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Morten's road to enlightenment (2)
After finally finding the right place where the 'Monkchat' is being held, we got our very own young buddhist monk (orange robe and shaved hair and all) to sit down with us and talk. It started out a bit akward (what on earth do you ask a monk?), but turned into a lively talk that answered many of our questions about buddhism and the life of a monk, which apparently requires quite some dedication: Only two meals a day ( and only what they collect as donations every morning by going through the streets with their begging bowls around 6 a.m.), no choice of clothes except for maybe a slight colour variation between their change of robes, and of course - absolutely no sex!
Our 23year old monk was from Burma and had briefly been imprisoned during the monk demonstrations there, but he was rather cool about it. Later we got joined by a second young monk from Bangladesh, who seemed like a rather humorous fellow, but also not quite as sure if he would be able to withstand life's temptations well enough to always be a monk :)
Together they explained the concept of rebirth to us and assured me that - if in this life I was very good, collected merit towards good karma and prayed a lot - I MIGHT be so lucky to be reborn as a boy one day.
Thanks a lot... yet another religion that values women less than men. Not my cup of tea then...
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