Description of a Cambodian Buddhist Temple

Upon arriving at the temple, this was a much different temple, and experience than any other temple I had been to. As we entered the building, we were directed to a man who told us to remove our shoes before entering. After going inside, he told us how the service was going to work.

The group continued to remove their shoes and go inside where we were instructed to sit on out knees. The main altar in the room was encompassed by a giant statue of Buddha that was additionally surrounded by many other golden statues. The scriptural texts of the Theravada were on both sides of the main altar. Many of the lay people came to have a piece of white string tied to their right wrist (this symbolized good luck) and to receive blessings from the head monk before the service was to begin. Many of the students, including myself participated in this process, as we were invited to.

After this the service began, and the head monk spoke in Pali for nearly the entire time. This was unexpected because it was very much unlike the Mahayana Korean temple I went to last semester, where Korean was spoken the entire time. This service also seemed more involved than the Mahayana as several monks sitting on dais lead the service while the rest of the worshippers followed. It was also a nice change of pace to hear them chanting, because they did not simply chant and re-chant Buddha's name over and over again.

After the service was over, again like the other service, there was food prepared outside. The food was traditional food set up in various tents. During this time, we could also go and witness the monks obtaining alms from the lay people. They did this by forming a large circle and holding bags of food. The monks proceeded to take the offerings with their silver alms bowls and went from person to person around the circle. Most of the alms were simple portions of food such as fruit, water, and rice. It could easily be seen that this was a very ceremonial process and the people giving the alms were sincere in their approach to the monks.

Finally we went downstairs in the building where there was an enormous amount of food that had been given from the lay people. This was all prepared for the monks and set in front of them because they were not allowed to touch anything that was given to them. The monks proceeded to eat the food that was given to them, and then the lay people ate after the monks had concluded with their meal.

This was truly a great experience as the food was delicious, the temple was extremely impressive, and the service was very meticulous. It was also inspiring and moving to see how involved the people of the service were involved in the lives of the monks.