September 29, 2005

Monk Bhante Seelagavesi, who is teaching at the Dharma Center, plans to collect alms from local residents.

By Lauren Heaton

For the next three weeks between 10 and 11 a.m., villagers may see a shaven, barefoot monk in traditional brown robes walking the streets with an alms bowl in his arms. It may seem to some that this monk, Bhante Seelagavesi, who is teaching at the Yellow Springs Dharma Center, is soliciting charity. But from the Buddhist perspective, Bhante is offering the community an opportunity to practice the virtues of openhearted generosity and gratitude.

Since the Buddha’s time, fully ordained monks in Asia have been called to depend on others for their sustenance by collecting offerings of food once a day from their communities. But according to Amanda Bilecki, a member of the Dharma Center board of trustees, since Buddhism is relatively new in America, communities are not accustomed to supporting religious practitioners in this way. Begging for food is often considered a disgraceful and lazy way of making a living, she said.

But Bhante, a high-ordained monk from Sri Lanka, said he considers pindapatta, or alms collection, to be one of the most respected Buddhist traditions, and one that best bridges the gap between the practitioners and the community. It gives community members a way to develop compassionate hearts and minds by giving food to those who need it because “they have not trained their minds to earn” money, he said. The practice also frees monks from daily household chores so they may devote themselves to teaching the community a peaceful way of living, he said.

Bhante allows himself to eat just one meal a day, before noon. Beginning around 10 a.m. for an hour each day, he intends to roam with his alms bowl and accept offerings of vegetarian food, hot or cold, from residents who want to give, he said.

Because this is the first time pindapatta has been conducted in Yellow Springs, Bhante hopes that the initial rounds are prearranged by telephoning him at the Dharma Center. He will chant a healing prayer at the doorstep and then continue on to other homes, including those of interested persons who see him on his route.

Bilecki said that Bhante’s pindapatta is an opportunity for Yellow Springs to practice interdependence at its most fundamental level. Because Bhante has renounced all worldly possessions except for three robes and an alms bowl, he must have unconditional faith that others will provide him with food, shelter and medical care, she said. The spiritual training he undertakes to trust that he can remain a devoted practitioner and teacher even when those needs are not met is extremely difficult, Bilecki said. He must be prepared to go hungry or to do without some days.

Pindapatta also helps Bhante to develop a more compassionate mind, he said, because he is training to feel equal love toward those who give and those who do not. It is the unconditional love toward others that is difficult to sustain, he said, as his stomach grinds for its one meal a day. Conversely, others giving unconditionally to him is a way of developing true generosity so that feeding homeless monks can translate into providing for the homeless and the needy who do not earn for other reasons, he said.

Bhante came to the Dharma Center in July for his annual rainy retreat, when monks are asked to leave their temple to spend three consecutive months teaching and practicing meditation in one community. He attends the morning and evening meditation sits at the Dharma Center, gives daily Buddhist teachings, and counsels individuals with healing chants and medicinal herbs.

Since coming he has attracted hundreds of local and area residents as well as Americans and ethnic Sri Lankans from as far away as Cincinnati, New York and London, said Kaanchan, another Dharma Center resident. Bhante’s visit is the village’s longest continual retreat by a monk since the 1960s. He will conclude his retreat on Oct. 21.

Those who wish to contribute food to the pindapatta should contact the Dharma Center at 767-9919.

Contact: lheaton@ysnews.com