Birthdays and Alms offering...

The weekend past was another birthday celebration. This time around: It's AL's birthday. Her birthday was on Sept 7th. So, the night before we had a little dinner treat for her. As I was on a veggie sabbatical, and she felt like eating vegetables that saturday, We had our dinner at Nature's Green Restaurant in Section 8, PJ. Partners in crime included TO, CS, XY and K. It was the usual chinese dinner with a few courses of vegetables. I got her a few presents for her home's Feng Shui make over.

K, XY, TO, AL & CS - see the small birthday cake below...

On a sunday morning, was up at half past 4 in the morning, preparing oneself to do volunteer work at the Inaugural Alms Offering for 1,000 monks event held at Bukit Jalil National Stadium. I got another friend , CW to come and offer help too. TO came over to pick us up around 5.30 am. Yeah... I only had a few hours sleep and was feeling really sleepy throughout the whole thing but I was happy as I was given this special opportunity to help and to give alms offering.

Giving alms to Buddhist monks is a wonderful tradition in Buddhism. This act teaches us to be generous and giving, It help to reflect on ourselves all the time not to be greedy. The event started at half past 7 am and with the usual opening ceremony and speeches given by ministers and chairmans and important guests. The prayers started. This event is special as about 800 over monks from Thailand and 200 more from the local temples, converged to participate in this event.

The feeling of joy and inner peace as I see saffron clothed monks, maroon clothed forest monks and along with the other Buddhist tradition monks from the Mahayana and Vajarayana monks walked slowly with dignified pace to receive alms from devotees. Words can't describe this... only pictures can...