Orphans found, poor sent to farms

(Erased Century) First movie EVER made was about babies from cabbage plants in 1896: CP Kids

(Erased Century) Every county in America had a place where people were disappeared | They called them "poor farms" or almshouses.

• Thomas Benjamin Kennington's Orphans

Buddhism in Uganda, Africa

Buddhism in Uganda, Africa: ancient tradition of alms round

(Uganda Buddhist Centre) Dec. 8, 2023: Under the guidance of Bhante Buddharakkhita, Theravada African Buddhist monks and nuns at The Uganda Buddhist Centre go on alms round (pindapata) in Bulega Village, Garuga, Uganda. Their mindful steps with alms bowls in hands reminds us of our journey to liberation.

• 'It's not weird or foreign': the Ugandan monk bringing Buddhism to Africa – photo essay | The Guardian
• Religion in Uganda
• Buddhism in Africa

Ajahn Brahm: Community, Trust, Dec. 2025

Community and Trust | Ajahn Brahm | 12 December 2025

Rejoice: Flower Garlands of Merit (Subhuti)

Ven. Subhuti (Jeremy Glick), americanmonk.org, 3/10/24; Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Making Garlands of Merit

Let's make merit with this bud. - Not smoke it?

(March 10, 2024) Recently, American Theravada Buddhist monk Venerable Subhuti has been making more videos rather than written posts. This enables him to put more into each presentation.

Here he shares personal stories along with the Dhamma, the Buddha's precious Teachings.

What can be done with flowers other than giving?

While most may be more interested in hearing about what the monastic life is like over learning the Dhamma, we will still hear about both.

Readers love personal information. This Dhamma talk explores Verse 53 of the Dhammapada and the different aspects of making merit (profitable karma) he thinks most will like.

Why would this make anyone smile? What human thing in us is moved?

Rejoice (anumodana)

Wisdom Library (wisdomlib.org) edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Dana is sharing, letting go, giving, charity, caring, developing generosity, benefitting others.

It is very good karma (meritorious deeds known as punya) made even better by sharing word of it so that others may rejoice (anumodana) and make the rare good karma of rejoicing in good deeds others have done.

We are misguided in the West, always "hiding our light under a bushel," which is good advice as far as it goes. But it goes too far. We as a culture are not taught to be happy for others, to derive happiness from them being happy. Instead, we're taught to be competitive and selfish and actually to take delight in their lack of success, loss, ruin, and misery.

It's called schadenfreude. a German term imported into English, not because we're all genetically German but because our American culture is. We're very much painted by Germanic and Ashkenazi influences on our religions and ways to interpret and practice them.

In the East, we rejoice! Asians customarily help neighbors do good things. They delight that good things are being done for the whole community, even joining in to grow the good and partake of the merit. Such people spread word of others' good deeds, praising and rejoicing, rejoicing and praising.

DEFINITION

Anumodana (अनुमोदन) means “joy in the joy of others, in sympathy with others' joys.” It represents one of the “seven types of devotional practice” (pūjā), according to Buddhist teachings followed by the Buddhist Newah people in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal, whose roots can be traced to the Licchavi period, 300-879 CE.

The connection that Vajrayāna (Himalayan Buddhism of Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, and parts of Kalmykia, Siberia, Mongolia, and Russia) has to the larger Mahāyāna ("Greater Vehicle") is expressed through the saptavidhānottara-pūjā, "the sevenfold supreme offering," a seven-step procedure for setting the intention to become a Buddha (samma-sam-buddha, pacceka-buddha, or personal-buddha called an arhat).

Anumodana (happiness derived from others' giving or other good deeds) refers to cultivating joy because others are joyful or, by having done good, in store for wished for and pleasant results. Big causes of joy are reflecting on the virtues of the buddhas (awakened ones), bodhisattvas (those intent on becoming buddhas), and arhats (fully enlightened ones).

An example of “anumodanā”

Feeding others is giving health and strength.

