In the Sagaing Hills and beyond, a day of giving!
Our local team member shares the following report about the donations provided as part of the Monastic Gratitude Campaign. Please continue to give while the campaign is active so we can reach more monastics!
“I am very glad to kindly inform you that my team has completed the alms and rice donation to monasteries and nunneries in the sacred Buddhist sites of Sagaing, Mingun and Mandalay. We left our village in the very early morning, and traveled to Sagaing together with a truck, transporting the rice sacks to the point of assembly where we invited and donated to all the monasteries and nunneries.
At first, after unloading the rice sacks for Sagaing monasteries/nunneries at that point, we went on the trip to Mingun together and donated the alms-rice sacks to the two sacred monasteries there. The first monastery was founded by the said Most Venerable Mingun Sayadaw, the first monk ever to be awarded the Tipitakadhara (the Keeper and Guardian of Tipitaka). The later Tipitakadhara monks and Pitaka scholar monks reside there while the post-graduate level scholars of Pitaka (after Dhammacariya level) are studying. Hence, we can say that these sites are the most sacred ones where the highest level of Tipitaka education can be studied. The second monastery is where the where Venerable Mingun Sayadaw lived for his life. There, Pitaka scholar monks reside, too. Hence, this information is for your delights in your donation.
After Mingun, we came back to Sagaing and donated to 31 monasteries and nunneries in total. When it was complete, we left for Mandalay crossing the river. We went to the monastery and nunnery for which we already transported the rice sacks last week. We took Anumodana talks from the Abbot of the Mahāsī Tradition Myae Nī Kyin Meditation Center where around 100 monks/novices reside, and the Head Nun of the Myawaddy Pariyatti Nunnery where 200 nuns are studying and residing.
We had to leave soon after in order to safely reach the home village by curfew. Anyway, this is for your information and delights to see our donation activities yesterday. Sadhu, Sadhu, Sadhu again for all your merits from which our service merits have arisen, too. May you all be happy with our service merits (Veyyāvacca Dāna).
For the two remaining monasteries located in Shwe Bo area where we cannot travel at this moment due to the encounters, we have sent the fund for both of them, through a head of nunnery who is known to its Abbott and who is originally from that area. For the other in the countryside of Shwe Bo, we will contact the monk and find out how to send the fund for the contribution of alms-rice. I have witnessed that there is an increase of residents in the monasteries and nunneries who came from these combat zones and are taking refuge there. Furthermore, in some nunneries, there are IDPs coming from the said areas and living in the nunnery. Talking to some of them, they reflected on the dialogue that they were to leave their homes and flee from their village when the military came in the village. One IDP said, “They do not come in silence. They always came in the village, making noises of gunshots firing, throwing and setting off sound grenades. They beat anyone to whom they suspect. One who is mentally disordered, was also beaten. So, we must run from them.”
Anyway, your donation does not only mean the support for monastics but it is also a hand to help these innocent civilians who are taking refuge in these monasteries and nunneries.
May you and your family be happy, healthy, mindful and safe from all unpleasant things as well as the pandemic.
