Robe offering ceremony: at Songdhammakalyani monastery.

Annually Kathina or Robe Offering ceremony draws largest crowd of Buddhists to our monastery. This year more than any other year, there were indeed the largest crowd since the beginning of the monastery.

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The past year had been a year of hard work of renovation, after 40 years, all the buildings were really in a bad shape and need reparing. Starting from the Uposatha Hall which was named after Maha Pajapati, the first bhikkhuni in Buddhist history. The roof concrete roof was carefully chiseled and removed, then the new roof was installed. That alone took 5 months.

Ven.Dhammananda chose a bold brick color for the whole building with white and darker brown etching. It turned out quite striking, and many people gave a positive comment.

The statue of Maha Pajapati in front of the monastery ground was hardly noticeable, so now there is a staircase winding around the base make it accessible for people to go up to pay respect to her. On the concrete railing there will be 12 female arahats, as though they are coming up to pay respect the maha Pajapati, the first bhikkhuni and female Arahat.

Ven.Bhikkhuni Tenzin Palmo is coming to visit the monastery in early January 2007, we hope to invite her to consecrate the place.

The actual ceremony started in the early afternoon Oct. 15 2006 which was a Sunday. One month after the rain is supposed to be the right time to offer the robe. Each temple can receive one Kathina ceremony. The last day to offer kathina this year would be Nov.5, full moon of the 12 month.

Flags both Thai flags and the yellow Buddhist flags were hoisted a couple of days before hand. It was the General Thawatchai who came for his second year to help with the flags. Ten General Watthani, she is a dentist by profession, brought with her a good friend, Khun Eed, and expert in floral arrangement. The team spent literally whole day from 8 A.M. to 7 P.M. and the whole monastery was fully decorated with beautiful flower arrangements.

Besides the General also brought the whole bunch of orchids of various colors. Our gardener arranged them around the trunk of trees, one had yellow orchids, one with purple orchids, in the garden. The result was superb.

The hoisting of the Chatra, royal white umbrella for the Buddha was done previously on Oct.7, and the yellowish brown background was very impressive with the dark carved wood the Venerable brought down from Chiengmai in one of her trips up north.

Colorful balloons attracted children with raffles. There was also shoot game, the Venerable commented it might promote violence, so they were shooting at defilements, i.e. greed, hatred, delusion.

Gift shop and second hand clothing were still main interest of many people who came to the fair. The General also brought many paintings for sale to raise fund to offer as donation. There were framed pictures of the rare Sivali from Sri Lanka and the Thera Upaguta from Myanmar, each was offered at B500.

Dhamma books authored by Ven.Grandma (Voramai Kabilsingh) and Ven.Dhammananda were offered for 50% this tent was also crowded with people looking for the old but valuable covers.

Blessed herbal medicine which underwent 3-days blessing ceremony from the Medicine Buddha was another popular stop for participants. They loved to carry back for their parents at home also. The herbal tea each year tastes different, this year there was strong mint and not bitter. Ms.Pailin our volunteer kept it warm through out the day and made it a very pleasant and relaxing drink for everyone.

Free vegetarian lunch was served under two large tents with 10 round tables. These tents were always crowded.

Having opened even the garden in the back, we did not have sufficient space for car park. At one point Ven.Dhammananda herself was seen guiding a car to park in a jasmine garden. There were more than a hundred cars on that day. We thought we had a big monastery, but on that day we did not think so any more.

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The ex. Senator Sunee Inchat and the General Watthani were the chief guests to preside over at the robe offering ceremony.

People were gathered in a festive and colourful parade carrying the money trees and offering from the entrance towards the Uposatha building.

Everything was suddenly too small, the Uposatha was much too small to welcome such a large crowd. The elderly participants were invited to proceed on to the third floor shine room where as the younger ones were in the procession. There were people holding on to the flags of crocodile, fish, etc. These were symbols of obstacles that the monks have overcome during the vassa (rain). The temples which have already received kathina would generally hoist these flags in front of the temple as an announcement that it has already received kathina.

The Uposatha hall on the third floor was overflowed. Next year we really have to think about installing close circuit televisions for the second and first floor. Many complaint of aching knees had to remain downstairs.

The actually ceremony begin with the Venerable reporting how she spent the previous year donation. It was a very encouraging act as she made things very transparent ready for any one to come in and check on how the monastery had spent the money in the previous year. Each one who participated thought that they saw the achievement much more than the money spent.

Then Ms.Sunee and the General pronounced the actual offering of robe in Pali. The Venerable explained that because this vassa there was only she herself and the Samaneris, bhikkhuni sangha was not complete, according to the Vinaya she cannot receive the robe as Kathina, so she received it only as ordinary civara. For the laypeople, there is no difference, but among the monastic it has to be made clear with respect to the Vinaya.

Ms.Sunee, the major donor, and chair invited the Venerable to go around with the bowl collecting money from the audience. This practice is popular in the north and northeast, but not so for the central Thailand. As the Venerable went around, many old women actually came forward to touch the robe to see for real that now they have access to touch the robe. It had been taboo for many hundred years in the Thai history, with only male monks, women were hushed to stay away from the robe. So this act of going for alms among the women were very moving to observe.

The main robe offered this year will go Ven.Dhammadhira as she is preparing to go for her full ordination in Sri Lanka in 2007.

The Venerable and the two in house samaneris gave blessing in a traditional way while the participants led by Ms.Sunee poured water as a sign of dedication of merit.

This year the gifts prepared for the participants were the latest book, a bilingual dharma talk by the Venerable and a small Medicine Buddha image, with a beautiful picture of the Buddha from Tibet. Everyone was happy with the gifts and promised to return next year to be part of this meaningful offering again.

The bank notes which fluttered on the banana trees were then taken down, and the amount on each tree grew. It is a practice for people to always add on to the money trees as they were carried around the uposatha hall.

We noted that this year many elderly women came to attend the ceremony. Last year when they heard from their children who participated at the ceremony, they were joyful to know that now there is a monastery for women. They made it a point to ask their children to take them along. Many of them could not sit on the floor any longer. So we need to think of seats accommodation for elderly participants.

They loved the vegetarian food, they loved the traditional parade around the uposatha hall before the actual offering, and they loved the beautiful flower arrangement in the Uposatha as well the flowers in the garden.

Next year please make sure to attend the Kathina at our monastery.