Someone is practicing to develop good qualities (generosity, virtue, skillfulness in meditation). A spectator rejoices in seeing those acts and congratulates that person, saying: “Good, good, good! Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu! In this impermanent world enveloped with shadows of ignorance, you are strengthening great mind [of bodhi or enlightenment] and are planting merit (puṇya)!’’

Imagine a devoted donor (dāyaka) and a beneficiary (pratigrāhaka) and a third person standing beside them. The third person is joyful at the sight of the good action. One rejoices with them. The other two lose nothing. Such is the characteristic of experiencing joy in others' joy (anumodanā).

Thus, just by having a mind of such joy, happy just because others are happy or doing deeds that will come to fruit as more happiness in the future, a Bodhisattva or practitioner surpasses the ordinary practitioners of the two Vehicles (Mahayana and Theravada).

How much more could be said if one actually practices the qualities over which one is rejoicing? Now there is not just happiness that they are doing good and that future good is coming to them. Now I am happy at the goodness I see and practicing for future happiness that is coming my way, which if I'm lucky others will be happy for. and we will all make more good for being happy.

It's a positive feedback loop by way of which one stores up a great deal of merit. More

NPR @ Empty Cloud Buddhist Monastery

Rachel Martin, Enlighten Me with Rachel Martin (NPR.org, July 9, 2023) at Empty Cloud Monastery, New Jersey; Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Nun Ayyā Somā (center) and monk Ven. Suddhāso, co-founders of Empty Cloud Monastery

These Buddhist [monastics] want their [spiritual path] to be known for more than just mindfulness

NPR Host Rachel Martin

Rachel Martin: Mindfulness (sati) is mainstream. There are mindfulness retreats that could set one back thousands of dollars. Entire sections of libraries and bookstores are devoted to the subject.

My kids learn mindfulness and meditation techniques in their public elementary school. Before my weekly yoga class starts, the teacher says a bunch of stuff about mindfulness, setting intentions for the downward dogs and plank poses to come.

On the whole, I think mindfulness showing up in our culture in new ways is a good thing. However, I do think there's something off-putting about the "mindfulness industrial complex" -- the expensive getaways and self-proclaimed gurus, who make promises about personal transformation they can't necessarily keep. And I've been looking for something different.

I wanted to understand the basis that birthed the modern mindfulness movement. I wanted to understand how, by training our minds, one could actually create some kind of spiritual connection to ourselves, to other people in our life, or even to a higher power.

Let's save the planet as Engaged Buddhists

In all this spiritual seeking I'm doing these days, it was time to go deep on Buddhism.

My mom [Mrs. Martin] was a lifelong Presbyterian who served as a church deacon and hung artisan-made crosses around her house. But I also have clear memories of her sitting on her black meditation pillow in front of the window in her bedroom, eyes shut, breathing deep and audibly.

She had books by the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh on her bedside table. Like a lot of Americans, she didn't see Buddhism and Christianity as contrary to one another. They are complementary.

I wanted to understand what that could look like. My mom died 14 years ago, and I can't ask her, so I have to figure it out for myself. That means doing my own research and having my own experience with Buddhism.

And what better way to do that than spending time at an actual monastery? Now, I do not want to suggest that showing up at a Buddhist monastery for three days taught me everything I need to know about Buddhism or mindfulness. Obviously not.

But it did help me understand why more and more Americans are converting to Buddhism, or even if they don't go all in that way, they are finding elements of that tradition that they can incorporate into their own spiritual life and identity.

So where does one go to learn about the ancient wisdom and revelation of the historical Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama)? New Jersey of course, to a monastery called Empty Cloud, which seemed perfectly on brand.

Yes, I, too, want to be like an empty cloud! So my producer Lee Hale and I drove five or so hours from Washington, D.C. to West Orange, New Jersey.

Two Buddhist monastics run Empty Cloud. Their names are Buddhist nun Ayyā Somā [an Italian of indistinct gender, possibly an deactivated lesbian, tomboy, or nonbinary butch gal] and Bhante Suddhāso (a fay American ally).

Empty Cloud Monastery in West Orange, NJ (courtesy of Empty Cloud Monastery/NPR)

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Ayyā Somā is Italian, and before she shaved her head and put on the robes, she was a fashion journalist.

