Introduction In this post, I introduce some of the key digital projects I’ve been working on to support the study, practice, and expansion of Orthodox Theravāda Buddhism. These tools are designed to make Pāḷi texts more accessible, enhance Buddhist study, and provide practical applications for practicing Buddhist teachings through technology. Read on to learn more about each project, and watch the video at the end of this post for a full overview. The video is a boring zoom presentation with screen shares, but it does the job. A list of the projects is found below:

Recently, I made a video explaining the common question I get asked in the West. “Do you believe in a creator?” It is a loaded question usually asked by devoted Christians. They are expecting me to say no, but I tell them “Yes”. The real answer is that kamma is the creator. I quote from the stock phrase below: “Kammassakomhi, kammadāyādo, kammayoni, “It is actions that I own, it is actions that I am heir to, it is actions that I am born from,

Introduction A Sayalay is an ordained nun in the Myanmar Theravāda Tradition. It is similar to a sāmaṇerī or 10-precept female novice monk. However, to be respectful to the Theravāda tradition, it is not connected or equal to a sāmaṇerī and it is not a stepping stone for a bhikkhunī ordination. In the Myanmar Theravāda tradition, ordaining as a Sayalay provides women with a distinct path to practice the Dhamma formally without stepping into the roles traditionally reserved for monks or fully ordained bhikkhunīs. The Sayalay lineage honors the essence of monastic life, allowing women to embody the teachings while maintaining harmony within the Theravāda structure.

There are three stories of loving-kindness told in the video posted below. The first story is from Kaua’i, Hawai’i, when a person did not want me on “his” street. Through the power of loving-kindness, things changed. Another story was also from the island in 2015. There were children on bicycles who were yelling at us to go away on multiple days. Through the power of loving-kindness, things changed. The last story is from 2011 during a trip to India. The loving-kindness did not change the other, but a different outcome was the result.

The Wootens One of the few places I have been to in Sri Lanka besides Na-Uyana and The International Institute of Theravāda (IIT) is Spring Hill Forest Monastery located in the Hantanna Mountains above Kandy. My two donors from Kaua’i, John and Nandini Wooten were visiting Kandy and I decided it would be good to take a break from the IIT scenery and climate with a great inspirational place for the Wootens to visit me.

Introduction: There was a moment in world history where the Buddha’s teachings greatly affected world diplomacy during the Peace Treaty of 1951. We can learn from this type of history and apply the solution in our daily lives. In short, we can stop hatred with loving-kindness. J. R. Jayewardene President J.R. Jayewardene of Sri Lanka exits from a helicopter and walks to his airplane for departure after a state visit.

Autopsy Table found on Wikipedia. The table we saw did not have “containment walls” Is it true that forest monks actually attend autopsies? Yes it is actually quite common. After being a monk for perhaps more than 10 years, I remember a senior monk expressing surprise when he discovered I hadn’t seen one. He said, “You haven’t been to an autopsy yet?” “You haven’t been to an autopsy yet?” Senior Monk

A lay person named Chathuranga came to the International Institute of Theravāda looking to ordain in November, 2022. He is now a sāmaṇera (novice monk) and not yet a fully ordained bhikkhu. I thought that it would be interesting to show his path to monkhood to you. Stage 1: Regular Person First he was a regular lay person working as a construction assistant engineer in the Maldives and then made the transition to a devoted layperson. Here you can see he is more serious about Buddhism and cleaning an ancient Buddhist shrine.

I spent a little over 30 days in Thailand and I learned a great deal about Thai Buddhist culture and how things things are for monks outside of the vinaya saṅgha. What did I learn? Uncle Sam’s Banana Farm Uncle Sam’s Banana Farm First of all, this trip was well needed. Sabai means to be comfortable and relaxed. I really needed to be comfortable and relaxed and the goal was achieved. I had spent the previous 5 months at The International Institute of Theravāda (IIT) and the learning and study demands had been very stressful. I spent most of my time visiting Uncle Sam who was a Thai supporter I met in Kaua’i, HI. In Hawai’i, we use the word uncle as a respectful prefix for older people. It has nothing to do with blood lines.

