Be a pagoda boy - but little is known about Dhamma
I took shelter with monks in the Buddhist temples in the major parts of my childhood so that I can attend school. This is a great complement to my subsistence since my family was very poor and there is no school available in my home village or the nearby one.
Besides the education opportunity in the pagoda schools and then the public school, I had come very close with the Buddhist life since pagoda and monks are the institution in charge of maintaining and developing Buddhist teaching and practice. Unfortunately, my knowledge about Buddhist teaching and practices is still limited, though it is far better than other boy who have no comparable opportunity to me.
There are two groups of boys who take refuse in the pagoda. Female children cannot have such an opportunity because it is restricted under the Buddhist principle. The first group are boys who pursue their to study of Buddhist prayer as the core purpose while writing, reading, and calculation are also learnt to master the illiteracy. This group is aimed to ordain into monkshood when he grown up in both education and age. The second group of boys children including me who take refuse with the monk and pursue the education in the public school. This group rarely become monks. There are quite a number of people from the second group, though poor, can obtain middle to high education because of the support of the monks and the temple. Besides their main focus on education, they provide some services to support the monks like cooking food, make tea, filling water for daily use, etc.
The group of mine had not been taught how to pray. I know some daily praying only when I was very young about 5 or 6 years old. At that time, I have no idea why I come to stay with the monks - the simple reason was to follow my cousin whose parents put him in the pagoda to study literature and praying. We used to walk together along with kids in our village everyday for about three Kilometers from home to school located in the pagoda. We need to go in group so that we can protect each other against wild animal or other incidence. Along the road, we used to play with each other and some times we fight in the childish manner. When my cousin stopped joining us it becomes a big loss for me. Who will protect me against the bigger child. That fear pushed me to take refuse with the monk in joining my cousin without prior notice to my family. Before come to stay in the pagoda, I stayed with my grand-parents in view to alleviate the burden on my widowed mother since my father was passed away when I was one year-old. When learning that I already stayed at the pagoda, my grand parents, my uncles and aunts were worry about me. The most concern of them was that I would starve of food since food is insufficient in the pagoda. Fortunately, I have strong support from the chief of pagoda who know my grandpa very well. With his influence, older boys have to take care of me and share food with me.
Besides the education opportunity in the pagoda schools and then the public school, I had come very close with the Buddhist life since pagoda and monks are the institution in charge of maintaining and developing Buddhist teaching and practice. Unfortunately, my knowledge about Buddhist teaching and practices is still limited, though it is far better than other boy who have no comparable opportunity to me.
There are two groups of boys who take refuse in the pagoda. Female children cannot have such an opportunity because it is restricted under the Buddhist principle. The first group are boys who pursue their to study of Buddhist prayer as the core purpose while writing, reading, and calculation are also learnt to master the illiteracy. This group is aimed to ordain into monkshood when he grown up in both education and age. The second group of boys children including me who take refuse with the monk and pursue the education in the public school. This group rarely become monks. There are quite a number of people from the second group, though poor, can obtain middle to high education because of the support of the monks and the temple. Besides their main focus on education, they provide some services to support the monks like cooking food, make tea, filling water for daily use, etc.
The group of mine had not been taught how to pray. I know some daily praying only when I was very young about 5 or 6 years old. At that time, I have no idea why I come to stay with the monks - the simple reason was to follow my cousin whose parents put him in the pagoda to study literature and praying. We used to walk together along with kids in our village everyday for about three Kilometers from home to school located in the pagoda. We need to go in group so that we can protect each other against wild animal or other incidence. Along the road, we used to play with each other and some times we fight in the childish manner. When my cousin stopped joining us it becomes a big loss for me. Who will protect me against the bigger child. That fear pushed me to take refuse with the monk in joining my cousin without prior notice to my family. Before come to stay in the pagoda, I stayed with my grand-parents in view to alleviate the burden on my widowed mother since my father was passed away when I was one year-old. When learning that I already stayed at the pagoda, my grand parents, my uncles and aunts were worry about me. The most concern of them was that I would starve of food since food is insufficient in the pagoda. Fortunately, I have strong support from the chief of pagoda who know my grandpa very well. With his influence, older boys have to take care of me and share food with me.
In light of the progress in education, I moved from on pagoda to another which was closer to my primary school, secondary school, high school, and college. Though the time spent in the pagodas were relatively long, my knowledge of Buddha teaching and practice was far minimal. Lately, when I was at college, there was time for pagoda boys to pray once a week on Sunday night. It was short, but good time for me to learn praying and listened to Venerable Ngin Phen who explain some Buddhist teaching in plain language. He can interpret Buddhist teaching in simple language because he obtained Bachelor Degree in Khmer literature ( License es Litterature Khmere.)
The above story indicates that though I have the opportunity to stay very close to the source of Buddhism, little is known. What is the gap of knowledge or awareness of the Dhamma in Khmer society in general?
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