Bhante (the Pali word for a monk, which translates as "venerable sir") is a soft-spoken guy from Colorado with small, round glasses.

He grew up in a conservative Christian evangelical family and found Buddhism after college.

They welcome us with tea and give us the basic instructions for staying there:

• No makeup or any other physical adornments.
• No fancy clothes.

Buddhsit monastics always eat before the lay people like us who stay there and, even when it's not an official silent meditation time, everyone needs to walk around sort of quietly and keep conversation at a moderate volume.

I spent most of my time with the Empty Cloud monastics inside the monastery for meals, meditation, and Dharma [Buddhist] talks — which are like sutras, stories (with a central thread or suture), sermons, parables, Aesop fables, or spiritual lessons.

But we did take one field trip — just a few miles away — to the campus of Rutgers University, where five of the monastics walked into a frat house.

Yes, it sounds like the beginning of a problematic joke. Even the monastics recognized how surreal the scene was. They went to campus to collect "alms" (pindapata) given by donors, meaning they hold a bowl and wait for people walking by to offer them food, since monastics of the Theravada Buddhist tradition can't make or buy themselves meals.

They've all got shaved heads and they're wearing traditional saffron/orange robes with sandals. Modern Tevas seem to be the preferred brand in this group. They situated themselves in a line in front of a shopping mall full of retail shops and casual dining options.

They definitely stood out, and at one point the mall manager came out to see if they were staging some kind of protest. She let them be, but the monastics weren't having a lot of luck.

People walked by and smiled, but they didn't really understand what was happening. So a young woman who's staying at the monastery called up a friend of hers who is a student at Rutgers. He rallied his frat brothers, and they showed up a couple minutes later to escort the monastics a couple blocks away to their frat house, for takeout tacos.

A handful of college guys, mostly wearing pajama pants and hoodies, show the monastics into the main living room — and yes, it is a SCENE.

Red solo cups are lying in one corner. A box of Franzia wine and random hot sauce are on one table, a bong on another. The whole place smells like weed. [Rutgers scholars smoke recreational cannabis?]

Ayyā Somā makes small talk with the young men and asks what a fraternity is really about.

• [She's Italian, so the concept of guys living together, getting drunk, high, and chasing skirt must seem oddly reminiscent of a Berlusconi (the recently deceased leader of the country, Italy's own Trump) fantasy].

Just to be clear — she doesn't understand what a fraternity is because she's Italian, not because she's a nun.

Monastics visit fraternity near Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, for lunch (Lee Hale).

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One of the frat boys answers. His name is Michael Porucznik: "It's like a social group, mostly, I would say."

To be honest, all this feels sort of awkward. I'm a little worried these frat boys might be messing with the monks.

But they're respectful and they're asking legitimate, thoughtful questions [about Buddhism, sprituality, and monasticism]. The mom in me is sort of proud of them – even though it's clear that some of them are ditching class [which are optional to attend once one gets to college in the US].

Ayyā Somā asks the students what inspired them to make these offerings. Michael sits up on a worn-out red couch and sort of stutters into his answer: "I very much admire people who discipline themselves to like a specific aspect of life. And I feel like it's also good karma." Everyone laughs.

"We also think it's good karma," the nun Ayyā Somā replies. Chatting with a bunch of monastics for a half an hour isn't likely to turn these guys into Buddhists [or reduce their pot and alcohol abuse]. But who knows what seeds the conversation has planted in their 20-year-old brains?

And that's sort of the deal with Buddhism. There's no proselytizing. In the car on the way back to the monastery, Bhante Suddhāso tells me it's just the opposite:

"Buddhists play hard to get," he says. This is maybe why it's appealing to a lot of people: Buddhist monastics might end up at your frat house eating tacos, but they're not going to knock on the door to try to convert them.

In fact, most of the time, they're at their monastery doing their own individual spiritual work. Just before the pandemic, they moved their home base from Queens to this center in West Orange.