Ven Ananda with the two donors Recently, we received six new tables arranged by a monk’s two donors. The tables were nice but I didn’t think we needed them, so I asked the monk why. He said there was not enough room on the tables for his donors’ donations, so they decided to donate more tables so they can donate more. When his donors make donations, they are not small. Normally his group of donors are not ten or twenty, but sometimes fifty or sixty donors and sometimes more. They stay up the whole night cooking and then deliver the donations for breakfast and lunch. So after staying up all night and cooking the food for the monks, they found that the tables had less pārami (accumulated strength qualities) than their own pārami. So that was why they donated more tables. They are not just regular tables either. Take a look at the cover photo and see how nice they are.

Monk walking towards the world of the 5% If you are a Westerner and new to Buddhism, you might be surprised to learn that most monks use and handle money. I have calculated that around 95% use money while 5% do not use money. The general consensus of those I have consulted say that about 2 or 3 percent do not use money but I used a 5% number to be safe. In this article I will give an itemized number crunch and explain how I came up with those numbers and you can see if 5% is safe and maybe double my original estimate.

Introduction Foreigner monk gets a COVID vaccine jab during the times of the new Myanmar government In this article, I want to share with you some of my experiences of living as a monk in Myanmar during the covid pandemic and the government change that happened recently. I also want to explain why I left Myanmar at the end of 2022 and what I am doing now. I am an American Buddhist monk who has been living in Myanmar for many years. I was first ordained in 2001 at Pa-Auk Forest Monastery and then later did a resetting ordination in Sri Lanka during 2007. I have spent the majority of my monastic life in Myanmar, learning mostly from Pa-Auk Sayadawgyi but I have also spent 6 years at Na-Uyana, Sri Lanka. Most of my monastic life was spent practicing meditation, but now I am studying at the International Institute of Theravāda (IIT) in Sri Lanka.

Monk at The Bodhi Tree located at International Institute of Theravāda Theravada (Theravāda) is one of the major branches of Buddhism and is often referred to as the “School of the Elders.” It is the oldest surviving Buddhist school and it is the predominant religion of Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. Because of its age and orthodoxy, it can also be loosely translated as “Old School Buddhism” in some ways too. The Theravāda tradition emphasizes the study of the complete 3 baskets (tipiṭaka) of the Pāḷi Canon along with the ancient commentaries for those texts.

Alms Tray and Cambodia Monk’s Full Bowl Introduction: This article explains the essence of piṇḍapāta (alms) and why we go for alms, even in poor villages. On the weekends, I have some time to go for alms in the nearby village. However, you might ask yourself, “Why would a monk collect food from a very poor village during an economic crisis when the monastery is mostly supported by wealthy people? Isn’t this making it more difficult for the Sri Lankan villagers?”

Title Page In America, the Rote Method of learning is belittled as “learning like a parrot” and rarely or never taught in the Western school systems. However, it is a useful brute force method for memorizing Pali texts and the only way to memorize longer word for word Pāḷi texts such as the Pātimokkha. This system is used extensively in Myanmar schools and Myanmar study monasteries. If you hear lots of noise in the classrooms, rote learning is what they are doing. This video explains both passive and aggressive Rote Methods for memorizing Pāḷi. May you be successful in your learning and practice!

