Loving Kindness for a Needed Monastic Donation

We thank everyone who provided a donation earmarked for monks and nuns. Our local team visited a region where, because the local economy has collapsed, many monastics have not been provided proper food. They joyously accepted the items offered by supporters abroad. Our local team leader describes the trip in detail:

On our recent donation trip, we were fortunate to meet the abbot of the monastery where we had come to offer much-needed supplies to the monastics. He happened to be in the middle of teaching a Patthāna Basics class for lay people, and the volunteer organizer monk informed him about us and our donation. Still at the mic, the abbot said, "We thank you, we need alms rice: my monastery has 432 resident monastics."

The head nun of the Nunnery where we also went described their concerns as well. "We (the leading nuns) always have to look at the rice sacks present in the garage, which are getting less and less." She continued, "There are about 100 nuns who are taking the Tharmanay-kyaw (Samanera) examination and taking the exam preparation classes. So, they cannot go on alms round for rice these days. As we have 275 nuns and we also accepted the refugees who fled from my native village, we are feeding about 300 people per day. Those 100 nuns will not be able to go alms round for the next three months until they complete the exam in the month of Nat Taw."

One of the beneficiary monks from a forestry monastery we visited said that the villages nearby were flooded recently and the villagers are facing economic hardship, so out of compassion, the monks have not burdened them by going on alms round in the mornings for two weeks by that point. Our contribution was helpful to them as most of them are aged. Most of the monasteries in this area are secluded forest monasteries where just a very few monks reside. The others are pariyatti monasteries where larger numbers of monks reside. Another nunnery that we visited has about 80 nuns.

In the morning session of our donation run, the attendant monks chanted the Metta Sutta and Parittas, sending their loving kindness and blessings for the donors who contributed these much- needed relief aid donations. As well, to honor our volunteer service acting as a bridge between the donors and his monastery, one abbot led us in making a “libation,” when some water is symbolically poured onto the ground after performing a meritorious deed so the Earth can be an eyewitness, according to the tradition.

I would like to kindly thank all those well-wishers from other countries who have not forgetten our problems in our time of need. I also wish you could have seen the faces of the monks and nuns who felt your compassion to offer this help to them, and their gratitude in accepting your donation. There are still more monasteries and nunneries and monastic universities that are in need that we would like to reach, and I ask for your kind consideration in this humble donation request as far as your volition may extend.