Retreat in the Forest, Day one

We arrived too late this morning to take part in the alms round at Don Chao Poo so we had to take our food offering directly to the 'food station'.

All the food offered to the monks into their bowls is pooled and sorted. Far too much food is provided, but it has to feed the monks and all the men and women in white (upasika) who take 8 precepts each day of the retreat. And when they have all eaten it is the turn of the lay people.The monks eat directly from their bowls during these 10 days, as forest monks always do. 'Wet' food is put into a little plastic bag and tightly sealed with a rubber band. Most of the rice offered this morning was the sticky variety and I guess that will be the case  every day.

Now what looks good here?

All of it!

Be patient ...

... and now you can help yourselves. When a monk's bowl gets full of rice it is emptied into a big basket like this one. The bowls quickly get full so the men pushing the basket-on-a-cart have to be spaced out along the line of monks.

The girls just want to have fun.

We put up with this every year ...

... so we might as well make the best of it.

 There's a good-looking fella!

The pillow suggests he lay down to sleep rather than sat up as the most stringent tudong monks do.

A neat and tidy monk was here:

How did this robe get so far up a tree? It's a mystery.

 
 

Caught in the act!

 

Women eat Thai food (and some men too). This is their time (at last) and place.

Schoolgirls have been taking care of the food arrangements and now they are serving the lay people.

Here we have a young monk with his proud mum and sisters. There was a call for him on his mum's mobile and he had to be found so he could take the call. When he got to them it was the tiny little boy who had to hand him the phone because women don't hand something directly to a monk. I guess if his sister had had a baby daughter I would have had to do the honours as the nearest man.

When everyone had eaten it was time for most of us to go home. Not for those who were staying to practise meditation and listen to some teaching later in the day. I left too but will return again before the retreat is over.
 

 

 
 
 
 
 

 

 

Comments

[Mike]

Great photographs Lawrence. I wondered why there were more women than men but I guess they might be working?

[Martyn]

Lawrence thanks for educating me about so much of rural life in Thailand. Big Christmas greetings from Udon Thani and I will catch up with your posts soon. Very short on internet access right now.

[Lawrence]

Thanks, Mike and Martyn. I have been having connection problems so wasn't able to reply before.

Mike, men working, yes, but also the women are more interested in getting some merit (not having been monks).

Martyn, have a good time in Thailand. If you do get to Ban Chiang I'd like to hear what you find out or notice about the site.

[Lawrence]

Martyn, I forgot to say, bloody hell, you make me sound like a teacher. And I gave up that lark 7 years ago! Still, it's in the blood, I guess. But I'm glad you find some of it interesting.