Various items for Kaṭhina It is quite common in Myanmar to offer robes at the end of the Rainy Season (vassa) in a ceremony called Kaṭhina. How long do monk’s robes last? A monk normally has a set of three robes; a lower robe, an upper robe and a double robe sometimes referred to as the outer robe. During Kaṭhina, a set of robes are offered, but usually just the lower and upper robes since the double robe or outer robe lasts a long time. I’m not sure how old my double robe is, but I think it may be seven years old. It is faded, but still quite strong. During this Kaṭhina, 2021, the monks at Pa-Auk got a whopping eight sets of robes and one set robes were offered at the end of vassa a week ago, totaling nine sets of robes! Various other items were offered too, like slippers, a blanket, a pair of socks, tissues, soap, sponges, a bowl bag, rope, etc. I was also offered various requisite slips. This year someone was collecting the slips for a Myanmar Tipitaka (set of Buddhist Scriptures). Now my 60,000 myk office requisite slips are gone. Easy come, easy go. Last year, I collected 27-28 slips (1,250,000 myk) to sponsor a meal arranged by the office. These days, I’m more joyful to give my slips for the set of scripture books rather than a meal arranged by the office.

Artistic digital recreation of Migalaṇḍika (an ascetic who looked like a monk) The Monastery Murder Massacre that happened in Vesālī during the time of The Buddha is not well known among lay people. It was because of this massacre that The Buddha made a rule about killing humans. For the first 20 years, there were no rules and this was the third rule that was ever created. Before this, the monks intuitively knew what was proper and there was no need for rules. As time went on, new problems arose and more rules were made. We have 227 rules that are recited every fortnight, but we actually have thousands of rules and variations of rules which were made over the time of the Buddha. The slightly abbreviated story below is mentioned in the first Pāḷi book of the Tipitaka translated from The Book of The Discipline (Vol 1), PTS, cc-by-nc:

Download Android App Download iOS App Recently I made a mobile app to help me know when the Solar Noon is approaching and past. Why Is the Sun Important for Bhikkhus? Why Is The Sun Important for 8 & 10 Precepts? If you are a monk, nun or a practicing yogi who has vowed to not eat after Noon, you will benefit from this app. The real Solar Noon is not 12:00 pm when it comes to the Buddhist rules because there were no clocks back then. Rather, the Sun was used to know when one should stop eating. In addition to the Noon time, the Dawn time is important to know because that is the time at which one can start eating. If one eats before Dawn, then one is eating when it is still considered night.

cc WTC 9/11, 2001 wikimedia Attribution: Robert J. Fisch “They always wanted to get that building” That was what I said when I first heard about 9/11 three or four days later. I once had a job interview at Merrill Lynch in The World Financial Center which was connected to The World Trade Center by a sky bridge. My goal was to eventually work at WTC, but luckily I didn’t get that job and it was the only job interview I didn’t get an offer on. I continued working at Bayer Diagnostics and then resigned due to an animal rights ethics problem with a blood analyzer I was working on.

15 Main Image Close Up, at the Mahabodhi Temple, cc-atrib-sa https://www.photodharma.net/India/Bodhgaya-Mahabodhi/Bodhgaya-Mahabodhi.htm Sometimes it is difficult to find free Buddha pictures. Even when Google shows you “free pictures,” sometimes, they require an account or were not really free in the first place. As a monk, even with our timeless Buddha, I still respect copyrights and encourage others to do the same. That is also one of the reasons why I use Linux as my main operating system.

Did the Buddha do intermittent fasting? The answer is: Yes. When I first became a monk, people were shocked about how I gave up eating after Solar Noon and I have not eaten dinner in over 20 years. Sometimes I switch to one meal per day, but I often find a light breakfast, mostly liquid foods or rice soup, with a full lunch works best for me. These days, many people are using intermittent fasting as a form of weight loss and when I describe my Buddhist monk diet, they give a nod and say “Intermittent Fasting… It’s Healthy.” I guess I’m always one step ahead of mainstream society!

Recently, I had a serious medical problem that had the potential to be extremely serious. Please don’t ask. In any case, I arranged permission to go outside and then arranged for someone to help me get to a clinic in Mandalay which had the proper technology to properly assess my problem. This article is not about going out. Instead this article is about coming back and staying in quarantine. Because we do not have monastery-wide vaccines yet, Pa-Auk is quite strict about letting people go outside because when you come back, you will need to be on a 3 week quarantine before testing for your release. It used to be 4 weeks, but recently changed this past month. Because the number of monks on quarantine was going out of control, 15-20 monks, a new protocol was arranged for incoming monks to stay in the empty quad kutis. In this way the quarantine monks can be kept in a single area, and food can be arranged more easily. It was not easy to deliver so many meals to all of the scattered individual kutis in the monastery. Below is picture of the entire male side of Pa-Auk. Remember there is a female side too with additional quarantine people. At the very bottom of the photo are some of the quad kutis. Some got cut off from the photo including the one I am living in.

