I am Kottawe Nanda from Long Island Buddhist Meditation Center. This temple is under the coordination of Venerable Kunegala Piyatissa Nayake Thero, the high priest of New York Buddhist Vihara – Queens Temple.

In 2001, following the request of the Ven. Kunegala, I moved from Sri Lanka to the United States and staying with him until 2008. During this period of time, we always discussed how could be great to start new temples in the United States and benefit this country and the humankind. Trying to reach partially our objective and put in practice our ideas, we started the Long Island Buddhist Meditation Center, in 2008.

Embracing our cause with kindness, a devotee gave us a temporary house to start our work. Since last year, due to some changes and the increasing number of devotees, we are looking for a permanent place to build our temple and continue our mission. We found a beautiful place: a former church that attends perfectly all our expectations. At that time, the house was $2000,000 USD, but after extensively negotiation, the proprietary agreed with the amount of $150,000 USD, what represents a great deal considering the place and location.

We started already our fundraising to achieve our goal: buy this building. Normally we do not practice request money from anybody, but considering this special reason and the meaning of this work, we decide to ask for help to all those that understand the importance of this project. You are among these people and your support will be highly appreciated by all in this community.

I want to enjoy this opportunity and invite you to visit us whenever you have the chance. Since we started, our activities have engaged more and more individuals from this region every year. We have now a consistent number of people coming for our meditation programs and religious activities, preparing them to the Buddhist practice. We focus our meditation teaching in Dhamma techniques, involving most of the time American devotees who have show great interest in our practices. As well, we have open the temple for our community to celebrate the Sri Lanka New Year, Vesak Festival, Kathina Pikama, among other celebrations. Also, we have been participating actively in education programs and seminars outside the temple, such as Stony Brook University and New York University.

Please, do not hesitate to contact me if you need any additional information at (347) 837-0409 or bhante@libmc.org.