At the vihara

  Today I was invited (at the last minute of course) to go to the vihara, Buddhist monastery, just up the road, and give food offerings to the bhikkus (senior monks) and samaneras (maybe something like seminarians).  The vihara has become my second home as I have gone together with friends to have long chats with Sister Mutia, a "holder of the eight precepts."  She has been there since 1995, after studying to be a Protestant theologian and deacon for six years in Holland and after that, three years as a Hindu in Bali.  What a journey!  I only had time today to gather up some cookies from my pantry, although Mutia had offered to buy some from their own store, but I didn't find her.  So I humbly, really humbly, offered my cookies to the monks who passed by with their begging bowls by the table of foodstuffs arrayed in front of a line of lay people.  I had seen this practice of monks going out begging, and lay people acquiring "merit" by offering from their own food.  But here I was participating in it.  An even bigger privilege awaited me.  While all the hundred monks or so were eating,  I sat with some of the laity in the back of the dining hall, where I was suddenly told by a very young novice nun that I would be offering my food to the Abbot!  I was feeling so chagrined, and saying, "I don't have any food left; I gave it all away," when suddenly a tray of goodies, fermented coconut and "sticky rice" appeared, and I was able to bring it up to the front of the hall, in front of the hundred or so monks and about fifty lay people, laying it at the table of the head monk, Bhanti Kanti.  There were tears in my eyes as I offered it to him, and said, "I feel so privileged" to be able to do this.  Indeed, I felt more privileged than I had ever felt as a Fulbright scholar here.  The privilege was that of a simple human being being acknowledged just for that.