I’ve been looking forward to the Myanmar Internet being cut off, but it does not seem to be happening. I guess that is good for the people here. I will be taking a SIM break for about 5 days… Tuesdays are usually when I post things from the meditation hall because it is the day I have to manage the Tuesday cleaning crew. My job is to clean the Big Buddha (that is me below).

Chinese congee Photo By Daiju Azuma - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=567814 Rice soup is most popularly known as Congee (Kahn-Jee). However in the Buddhist world, it is referred to as yāgu in the Pāḷi Language. It occurs many many times in the tipiṭaka (more than 500 times) and it is still eaten today in Asia and Southeast Asia. To make it, you simply boil and then simmer one part rice with eight parts water for one or two hours. Some rice cookers have a congee setting. You can put various items on it and salt to taste.

I remember when I was living in Kaua’i in a tent propped up in the corner of my friend Uncle Gene Taylor’s property. I had just come home from my daily alms round and I popped into his room to say hello. He is old and has difficulty walking, yet he is usually quite cheerful. As part of the visit routine, he asked me how my day was and I smiled and happily said, “Today was a great day. I got enough food today.” I always get enough food, but that day, it was a little easier.

NOTE: Tipitaka Pāḷi Reader is the new Pāḷi Reading app. Click link below: Tipitaka Pali Reader A new beautiful app written in Flutter for all Desktops and Mobile Devices. If you are still interested you can read below: News: Developers are encouraged to join our Discord server for our 2.0 total rewrite called Ultimate Pali Reader June 21, 2022 Version 1.4.0 is now released (Win, Linux Snap) ( android 1.2.1) Full text search for vinaya/ sutta

It occured to me that people don’t know one type of Buddhist monk from the other and a post was needed to explain this. First a little bit of history. Theravada is the closest thing as one can get to the original form of Buddhism and is based on the Pali texts. The countries that have Theravada as their national religion are; Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Sri Lanka, and Cambodia. It dates back to the Buddha from 5th century BCE Later, came Mahayana - Chinese Buddhism of the 1st century BCE. The texts are based on Chinese and Sanskrit. It is most popular in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Vietnam. Tibetan Buddhism is from Tibet and also followed nationally in Bhutan. It is from the 7-9th century. Their texts are in Sanskrit and Tibetan.

A friend of mine once told me his story about how he had a knife in his hand and was raging with anger. He was going to kill his wife and her new found lover. Below is a short retelling of the story in third person. The Story My friend from the former Soviet Union did his first Goenka meditation retreat in 1999. The retreat was free and was very popular around the world. (dhamma.org). Before that, he was already into martial arts and Taoism and although they talked about meditation and controlling the mind, he did not really feel there was a solid technique to practice. After his first 10 day Goenka meditation course, he felt that he had found a good technique to control his mind. He did about three of these meditation courses since.

The Pali Text Society has made its Vinaya, Sutta and Abhidhamma books available for non-commercial use since 2013. The Sutta books have been extracted from the Buddhadust Website which is still considered as “work in progress.” However, the work was good enough to reformat as eBooks in its current state. Stephen Torrence and myself did most of the work to reformat the web pages into eBook versions. There were thousands of webpages which required many scripts to remove the web content. We used the open source project called Sigil.

