[Buddha-l] Re: Soccer mad monks too tired to take alms

[Michael J. Wilson]

Oh my--------and let it be noted, one gains no merit by offering the alms 
food to the mae chi (quasi nuns in every monastery).
JoannaJoanna, 
  
  I have met Tibetan ani, and Corean biguni, but not the mae chi.  I  think they don't shave their heads right, so they are kind of quasi  nuns?  The only Thai buddhist I can claim to have met is Sulak  Sivaraksa who came to McMaster University on the invite of early Indian  buddhist scholar and engaged buddhist Graeme MacQueen.  Frank  Tedesco, a Corean buddhist scholar and activist, asked me to go and  hear his talk and I am very glad I did.  Sulak was a delightful  speaker:
  http://www.sulak-sivaraksa.org/web/
  
  I'd like to recommend the Tibetan soccer movie "The Cup" , just in the spirit of the times:
  http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20000211/REVIEWS/2110303/1023
  
  I used to teach english to a Corean biguni at her secluded toegul,  rustic hut with no electricity or running water, on the forested  mountains in central Corea.  She had a very supportive and popular  group of lay sangha, when she wasn't in meditation sessions at the Son  (jp: Zen) temples.  I would say her stature and merit would have  been the equivalent of any male monk in Corea.   I had no idea  that giving alms to a nun might not have any merit attached to  it.  Mahayana monks don't have the begging rituals of their  hinayana counterparts I understand.  In one sense we become  buddhists because we lack merit ourselves, and wish to gather more, by  making offering, giving and other perfections.  Is that another  reason why I often repeat sutras to the buddhist goddesses?
  
  Korean Soccer fans at the World Cup are waving flags with Korea spelled  "Corea".  Apparently it was the Japanese colonizers who changed  the spelling to the "K" because "K" comes AFTER "J".  The French  spelling Coree might be closer to the way it originally emerged in our  lexicon.  Sulak still likes to call his homeland Siam.  In  Toronto, it is kind of neat, from a globalization perspective, to see  Tibetan community soccer teams playing against Burmese (not  Myanamarese) soccer teams.  Apparently the Burmese might be better  at the sport.  
  
  mjwilson
  

 		
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