Pichest-Monday Morning Offering and Prayers

Every Monday students are supposed to show up with offerings for the Buddha. We each needed 1 packet of white or yellow candles, 1 package of incense, 1 bundle of flowers and 3-4 pieces of fruit along with our tuition in an envelope with our name on it. Once there we were to take one of the red offering bowls, place the envelope on the bottom followed by the candles-wicks facing the Buddha shrine, incense with the burning end facing the Buddha, and then flowers on top. The fruit was to go in a separate basket.

Once everything was in it's place we each sat down 2 to a Thai mat. Pichest then spoke for about an hour or so at which point we were directed to pray with him. Everything was in Thai so I just followed his bowing pattern and listened. We prayed for at least 30 minutes when we reached the time for our offerings. Pichest would point to each person, one at a time, at which point we were each to go up to our bowl, raise it to our head, place it in front of the Buddha and bow three times.

When Allie described the whole process that morning it seemed kind of daunting. Not because it was difficult, but because I think we all wanted to make sure to do it right to show our respect to the man who would be teaching us for the next week. It all went smoothly in the end. No one tripped and fell on any of the plethora of Buddha statues in the shrine area. And the experience definitely set the tone for the week which involves praying for 20-40 minutes every morning and 10-15 minutes at the end of each day.

Everything was uncharted territory for me, but it felt good and it really opened my mind...not in a religious way, it's already pretty open there. But something about the rhythm of the praying really relaxed my mind, priming it for the day's lessons.