Mahāthera Henepola Gunaratana was ordained as a Buddhist monk in Kandy, Sri Lanka, in 1947 and received his education at Vidyālaṅkāra College and Buddhist Missionary College, Colombo. He worked for five years as a Buddhist missionary among the Harijans (Untouchables) in India and for ten years with the Buddhist Missionary Society in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In 1968 he came to the United States to serve as general secretary of the Buddhist Vihāra Society at the Washington Buddhist Vihāra. In 1980 he was appointed president of the Society. He has received a Ph.D. from The American University and since 1973 has been Buddhist Chaplain at The American University. He is now director of the Bhāvana Meditation Centre in West Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley, about 100 miles from Washington, D.C.
