I had a really good day going for alms today. When it “rains it pours.” Although it rained today, I am talking about alms donations. I told myself, that if this village does not give (like usual), then I will skip it and find another one or stay with the shack village alone. After 3 weeks of only one donor in that village, I finally got some edible food…. However, I accomplished that by going down some other side-roads I had started to skip.. and then people started to stop me in my tracks.

The benefits of “Faith piṇḍapata”. This is a term that I learned either in Abhayagiri, Ca, or Wat Pah Nanachat or both. Probably brought to the West from Ajahn Pasanno who is/was the abbot of both. This means that when you go on alms, you make a determination to only eat the alms food you collect. When you do something like this (and I am not sooo perfect when I follow these things), you can learn a lot about yourself and the real Buddhist teachings. (Note: It is often not good to write about ascetic practices. However, I write about my life as a way to teach about Buddhism.)

Top: Ma Ba Tha conference Bottom: Reaching out to Muslims to show loving-kindness. Recently, I was convinced to go to a “seminar on peace” this past Saturday. Some of you may have seen my picture on Facebook in regards to a Ma Ba Tha conference I attended. I was told that I should not pay attention to the negative press and that they are a peaceful organization and the gathering was about peace. I was also told that I might have the opportunity to tell the organization that they should work for peace with the Muslims instead of separation and hate. They should not blame the Muslims for the exponential decrease in monastic Buddhism in Myanmar (which I will speak about later). That chance to speak never came, and when I got there, I noticed that it was a three year anniversary celebration of the organization rather than a conference on peace. Once I was there I was stuck. I was the token Western monk, and my picture was taken hundreds times by just about anyone with a camera who saw me along with several professional photographers. When the first person took my picture, I smiled. I knew there was nothing I could do about it. If I resisted getting my picture taken, they would have a picture of a monk resisting getting his picture taken. There is a monk at Pa-Auk who doesn’t like his picture getting taken, and everyday pictures are taken of him not being happy about cameras which enhances his dislike for cameras. Contemplating the check-mate scenario I was in made me smile like a father who says to his child with a toy gun, “You got me!”