Our stay at the Dharma Center was eye-opening. Our guide, Laurie was a very nice, funny, wise, old man from Australia. It was our first time with an English translator at a temple so it was inspiring to learn the history and true methods of Buddhism.
The first day we traveled to the border of Burma and learned about the history of conflict between the different villages. We saw some photographs of places inside Burma where tourists are not allowed into.
The next day we all awoke at 5 AM for chanting which was definitely a first for our group, but was nice watching the sunrise that morning. We helped clean up a nearby building in the center and then headed to a ceremony that our monk was participating in. We got there and noticed that it was a Monk lottery. One of the monks from the temple we were staying at won a huge prize and bought us some drinks! We then helped harvest rice with the novice monks, which was nice and messy, but everybody dove in and got dirty.
We chanted again at 7, which we continued to do every day we were there.
The next day we taught English at the school where all the novice monks study during the week. We split up in groups of two and each took a class. The teacher’s thanked us immensely.
We then helped plaster two of the adobe houses at the Dharma Center, which was very fun and a good way to beat the heat. We already learned how to make the bricks at Pun Pun so it was good to learn how to plaster the adobe as well.
The morning before we left we helped make pressed bricks from sifted soil, sand, and concrete. Â After that we left for Chiang Mai and in a couple days are heading on train for Ayuttaya to see their beautiful temples.
We’re gonna miss you Laurie!
SEASIA 4 Life