• It's ENLIGHTEN ME WITH RACHEL MARTIN: He walked away from his evangelical Christian roots to escape feeling suffocated

They got a great deal on the place (the monastery grounds) from the Augustinian monks who had lived there before.

The Catholics were downsizing and moving west, and Ayyā Somā and Bhante Suddhāso, the co-founders of Empty Cloud Monastery, needed more space.

"They were just really overjoyed that another group of monks wanted to take over the monastery," Bhante Suddhāso told me.

The building itself has a medieval castle vibe. There's a stained-glass window in the meditation room with an image of Noah's Ark on it, and there's a cross on the roof.

For now, the monastics jokingly say the cross stands for the Four Noble Truths — which Italian nun Ayyā Somā says can be distilled to this from the Buddha's teachings:

"All he ever taught was [what is] suffering [or dukkha, "disappointment," lack of fulfillment), [what is] the cause of suffering, [what is] the end of suffering, and [what is] the way out of suffering. So that's all we are practicing. [What we are practicing] is that, um, for the cessation of suffering."

This sounds great, right? No one wants to suffer. I don't want to suffer.

The joy of renunciation

There's happiness in letting go to be free.

But I needed to understand why pulling away from modern life, the way Buddhist monastics do, alleviates suffering, because it's no joke what they have to give up  to be monastics:

• They pledge to live in celibacy.
• No meals after midday.
• No intoxicants [that occasion heedlessness] of any kind.
• No pop culture. No [handling] money.

"The word renunciation [letting go, not being clingy, nekkhama] for some people has a negative connotation," Bhante says. "But for us, renunciation means recognizing that we don't need something in order to be happy."

For example, he explains, "When I was a lay person, which was a very long time ago now — 15 plus years ago – I needed to always have music playing."

If it wasn't music in the car, he was listening to headphones. "Like, it was just constant. And so, then getting into this [monastic] life, it's like, well, one of our rules is that we don't listen to [recreational distraction] music. So, clearly, I thought I needed that, but I don't need it."

"Do you miss music, though?" I ask. "No," he replies with a laugh.

Nun Ayyā Somā chimes in: "Essentially, from the 'fear of missing out,' from FOMO, we go to JOMO, the 'joy of missing out'."

They point out that this level of renunciation only represents about 1 percent of Buddhists worldwide [the ones who ordain to become celibate monastics].

I still don't understand exactly what these two get out of this really restrictive life. What is Buddhism freeing them from personally?

And I really want to know what they make of the fact that when I Googled "Buddhist retreat," a whole slew of places popped up where I could probably also get a hot stone massage and a facial peel.

Empty Cloud Monastery practices with members of the public. Its doors are open (Suparman W).

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As I was about to ask this question, we hear a bell ring, and Bhante Suddhāso tells me we can take up the matter in the Dharma hall. Turns out, monastics are highly scheduled people.

It's time to move to a different room, where we join the other residents — the lay people who stay at the monastery for days or weeks at a time.

We're all situated on individual meditation cushions, with the monastics facing the rest of us at the front of the room.

Everyone sips tea and eats small pieces of cheese and dark chocolate...the only approved afternoon snacks.

There's a big golden statue of the Buddha on the mantle above the fireplace. Bhante Suddhāso pets Teddy, the black monastery cat, and I get another swing at my question: I ask him what he makes of how mindfulness has made its way into the mainstream of American culture. Like, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

"I think it's mixed," he tells me. "The Buddha does identify mindfulness as being a wholesome characteristic of mind, so wholesome in the sense that it's, it's [so] beneficial that it brings happiness, it leads towards awakening," he explains.

"But it's still only one factor of the [Noble] Eightfold Path. So if one is only practicing mindfulness, then at best you're practicing, uh, 12.5% of Buddhism, which is not a complete path to awakening. So it's kind of like if you're making a cake and a cake calls for eight ingredients, and you're like, well, I'm just going to leave out seven of those ingredients. Well, that's not a cake. That's a bowl of raw eggs."

Here at the monastery they're interested in the whole cake, which involves rising before sunrise, chores in the house and the yard, and finishing all meals [except for allowable snacks] before noon.

