Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: 'Buddhist Lent' ends w/ Kathina (10/25-26)

Saturday, October 25, 2025

'Buddhist Lent' ends w/ Kathina (10/25-26)

FREE. All welcome. (N. Hollywood)
For the entire month following the Rains Retreat or Vassa, the super meritorious Kathina ceremony is performed at Theravada Buddhist temples (viharas) across Buddhist countries. Los Angeles has countless Buddhist temples from all parts of the world -- on par with the most concentrated number of different Buddhist temples on earth, Bodh Gaya ("Enlightenment Grove"), Bihar, India. But that is an anomaly with spiritual embassies sent from around the Buddhist world (Buddhadom) and only tiny communities to look after them or receive visitors during the high season when weather allows. Los Angeles, however, has Buddhist communities from all over the world and not all of them with their own temples yet built. This week, beginning Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025, the Sarathchandra Buddhist Vihara of North Hollywood, has all night paritta chanting. This is with its Mexican American monk (bhikkhu), Ven. Los Angeles Sanatha Vihari Bhikkhu. Their larger Kathina ceremony is on Sunday, with hundreds in attendance, providing free food and dana (charitable support) to the resident and visiting Theravada Buddhist monks. FREE. Wear white as is the Sri Lankan island custom. Lunch and refreshments served. There is also a big Burmese celebration in the San Gabriel Valley on Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025:

Burmese Theravada tradition: Pa Auk Tawya, L.A.

The most meritorious giving for lay Buddhists

Buddhism and dana made it to ancient Greece in Gandhara, Bactria, and other outposts.

Kathina is a Theravada Buddhist festival that comes at the end of the Rains Retreat or "Buddhist Lent" (Vas or Vassa), the three-month rainy season intensive practice period for Theravada Buddhists in South and Southeast Asia:

Burma (Myanmar)
Sri Lanka (Ceylon)
Thailand (Siam)
India
Bangladesh (where it is known as Kaṭhina Cībar Dān)
Cambodia
Laos
Vietnam
Malaysia
Singapore [2][3].

The Rainy Season during which a monastery may hold its culminating Kathina ceremony is one month long, beginning after the full moon of the 11th month on the Lunar calendar (usually October).

(DIMC) Kathina Chairperson Joy Muriel, Dhammakaya, Thailand

It is a time of practicing letting go, generosity, giving, sharing (dana, donating), a time for lay Buddhists to express gratitude and support to Buddhist monastics (bhikkhus and bhikkhunis) [4][5].

Lay practitioners bring donations (requisites such as robes, food, medicines, necessities) to Buddhist monasteries, nunneries, and temples, especially premade new robes or cotton cloth and dyes for monastics to sew new patchwork robes.

(Global Buddhist Stories) Kathina: A Story About Buddhist Robes

The gift of the Eight Requisites [6] (aṭṭha parikkhārā or atapirikara in Sri Lanka) is also part of the offerings [2][4][5].

Origins at the time of the Buddha

Kaṭhina (also Kaṭina) is a Pali word referring to the sturdy wooden frame used to measure the length and width by which Buddhist monastic robes are cut [7].

(Sravasti Abbey) The significance of the Kathina ceremony, 2016

As the legend goes, 30 monks were journeying with the intention of spending the Rains (Vassa) with the Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) [2]. However, the Rains began before they reached their destination and they had to stop at Saketa [2][8].

According to the Buddha's guidelines for Vassa, mendicant (wandering ascetic) monastics should not travel during the rainy season, as this may cause unintentionally harm to crops and insects during the journey [9]. This is an ancient custom that preceded the Buddha but to which the Buddha agreed.

(Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary) Westerner Ven. Ariyadhammika

SBS: Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary, Taiping, Perak, Malaysia

Rains Retreat schedule 2025 (LABV)

As such, wandering Buddhist monastics had to stop [2][8]. They passed their time together without conflict, intensively practicing the Dhamma (the Buddha's Teachings). So afterwards, the Buddha rewarded them by demonstrating a way to practice sharing and generosity.

A lay Buddhist disciple had previously donated pieces of cotton cloth to the Buddha, so he gave these pieces to the group of monks and told them to make it into a sturdy outer robe then offer it as a gift to the one of them who had practiced most in line with the monastic rules.

The frame, called the Kathina, was used to hold those pieces while they were being made into one robe [2][8]. This ancient tradition continues to this day in Theravada monasteries and nunneries around the world. More