Ven. Nepal Nāthaputta and I have been going for alms together for some time now. He usually comes with me the whole way on Saturdays and on Sundays, he forks right after the 2nd or 3rd house. However, recently, a new monk decided to join our route. Last week, Ven. Nepal Nāthaputta went off on his own on Saturday while the two of us went on my usual route (good for two monks). We did the same this Saturday. When we came back Ven. Nepal Nāthaputta showed me the contents of his bowl. It had 2 spoons of rice and a few bananas. While this was clearly not enough food for him, it made me so happy. But Why? I’m a monk, right? Why should I be happy that a friend didn’t get any substantial food?

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.