Being on this path also means letting go of the big things you can't change and focusing on what's happening in your own consciousness.

I've dabbled in meditation over the years. I started as a way to deal with my own grief after my mom died from kidney cancer.

But the longest I'd ever sat and tried to meditate was, maybe, 15 minutes. So when it was time to go down to the meditation hall for an hour of silent sitting, I was a bit freaked out.

I situated myself on my meditation pillow, my eyes closed, and took in some deep breaths, like everyone else was doing. This wasn't a guided meditation for beginners.

There were a few monastics in the room with about six other residents, and it was clear they knew what they were doing. Me, not so much.

Bhante Suddhāso had told me to come up with a mantra and just say that over and over. He suggested the words "loving kindness," so I went with that.

Breathe in, breathe out. Loving kindness. "Yes," I thought, "I am killing this meditation." Then it started to unravel: "Are they seriously not going to feed us dinner? Did my kids get a ride to baseball tonight? How am I going to sleep here?

"Wait, no...Loving kindness. Loving kindness. Kindness. Do the monks get to pick out their own robes? Does Ayyā Somā miss make-up? It's really hard to do a smokey eye."

Needless to say, I didn't reach any higher level of consciousness. But there were people who seemed to have.

When I snuck a peek during the meditation, I caught a glimpse of this young woman named Katie McKenna. She's not a monastic, but she was sitting perfectly still, no fidgeting. And she was always smiling.

She had definitely figured something out. I caught up with her later, and we chatted for a bit. She said she's been a Buddhist for about 10 years. She was laid off from her tech job earlier this year, and after that happened, she hightailed it to her happy place -- the monastery.

She tries to visit Buddhist monasteries whenever she can. She used to suffer from a lot of anxiety, but she says Buddhism has changed that: "I hardly ever have anxiety anymore. I just feel a lot of joy."

"I grew up in Indiana," she continued. "So, there's a lot of Christianity around me. And I feel like people would just proselytize and tell me, like, this is the way. So I feel like I've just had this innate trust with Buddhism because there was this teaching – to come and see for yourself."

I asked if there was any part of her that wanted to go all in and become a monastic. "Yeah. That does come up for me from time to time. It's come up for my boyfriend, too, actually. We broke up for a little bit in September, briefly, 'cuz we were both struggling with, like fully giving ourselves to the relationship because we both had this inclination in our mind towards monasticism."

They stopped watching TV and movies. No music. No dinner. They meditate for long periods of time every day.

"The cool thing about this path," she says, "is it just starts happening to you."

It definitely wasn't just happening to me. I mean, I'd only been at this for a few days, but I was more interested in a form of [modernized] Buddhism that let me live in my actual life.

I needed to talk to someone who wasn't about to shave her head and move into the monastery. I found Sudha Ram. Sudha wasn't staying at the monastery like the others, but she lives in the neighborhood and comes over a lot.

Within a few minutes of talking with her, it becomes clear that she has endured a lot of disappointments in life. And right now, she is working through problems in her marriage.

She tells me that Buddhism has taught her things that her Hindu faith never did. "If you don't love yourself and put yourself in front of others who are not gonna give you love, you're not gonna be successful. So I give loving kindness to myself. I give loving kindness to the other people who need to be given loving kindness. That helps a lot because the anger, the rejection, and, you know, the ill feeling, come often."

I think she's about to share more about her relationship with her husband, or her kids, or something about work. But she starts telling me about her dog, a golden retriever named Simba who died not long ago.

The dog came to her in her dreams. "He came to me, and he said, 'Mom, what did you learn from me?' I had to think, what did I learn from him? I know he was very loving. He was a golden retriever. He loves people, he loves pets, he loves everybody."

"So I said, 'Yeah, you are very loving.' And he said, 'Mom, you are very loving, too. But you still have judgment. You still judge. I'm not. I love everybody. So that's the difference.'"

I know how bizarre this sounds. I'm sitting in the basement of this Buddhist monastery, talking with this woman [investigative journalist and NPR reporter] I barely know, about her dead dog who talks to her in her dreams.

