evidence: MAHAMEVNAWA BUDDHIST MONASTERY OF SRI LANKA "I welcome you all to Mahamevnawa with Metta. Within our Dhamma service we have no restrictions with regard to the race, cast, language, colour or religion. The truth revealed by Gautama Buddha is open to everyone. If you are wise enough to understand that truth, then that truth is for you and for your own good and protection. Therefore, let us gather around that truth, the righteous Dhamma. Let us learn it, understand it and live accordingly. Let us share this splendid gift of Dhamma with everyone. That is our noble duty. May you all be blessed by the Buddha, the noble Dhamma and Sangha, good noble Dhamma friends and all deities!" [...] Most Venerable Kiribathgoda Gnānānanda Thero is the founder of the Mahamevnawa Buddhist Monastic Order. He was born in Sri Lanka in 1961 and ordained at the age of seventeen. He received a traditional Buddhist academic education and entered the University of Sri Jayawardanapura. Having understood the inability to achieve what he wanted in a university, he quit and started visiting meditation centers and hermitages. [...] The uniqueness of Mahamevnawa is the effort to bring the Dhamma to devotees in its original form. Ven. Gnānānanda Thero has translated the sacred Pali Canon to a comprehensible style in Sinhala and English and the Buddha’s teachings are presented in simple language. This style of teaching has attracted students of all ages to listen to the Dhamma, and go on to practice virtue, concentration, and wisdom, on the path to realize the Four Noble Truths revealed by the Supreme Buddha.