Umbrella Shop 2004-2014
Rainy Season is luckily my favorite and I love all five months of it. Excerpt from Going For Broke: Monasterynote5: Walkman Karaoke, 2004
Category: Monk Life
Accused Of Being Psychic
Accused of Being Psychic A brief video describing this story has been added to this post below. The longer story is below that. I think it was in 2003 or 2004 when I was at Pa-Auk Meditation Center when this event happened to me. I was at the mountain meditation hall during the meditation break and I saw a yogi dressed in white yogi clothes. His outfit basically looked like pajamas to most Westerners, but if you know the meditation scene and you know how the foreigners usually dress at Pa-Auk, then you would know that he was a serious […]
Monk Towels and Soap
Very few people from the West know about what the monks use for their bath towels and their bathing soap.
What is an Overturned Bowl?
We have seen many Facebook selfies of politically active monks with their bowls turned upside down. What does this mean and is that proper?
Today I Saved A Cockroach
Today I saved an upside down cockroach in my bathroom.
Toothpaste In A Gated Community
Today, a monk came up to me with his hand inside his shoulder bag and handed me a new tube of Meswak.
How Long Do Monk’s Robes Last?
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 […]
Only In The West, Only In Asia
Most Westerners do not like the ancient commentaries or the Abhidhamma. Here is a story.
Pa-Auk Vaccination 2021
Pa-Auk finally vaccinated 2000 of its residents across its branch monasteries with a privately sponsored SinoPharm vaccine.
Remembering 9/11
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.