Water Festival

The following narrative continues the story of a Mexican meditator who has been in Burma for many years. This is the fourth entry, and the beginning post can be found here.

"I spent the water festival in the monastery because one foreign Sayalay told me that it could be a good experience for me. Certainly it was one of the most inspiring moments in Myanmar! The Sayalay told me that many local people come to meditate during that time because it is holiday. For me this was surprising. I found it incredible. In the meditation hall we were more than a thousand women meditating together. They were many lines for going for lunch and the dhamma talks were saturated. It was the first time I had the opportunity to share meditation with that amount of women. It was incredible.

Most of the women were extremely kind and caring about foreigners. There were not a lot of foreigners, four in total. In the hall, at lunch time and in the garden local girls would come to me to ask me if they could take a picture with me. I was very strange for them and many times I felt some girl were staring at me trying to figure out where I was from, I suppose."