Out for Alms


I suppose I wasn't aware that Buddhist monks go out for alms until a very later stage in life. Chinese Buddhist monks under the Mahayana traditions don't do that, I suppose; but it's the norm for Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka, India, Myanmar and Thailand who follow the Theravada traditions. For many years now, Chinese in Malaysia have been exposed to Theravada Buddhism and over here in Taiping, a Chinese Buddhist monk residing in a mountain may come down to the local morning market to collect food; not as big a scale outing of monks like in neighbouring Thailand. A picture posted in Facebook suggests that the monks there are still allowed out to go for alms despite the present pandemic.

Here're some monks on alms round:



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