And tears are welling up in her eyes and then in mine. And I get that her grief and loneliness are bigger than this story. And we hold hands briefly across a table. And I share my own losses with her. And none of it is healed, but there is a comfort in that shared intimacy between strangers.

Letting go

Letting go may be the Buddhist precept for ending suffering. But I think, just as important as the letting go is the letting in.

Letting monastics into the frat house. Letting a journalist into your monastery. Letting a stranger into your grief. Yes, the ultimate enlightenment happens internally — when you free your mind from attachment and longing.

But awakening also happens when you are willing to step into the breach with someone else [and experience empathy]. To be present in their pain and have them witness yours.

Pali [a kind of lingua franca related to Sanskrit] is the ancient language of Buddhism, and Ayyā Somā told me that her favorite Pali word is kampa, "which literally means 'trembling together.' Sometimes we focus a lot on our trembling, or the trembling of the other person.

"But we don't realize that it's actually the same trembling, and we're all trembling together."

Buddhism may teach that the individual has the power to ease their own suffering, but true contentment requires us all to care about each other.

It's not about being alone in our mind on the mat. Buddhist monastics still have to engage with the rest of the world. And the world has to engage back. We share our stories with strangers and absorb one another's grief. We tremble, together.

• Buddhists reflect on what their faith means to them (NPR)

Meditation lovebirds travel to Thailand, Burma

The Final Vlog? What happened in Thailand and Burma

(Deep Mindfulness) Mindful Living Vlog_007, April 19, 2018. This is our most ambitious vlog yet. It covers what happened on our trip to Thailand and Burma (now called Myanmar by the military dictatorship). And we address a few big questions.

• GO DEEP: Learn about Meditation Mentorship: DeepMindfulness.io/mentorship
• CONNECT: Deep Mindfulness collective: @DeepMindfulness on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter
• Sayadaw U Tejaniya is the retreat master in Burma
• Sayadaw U Tejaniya and the mental defilements

The practice is AWARENESS. Be aware that you're aware, the awareness of awareness. There are sights, sounds, smells, sensations, and savorings of the senses. And there's awareness of these, which is to say awareness that we are aware. While aware we watch for four things accompanying awareness of whatever kind in whatever situation:

1. Clinging (like)
2. Averting (dislike)
3. Unconsciousness (don't know)
4. Equanimity (alert and calm)

The Buddha Comes to Sussex, England (video)

Ajahn Chah (ajahnchah.org); Dhr. Seven, Sayalay Aloka (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

A documentary about the extraordinary life of Thai Buddhist Meditation Master Ajahn Chah, who visited England to establish a Theravada Buddhist monastery or vihara for Western monastic and lay practitioners of Buddhist meditation or bhavana, jhana, and kammatthana.

Do some monks really eat meat?

Ven. Ariyesako (The Bhikkhus' Rules: A Guide for Laypeople compiled and explained by Bhikkhu Ariyesako, Meat Eating); Dhr. Seven, Ananda (DBM), Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Hey, let's prepare vegan food and offer it with our own hands to the monks and nunsa. - Yes.

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Don't kill, and don't pay butchers to kill (TNH).

In Western countries compassionate and environmental vegetarianism is increasing in popularity, and this has led to questions about Buddhist monastics and meat eating.

The question of monks and nuns' eating meat is an old one, which was once explicitly raised by the "renegade monk" Ven. Devadatta (Buddhism's Judas figure, who was the brother of Prince Siddhartha's wife and his cousin, who was a monk for a long time practicing to develop psychic powers rather than wisdom or compassion).

He asked the Buddha to prohibit wandering ascetics from eating fish and flesh of all kinds in a ploy to usurp the Buddha and take over the leadership of the Monastic Community (Sangha).

It was Devadatta's "stricter ascetic" tactic, suggesting he would be a better leader with purer standards. The Buddha had already established a strict rule for both monastics and laypeople about not taking life (see Killing), so he disagreed with Devadatta's ploy.

The Buddha allowed monastics to eat meat and fish [88] except under the following circumstances:

If a monastic sees, hears, or so much as suspects that it has been killed for one, that monastic is forbidden to eat it [89] (M.I,369).

