I went to Ruam Sang on the alms round for the first time today with Tan B. You need a key to leave through the door that’s next to the dye shed. Then you can actually walk with flip-flops 90% of the way and it’s less of a route and more of a destination. You take your shoes off when you get there to go into a small roofed patio where laypeople sat waiting in a large semi-circle to offer us alms food. Having received the offerings, we sit on chairs before them to offer a blessing. Only two monks go on this route and since I was the junior monk, I would start off the second blessing which I’ve gotten to know by now.

With only two monks on the route and no laypeople along the way, I got to know Tan B. well. He told me about how he got into the robes and it’s amazing again to find out how people from various backgrounds end up in the robes in different ways. I also told him about my situation and how and why I became a monk. He’s given me some food for thought about motivations and obligations so I will contemplate on them.

Something odd happened today before the meal. Four of us sat in a row on the asana including myself. I was at one end and Tan T. at the other. He was in the kitchen area to receive alms food offered directly to the temple, a role that always falls to someone. Then when it came for the monks to get our food, normally the person sitting next to that monk still in the kitchen should bring his bowl to him. However, the two monks who sat between us both got up and went without picking up his bowl for him.

My cynical mind immediately went to work and I proceeded down a cycle of unwholesome thoughts. Why did they not help out a fellow monk? Wasn’t it obvious that he wasn’t there? How can they be so selfish! I contemplated on this for a while and there was no reason to assume any of it, nor would it do any good. Perhaps they simply forgot or were not aware. I knew I had a long way to go to combat this mindset that has set in over the years. In the end, I simply carried his bowl to the kitchen for him.

One very minor and lazy upside now that the Mahayana monk has joined is that I’m no longer the most junior monk at Nam Pana. This means that it was now his job to move the drinks box all the way to the head of the queue again. However because he’s from a different discipline, the box must now be re-offered so it’s now Nen P. who has to go deliver the box instead. I feel sorry for him because he’s already having a hard time attending to Ajahn K. Also he’s still learning English so sometimes he doesn’t understand what the Ajahn is asking for. This morning he thought he was being reprimanded when Ajahn was only telling him to go wash his bowl first because Ajahn himself didn’t like to be waited on. I should let Nen P. know that it wasn’t his fault and it’s a chance to eat a little longer.