I am just finishing seven days of one of the most fulfilling, uplifting, and spiritually joyful times in my life. It was very physically austere but very spiritually fulfilling.
The Alms Bowl in my lap is for receiving food the community may share with you at sunrise and before noon. After that, you drink liquids until the following sunrise. Unless it is a special day like this, you walk through the community and receive food from the community.
Our elder Dakota Itancha’s were like this. You only took what the community gave you or what you received from the natural world. You didn’t ask for anything from the community. You graciously received what they gave you.
Also, when you visited someone, you always ate what you were offered. You never refused. Sometimes, when I was traveling to different Quechua communities, I would eat five or six times a day.
This morning, at 4:00 AM, we had a special chant and meditation for relatives who have passed on to the Other Side Camp.
Then at 7:00 AM, elders came and brought all kinds of food, and younger community members had work.
Before we were given food, the community performed a long chant in Pali. In return, we performed a long chant in Pali, and then we were served a vast number of different Thai foods prepared by the community. They were very good and tasty.
Although both Sanskrit and Pali come from close proximity, Sanskrit, the foundation language of Krishna and the language in which the Mahabharata was written, is the oldest known religious text and the foundation of German, an exact and scientific language. They are very different.
Sanskrit is a noun-dominated language that sees the world as a snapshot. Pali, like Dakota and other Indigenous languages, is a verb-dominated language that sees the world as a video.
I am doing my best to do both. Then, you can just run the video stop and get a snapshot when needed.
Translating from English to Thai or any translation between verb- and noun-dominated languages is challenging.
For instance, God is a noun, a thing—very different from “ Something Sacred Moving!” I am not a linguist, but I sure enjoy learning!