Recently, I had a chance to go to a Lao Monastery in Elgin, Chicago, IL, USA for 12 days. I usually avoid American Theravada Temples like the plague because most of these places have monks who use money and much of the monk life is centered around collecting money. This is a typical standard not only in America but in most countries. This monastery however, is different. In 2015, the committee decided to stop being a useless, unwholesome temple that teaches wrong dhammavinaya (teaching and training — on wrong ways to give donation and wrong ways to make merit, and obviously wrong kamma and results). If that is not bad enough, they used to sell alcohol for fundraisers too (!). Unfortunately, I know of three other Lao monasteries in America that sell alcohol. The committee knew this path was in the opposite direction of The Buddhist Path and decided to change. They offered the resident monks to join them with a two year transition period and although the monks agreed such changes were wholesome, when it came down to the wire, they never changed and drove themselves across town in their own cars to another local Lao temple in 2017.

![Radio Tower ](/images/Telecommunication-Tower-Wave-Radio-Broadcast–273x300.webp" >}} Here is the link to the 2015 KKCR radio show. We were interviewed on Kauai Community Radio for about one hour instead of the scheduled 20 minutes. We all had fun doing it. It will give you a good taste of what we did on the island in 2015 and what I am doing now. I often enjoy revisiting this recording, and I hope you do too.

Kauai Update #3 I have moved from the Botanical Gardens recently. I was able to stay there for 5 months and the majority of the time there was wonderful. However things were changing and it was time for me to look for another place and now I am staying in a new long term location in Kilauea. It all happened after a wonderful person picked me up on the side of the road holding my signs the day my parents, brother and in-law dropped me off (I’ll get back to that family-visit part later). So this guy I knew from before picked me up in Kapaa and asked me where I wanted to go. I told him I lived in Princeville but could be dropped off at the bus stop at the town before his road. He looked at me, smiled, and said, “I asked you where you want to go, because I’m going to drive you there.” He then showed me his bracelet which said, “What would love do?” Then he said he was driving me.

How to Pronounce Theravāda Have you ever wondered if you were pronouncing Theravāda correctly? Read this article to find out how to properly pronounce Theravāda. Most of the resources out on the web mispronounce the word Theravāda, and Google has failed me when I did a search too. However, it was a good excuse to write this small article. The “Th” sound in Theravāda is not the English “Th” like “Them” or “Think.” It is a “T” sound with a puff of air. It is phonetically called an “Aspirated-T”. Sometimes the word that is given as an example is “Tough.” If it sounds, complicated, don’t worry, because most Americans actually aspirate their T’s anyway. Just make the beginning of the word with a single “T” and you will fake it better than most.

Downloads: Download PDF Listen to Audiobook Going For Broke: Travelogs On Becoming a Buddhist Monk is a compilation of travel stories. It is an anonymously written book about a lay person who quit his job in order to travel the world and then become a Buddhist Monk. Most people either love it and read it in a few days or never finish it. Here is the back cover: “Going for Broke” consists of travel stories written by a young American man who gave up his lucrative job to travel the world and decide if he would fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a Buddhist monk. As he traveled, he sent accounts of his adventures as a backpacker in Hawaii, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, India, and Nepal and then about his life as monk in Thailand and Myanmar"

The Seeds From Long Ago I remember when I first learned how to meditate on my breath some time in 1990, during my university years. Back then, meditation was not so well known. The beat generation’s Zen trend in the 60’s had died out with disco in the 70’s. Barnes and Noble maybe had only a few shelves in a single bookcase labeled with “Eastern Philosophy” that covered all Eastern religions, including Buddhism. Ram Das’s cryptic book, Be Here Now was the only book I had read prior to reading my World Religions book, which had included a chapter on Buddhism for a class I took. It was different in the early 90’s. There wasn’t a world wide web, Google or even Yahoo. We didn’t have Idiot or Dummy books back then either. While there were books out there, you really had to explore a subculture, and you had to know someone in order to know what the subcultures were and where to find them.

