A special day at Ledi Sayadaw's monastery
The following letter was written to our donors from a local volunteer who administered the aid to Ledi Sayadaw’s monastery in Monywa. Much of these donations were given by meditators around the world who have personally benefited from the spread of the Dhamma, and who have taken this moment to pay back the debt of gratitude. Thank you kindly for your tremendous contribution!
This is to kindly inform you that we have completed the alms-bowl food offering donation to 326 monastics (monks and novices) in Mahā Ledi Monastery, Myoma Shwe Ku Monastery and Okkan Taw Ya Monastery in Monywa. All three monasteries are Pariyatti monasteries where the monastics can study Buddhist education (Pitaka). The monastics were happy to receive our alms-bowl offerings (alms-rice and curries).
According to the abbots of the monasteries, this was the very first time that they received the alms-bowl food (Pandapāta) offering, after two years when the pandemic started in the country. The abbot of Myoma Shwe Ku Monastery told us that the resident monastics have been offered the cooked alms-rice and curries since the outbreak of the pandemic and it has been a big responsibility for the Teik-oat Sayadaws (Administrator Monks) and Teik-kyat Sayadaws (Supervisor Monks) of a monastery. He continued to mention that the monastics had no other options to be cooked and offered as they could not go alms-round due to the pandemic.
He said that they, the monastics, prefer to go alms-round accordingly with the Vinaya (monastic disciplines). The abbot of Mahā Ledi Monastery also said that these big Pariyatti monasteries of a big population of monastics (where there were more than 200 or 300s) had a decline in the number of resident monks since the student monks or novices went back to their native village or other areas as they knew the hardship of the alms-food due to military aggression.
Anyway, this was really a great merit of yours. The Enlightened One guided the monks to mainly go alms-round while he emphasized for lay-sponsors that a spoon of alms-bowl food is the most supreme and fruitful alms-food to be offered. This is why, there is a saying in Myanmar, "ဘုရားမှာ စိန်၊ ဆွမ်းမှာ ပိဏ်၊ သင်္ကန်းမှာ ကထိန်", meaning "Diamond bud is the most supreme part of a pagoda or stupa. Alms-bowl food is the most supreme in all alms-food. Kathina robe is the most supreme in all monastic robes (because it is to be shared with the most needed monastic in the Sangha community with the approval of all monastics)".
Hence, your Dāna is pretty delightful to be done. Sādhu. Sādhu. Sādhu again for all your merits.