A modern Theravada monk on alms round in England (Ajahn Manapo/Forest Monastery).

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If a monastic is given meat on alms round and has no knowledge about how the animal was murdered [90], that monastic has to "receive it with attentiveness." To receive it does not necessarily mean to eat it. (See the Sekhiya Trainings.)

One should be grateful and recollect that food one is given is what enables one to continue to live the monastic, wandering ascetic, mendicant life, and as a mendicant one is not in a position to choose what one is given.

If one later comes to know the family and they ask about the Dharma, one will be able to explain the precept about not killing. This may cause them to reflect on their attitude toward meat eating.

An individual layperson can choose whether to be a vegan, vegetarian, or whatever. Problems usually arise only when vegetarians try to impose their choice on others. As meal times are normally a family or shared affair, this can create tensions and misunderstandings.

An individual monastic who lives on alms food cannot make such choices. Often the donors are unknown — perhaps not even Buddhist, or just starting to find out about Dharma — and to refuse their generosity may so offend them that they never have anything to do with Dharma again.

Karma: Wish I'd donated pure vegan food!

Finally it comes down to the laypeople who go to the market to buy food to give to monastics [who commit a kind of killing by paying others to kill when buying slaughtered and butchered animals, being complicit in that killing by paying for it].

If they are vegetarian themselves or like to give pure food, then the monastic should receive that food with "appreciation" — especially if it means that fewer animals are being tormented and slaughtered.

Nevertheless, it should not become a political issue where other people are attacked for their behavior. Source

COMMENTARY: Note the strong bias of meat eating monks and scholars who present the Buddhist view on this subject. For it is easier to change anyone's religion than his or her diet. Ask a vegan and get a whole different reading of what the Buddhist Monastic Code says, as one can point to many back stories and examples where vegetarianism was the norm for wandering ascetics, yogis, shamans, Brahmins, and spiritual seekers in the East. Few people, who themselves rarely ate meat, would ever think to give it to renunciants. For there was a time when everyone knew, which is to say it was common knowledge, that flesh does not conduce to dispassion, letting go, and purity. But it is not by diet alone that one would ever gain these three things, which is what Buddhism contributed to ancient Indian spirituality. Diet is a component of a spiritual life, not a be all end all. Practice compassion and wisdom.

• Buddhist vegetarianism

The meat eating monks of Myanmar (video)

Host Sonny Side, Producer Lady Goo Goo, Shizuka Anderson (Best Ever Food Review Show, March 25, 2020); Ellen Page; Sayalay Aloka, Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Donated diet of Myanmar monks

Monks rise up to overthrow military dictator.

MANDALAY, Burma - Myanmar is a war-torn country under little known military dictator General Than Shwe, now hiding with his junta and billions of dollars of embezzled funds from resource-rich and utterly impoverished Burma, which Gen. Shwe renamed Myanmar after putting Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest after she won democratic elections.

Ellen Page introduces us to Asia's "Hitler" General Than Shwe of Burma

I sold out to be in Parliament.

(See Beyond Rangoon for the Hollywood version and Burma VJ for documentary footage shot during the subsequent "Saffron Revolution," as monks stood up in protest to bring down the corrupt government only to be met with extreme military violence and fake democratic reforms ushered in by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and best-fake president ever, B.S. Obama).

The Irish monk a century ago

ABOUT THIS EPISODE: Sonny goes to Myanmar, all the way to Mandalay, to see what they eat on the streets and, more importantly, in the temples. Buddhist monks and novices rely on alms, donated food prepared by the local community.

Although the country is very Buddhist, like neighboring Mahayana China, monks may eat most donated things -- even slaughtered animals -- so long as they neither "see, hear, or suspect" that such animals have been killed to feed them. (They do not seem to concern themselves too much with this rule from the Monastic Disciplinary Code or Vinaya, and the locals do not seem to know the rule at all).