Bhikkhu Subhuti’s Blog has moved! pub domain monk seal from wikipedia The blog at https://Subhuti.withmettanet has moved to https://AmericanMonk.org The new title of the blog is American Monk: Bhante Subhūti Why change The Domain Address? The reason why I changed the name of the domain was to streamline my verbal website announcements to let them known how to find the monk in Kauai. Usually a conversation will start up with some new person in Kauai and then I say, “Hey, you can check out my blog at americanmonk.org .” I was in the Buddhist world when I picked that name and never realized it until now. When I spit out such a long name like that, the typical American will give me a confused look because they won’t know how to spell or remember the Pāḷi Language words. To solve this problem, AmericanMonk.org was available. I chose the .org over .net because that seems to be the proper way to do things even though there are many new Top Level Domains available. There are .blog and even .guru choices for one’s website name. While I am not an organization, I sort of fit into the noncommercial realm.

September 11th and Jeremy Glick I have a personal story I want to tell you about Jeremy Glick and September 11, 2001. The short story is that my name is Jeremy Glick and I was a computer programmer. However, I had left my regular world in 1999 and people who have lost track of me remembered me when 9/11 happened. About seven months after I ordained as a Buddhist Monk in 2001, the famous 9/11 or September 11th event happened. During that time, I was living in Myanmar which was one of the 6 countries that were embargoed. Myanmar was specifically embargoed for Human Rights Violations and they were one or two slots above North Korea for human rights. There were full on malaria warnings (by the locals) and I had just given up a career in the computer field that used to pay me loads of cash to do a job I loved with passion.

A Tale of Love and Samādhi Explained: A’capella Inertia A little Valentines story for all of you. The topside title is just a description of what the story is generally about. However, the real title of the story is called, “A’capella Inertia.” This is not a short one, but I think you will like this one very much. It has received high marks and it will take about 30 minutes to read. Those who have successfully subscribed to the blog should already have this formatted story in their email inbox for offline reading. Written in my verbose yet lucid story telling style with a few usual side tracks in between, it tells the story of the first time I fell in love while the end of the story explains why I have decided to write it down as a monk for the general public. In short, there are similar meditation experiences that one can have like the one mentioned in this story. However, this particular “meditative” experience does not happen often no matter how hard you try. You just sort of “fall” into it. Meditation is recommended instead because it is more reliable, sustainable, repeatable, and perhaps, easier to live with. So, here is the story.

This is a small video on how to make a monk’s needle case from a used up disposable pen. It is one of the 8 requisites of a Buddhist monk. It is mostly intended for monks to view, but lay people might find it interesting. https://youtu.be/WwzeZHSz5r8

Here is a quick tip on how to make a filter in just a few minutes. Maybe as fast as one minute. This is useful for monks who want to put filters on their water taps. It is my own invention as far as I know, but I am sure other monks somewhere else also do the same. The Buddha did mention that if we did not have a filter, we could use the corner of our robes (that we are wearing). This was how I got the idea by using an old robe. Old robes are abundant and easy to find in almost any monastery. Be sure to clean the robe before officially using the filter. This one was washed twice, but still had a stain on it. If you are really lazy (like me), you can cut out the filter and then just wash that small piece of cloth in a very short time.

I Finally Did It! This Rainy Season (Vassa) I was able to learn the Pātimokkha (227 Rules) by heart. It is the first round and it takes me a long time to do it, and there are mistakes. Never the less, it is considered “learned” and “memorized” at this stage. I will hopefully recite the Pātimokkha for the full moon November 3rd if all goes well. I need to get my 2+ hours of recitation down to at least 1:15 minutes. Most people do the recitation in 45 minutes or less. Some can do it in 25 minutes! It is also very common for experienced chanters to make mistakes and or need prompting for certain rules but not as much as I need right now. It is a mother-load of text. I will recite the whole text daily and rework the sections I am slow and rusty on until it gets smoother and faster.

