For many years, Colorado Sri Lankans used the services of Buddhist Temples setup by Thai, Burmese, and Laotian communities and are very grateful to these communities for their support. A Burmese temple, Vimuttirasa Meditation Center, hosted a Sri Lankan Monk, Ven. Dr. Pitakotte Seelaratana for almost a year prior to the establishment of our own Temple.
Establishment of the Colorado Buddhist Viharaya in February of 2020 was a great asset to the Sri Lankan Buddhist community living in Colorado. The temple, still in its infancy, was operated out of rented accommodation and was supported by financial, in-kind and other support from the local Sri Lankan Buddhist community. At this time we did not have enough space to hold special Buddhist events for a larger gathering. Our special thanks to the monks and the Burmese community at the Burmese Temple (Vimuttirasa Meditation Center) for providing us a venue for such events.
Establishment of the Colorado Buddhist Viharaya on our own premises was done on May 15 of 2022, which marked a great landmark in the history of our temple. The original property and a ranch home was purchased on December 15, 2021 . After that, it went through a lot of renovations until it was presented to the Maha Sanga on May 15 2022 with Ven. Dr. Pitakotte Seelaratana as its chief incumbent. This enabled the Sri Lankan Community to have their own religious and cultural celebrations at the newly inaugurated Temple.