• Buddhist vegetarianism
  
• Monks smoking cigarettes is allowed?
• Buddhist monastic rules for laypeople

InsightMyanmar's Western view on Buddhism

So as long as they are neither killing nor tacitly/implicitly approving of killing, all kinds of spicy and somewhat low-grade foods (white rice, stale oils, toxins, preservatives, chemicals, MSG, flavorants, etc.) are donated and consumed. The villagers are poor but generous, and they give the best they have.

To find out what that "mystery dish" the monks eat in the morning is, Sonny becomes a novice or samanera (a "little shaman," a wandering ascetic in training), a temporarily-ordained monastic, to find out. He gains rare insight into the Theravada monkhood, living conditions in the developing world, Asian customs, and the vulgar "street" food of poor countries. He ordained at AUNG MYAY THAR ZAN MONASTERY, Shwe Sar Yan Pagoda Road, Pathein Gyi Township, Mandalay.

There are no full nuns in Burma only sayalays..

BREAKFAST: Deep fried tofu, fish curry with tomatoes, fried chili with white rice.

At A MYE KAUNG RESTAURANT, 30th Street, between 66th and 67th Street, they dared him to sample stir-fried chicken butts (anus, entrails, offal, intestines, fecal matter tainted flesh) with chopped up veggies and heavy garlic mash. Smoking hot pan of low-grade cooking oil and ginger, garlic, chili, onion, chicken butts (anus tips), carrot, bell pepper, oyster sauce, soy sauce, chicken powder, and salt coated in sweet thick soy sauce and scallion and stirred.

Little has changed in ancient parts of Asia.

He also swallowed boiled beef (cow) tripe (anal tract) and tongue (with white coat of saliva, mucus, and film of bacterial colonies): Tripe and tongue doused in salt, garlic, ginger, and rice wine boiled served with the biel sauce (ground coriander, basil, herbs mix with biel juice).

He also got drunk and tore into grilled sparrows (little city birds) and doves (white pigeons) marinated in pungent garlic, ginger, paprika, and rice wine, then burned to a charcoal crisp headless.

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🥒ABOUT BEFRS: Sonny is from the U.S. currently calling Vietnam home. He’s been living in Asia for 10 years and started making food and travel videos to document his experiences. He travels [like murdered Anthony Bourdain] to different parts of the world, hunting down and documenting unique foods in each country.

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Buddhist "Lent" (Rains Retreat) Begins

Buddhist monks on Asanha Puja Day, the eve of Buddhist Lent, in Nakhon Pathom province, outerBangkok, 7-26-10 (Reuters/Chaiwat Subprasom). PHOTOS

Vassa (the annual Rains Retreat) is observed as it has been from the time of the Buddha. The rainy season in northern India led to the institution of a monastic rule to go into retreat for intensive practice. Buddhist recluses were originally "wandering ascetics" (samanas). But the rainy season meant a burst of new life -- crops, amphibians, insects, and sprouts all covered the land -- all of which would be harmed if wanderers were to tread on them.

So like other ascetic traditions of his day, the Buddha responded to requests to have his disciples take up temporary residence in one location rather than wandering about. This period is utilized for intensive meditation practice, study, and teaching. Lay Buddhists visit temples and abbeys to practice as well, sometimes adopting Eight Precepts for the day.

This tradition is observed throughout Los Angeles and other ethnically diverse cities with Theravada temples. The Los Angeles Buddhist Vihara (a Sri Lankan monastery) in Pasadena has weekly Dharma sermons, free meals (dana), and meditation instruction for visitors. These are all echoes of a much more vibrant living tradition in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and other Buddhist countries that keep the original Indian ideal going.

A wandering samanera (novice recluse) in Burma (Flickr/Dvlazar).

There it is a big deal that monks will be taking up residence. A special ceremony was held in each American Theravada temple this past weekend (in accordance with the lunar calendar) "inviting" monks to observe the Rains Retreat for the next three months. The Dhammakaya Thai Buddhist temple also temporarily ordained men wishing to observe Vassa as monastics.

• The connections to be drawn with Lent are no coincidence. Customary acts of self-purification, for example almsgiving and fasting, in Christianity were directly borrowed from Eastern practices.