Rise and Rice: Stories of Sustenance and Support
We are so pleased that various international meditators and yogis continue to send donations with a request that we share with Buddhist monastic sites in Burma, as they have spent time in these places and now are keeping them in their minds and hearts by providing such wonderful support.
In 2016, The Guardian news stated the Sakkya-dhītā Nunnery as one of the world’s largest nunneries. It is true. It offers Buddhist monastic education for over 300 nuns in its main campus in Sagaing while its different branches across the country also accommodate and offer education for other hundreds of nuns. We visited the sacred site and donated the alms-rice sacks of the international donors to the Head Nun in her eighties. We transported the rice sacks from Mandalay and our truck driver was stopped by the members of the junta’s security forces at the checkpoint in the western end of the Sagaing Bridge because it carried 20 sacks of rice (10 sacks for four monasteries) and 10 sacks for Sakkya- dhītā nunnery. Although it had a delay for a while, the driver could solve it by just answering that the rice sacks were for Sakkya- dhītā nunnery and they let him go, then. Because this was truthful and so by the expression of this truth we were able to ensure all the rice reached exactly where they were needed to go.
When we reached the nunnery, the Head Nun received us in a guest room and made some chit-chats as well as a Dharma speech. Later, she asked one of her young assistant nuns to take us to the Bamboo-peeled Buddha Statue on a small hill in the nunnery compound. It truly deserved its high reputation because we could well observe the daily practices of the residing nuns. We witnessed different groups of nuns were preparing to offer alms-rice and food to every Buddha statue inside every pagodas in the nunnery compound. They all were offering the food to the Buddha statues as the alive Buddha, chanting in tune and a pleasant harmonious sound.
After we witnessed their practice to offer food to the Buddha as alive, we were sent to the dining hall and we were asked to get ready to offer cooked rice to the plates which the nuns were holding in their hands. At the entrance of the dining hall, we stood at two different tables on which the big steel bowls of cooked rice were put, and the nuns came in two parallel lines. We put the rice into the nuns’ plates and they went in the dining hall. For the delights of the rice sacks donors, our volunteers were asked to offer cooked rice to the nuns as the same as the cooked rice donors do. It was intended to pass the message that the rice sacks donation would be the daily food donation on those days when there is no sponsorship for cooked rice.
The Head Nun took a seat in the middle of all the nuns after they also sat in the tables and she requested them to start sending loving kindness to the rice sacks donors, stating that they were from outside of Myanmar. She also told us that the rice sacks donation would be the same as offering cooked rice every day.
She continued, “That’s why, for your delights, we asked you to put (cooked) rice into the nuns’ plates as in the occasions that we asked the donors of cooked rice. So, you attain the delights and you can recall the memory every time you think about it. Also, please, share your delights with the donors.” We never felt blessed and blissful before this time: we truly attained the best happiness to offer our voluntary service (Veyyāvecca Dāna) this time.