Ron and Sally Jo Blog

Friday (31 July) is the beginning of Buddhist Lent—a religious holiday for most of the MCC staff. We were interested in learning more about the day and the activities surrounding it.

The day before Lent (Thursday) is also important. It falls on the full moon of the eighth lunar month (July). It was on this day that Buddha preached his sermon to followers after attaining enlightenment. The day is usually celebrated by merit-making, listening to a monk’s sermon, and joining a candle lit procession during the night.

Preparations for these two days began already Tuesday afternoon at the office. Banana leaves were cut from the resident banana plants, cut into squares and soaked in water. Rice also began soaking.

On Wednesday morning young coconuts were shredded. Rice was cooked with the coconut and taro bits and coconut water. At noon, and until completed, staff filled the banana leaf squares with a layer of rice mixture topped with either a mung bean paste or a slice of banana. The leaves were folded and closed in special way. Sally Jo tried making the squares. She was told she did well on the folding and closing of one end but they had to keep redoing the second end! These “khao tom” (steamed sweet sticky rice packets) were then steamed for about an hour.

Kesone, our house helper, fixed baskets for us to take. In these baskets were little plastic packets of crackers/biscuits/candy. Some had 1000 kip bills (about 15 cents) also enclosed. There were “khao tom” packets, flowers, incense, and small bottles of water. She also ordered small baskets of sticky rice to be delivered to the house Thursday morning. Sally Jo was told to wear her “sinh” (Lao skirt) and both of us to wear a “sbai” (a long sash worn across the one shoulder).

At 7:00 Thursday morning one of the groundskeepers from the office came to take us to the temple and show us what to do. Four of us from MCC went. Our neighborhood temple is very near and many people were arriving—on foot and by car. It was the first time we had actually visited this temple. Under a large pavilion were two long tables with 20 or so pots on each table. These are the pots used by the monks when they come around in the morning collecting food. (We had photos of this when we were in Luang Prabang in February .)

We removed our shoes and then walked along one table putting a small ball of sticky rice in each pot and placing one of our packets of crackers/money in a basket in front of the pot. We placed our flowers and incense packets in a large basket. Afterwards we poured our small bottle of water on the plants as blessing to our loved ones.

Buddhist Lent is sometimes referred to as Buddhist Rain Retreat. It happens at the beginning of the rainy season and monks and novices are required to stay in their temple for 3 months. Buddha assigned Lent to all of his disciples because Buddhist monks used to travel in every season and, especially in the rainy season, they might accidentally step on young plants and insects. This is a time for serious contemplation and meditation for both monks and laymen alike.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 31st, 2015 at 12:37 am and is filed under Laos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.