How Do Monks Say Grace Before Eating? Do Theravāda monks say anything before they eat? Do they give thanks? Who do they say thanks to? Or is it something else? Buddhist monks generally do a reflection and chant something before eating. In fact it is said that the monks incurs debt if they doe not reflect before eating. Actually, there are 4 reflections concerning the Four Requisites: 1. Robes 2. Food 3. Lodging 4. Medicine

Here is an instructional video on how to make a foot-rug from old and discarded monk’s robes. If you are a monk, perhaps you will be very interested in this. I made the video as I was making my very first rug. Ven. Khemavamsa is the one who helped in the end. It was his idea and I have never seen this before. The story from the texts is below:

Here is a comparison of 5, 8 and 10 precepts. The Buddhist who follows five precepts is known as a regular lay Buddhist. The person who follows 8 precepts is known as a serious Buddhist yogi. The person who follows the 10 precepts is known as a novice monk. A bhikkhu follows 227 rules. It is important to know these classes to know which rules are more important to follow. It also can explain, what class of rules a monk is following. It is a unique way of looking at Monastic Morality. It is also important for lay people who take 8 precepts to really take real 8 precepts. If a lay person takes 8 precepts but knows they will not follow them, they are lying and not only breaking one of the first precepts and generating bad kamma, but they are practicing rights and rituals, something that is in the opposite direction as Enlightenment and what The Buddha preached.

A Story from 1993 from my college days, before the Internet was around. I remember all the way back in ‘93, when I was in college and I had just spent a few weeks in China for an academic scholarship. Because I was now some type of “International” student, I was asked to attend a “lunch hour” question and answer session with Helmut Schmitt. Although I had international travel experience, I was hardly experienced in “international issues,” and I did not even know who or what he was. What was a Chancellor anyway? I guess it was some type of president or something or another. In any case, I was told to think of some questions, because it was important for the students to have many questions for him so we could appear educated and not waste his time. In the mean time, or maybe even earlier, I was at a meditation friend’s house. When I entered his place, he had some music playing in the background. I was taken aback by its sincere beauty and asked my friend what was playing. He showed me the cassette tape cover and explained that it was a get-together between professional and amateur pianists. One of those pianists was even a politician. They got together and played Bach on piano during Bach’s birthday, and the recording was the result. I admired the energy of this tape and asked if I could borrow it and he said yes.

Calculation of odds. Do you believe in devas? Devas are the Buddhist equivalent to angels. Ok .. Here is the story. I was on alms round two weeks ago and a regular supporter invited us to ask for anything for our studies at school. I needed some pens, so I asked for some pens. He told me to wait and showed up with a huge pen gift-box. He opened it up for me and there was a fat and expensive Cross pen inside. It was probably worth over $100 and there was no way that I would accept it. I refused it a few times despite his insistence, and then he finally agreed to get me disposable pens the next day.

Download Free A4 format PDF Download Free A5 format PDF Tutorial on How to Sit Many times I have given advice to yogis on how to sit properly and I have received raving success. In fact, I asked one fellow student to model for the pictures you will see in this article and he was absolutely amazed at how comfortable he was as soon as he sat down. He spoke loudly with joy and excitement as soon as he was seated in the Samādhi-Sausage, which prompted other people to peek inside the room to see what all of the commotion was about. This document is long. The short answer is to roll up a blanket and curve it around your body as shown below. However, the rest of the document gives a full explanation on how it works so you are able to make the perfect seat, sit in it properly, and modify it for your own needs. (Note: The shirt was raised up and tied to reveal his posture and it is not normal for him to be like that!)

Here is a sample video and written instructions for making a self-contained incense holder made from a plastic bottle. It is the coolest incense holder I have ever used. The idea is not mine. An American lay person had one at his dorm room and I thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread. I made mine in minutes. The Problem: No matter how you slice it, incense holders often let the ashes fall outside of the “catching-base.” It makes a mess and might be a fire-hazard too.

For those of you who do not know what an Asian shower room looks like! This one is luxurious with a stainless steel water bowl! Ahhh! I often prefer this method over a shower head (This shower room does not have one, but if it did I would still prefer this method). A long time ago, Westerners did this too. The toilet is inside the same room too, not shown.