Recently my wife accepted a facebook friend request from a monk we had met as part of the Sangha we hosted some time back. He stays in touch frequently and one thing that always comes up is he complains about money, not having enough to travel to events, and at times even flat out requesting money f...

First off, I understand that the concept of Five Tathāgatas is derived from Mahayana and Vajrayana sources. However while recently visiting a Khmer Buddhsit Temple I saw a tapestry hanging on a wall of the Five Tathāgatas which led to some confusion on my part... without a doubt I'm pretty sure that...

Hello All, Does anyone know of a specific overview of a traditional Khmer Buddhist Funeral process? I've attended quite a few and while I'm aware of the rituals and the process, I was curious if there was a very specific overview of the process covering what is optional and required. For example, at...

Thanks, I picked up "In the Buddhas Words" last night and read through the first chapter... really good tome.

As a westerner, I would assume that one seeking to become a monk already has an appreciation for Asian cultures and would be willing to try what is offered to them. Some of the more exotic dishes might be less appetizing however. As someone who spent 3 days as a monk, I felt that there was a wide va...

Thanks all for the replies. To answer some of the questions, it is a pretty large local library so they have quite a few books, plus a large a collection of ebooks and audiobooks that can be checked out online. I think Kim OHara hit the mark on the reason for this... if I were to look at the shelves...

Hi All, In my recent exploration of Buddhism I had quite a difficult time finding appropriate books to checkout from our library. Despite 15 or so bookshelves full of books on buddhism, it took quite a while to find something that contained the actual texts... instead they were books that were comme...

Hi all, This past weekend I became a Khmer Theravadin Monk for my father-in-law's funeral as he had no blood sons to take on the role. While I spent this time in deep meditation studying the Dhammapada and participating in the ceremonies, the prayers/vows I had to recite on Friday night and and Sund...