures) speaks directly about the most vital issues of human concern.

NOTE: Collected from Buddhist literature.