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Kathina – The Splendid Robe Offering Ceremony Sunday,
2 November 2014 at Wat Phra Dhammakaya, Thailand
Supreme merits that take place only once a year
Kathina Robe Offering is a wonderful Buddhist tradition that has been preserved for over 2500 years since the Lord Buddha’s time. It is a custom established by the Buddha permitting the lay community to make a respectful offering of robes to monks who have spent three months during Buddhist Lent purifying their mind and body. The objective as envisioned by the Buddha was to foster harmony in the monastic community and to allow virtuous monks with worn out robes to receive new sets. The fruit from this great deed is tremendous—as expounded in one of the Buddha’s teachings that sanghadana, the offering of generosity, yields positive consequences for the donor.
Kathina is a special event to accumulate tremendous merits that Buddhists eagerly look forward to each year. It is one of the more difficult merits to perform as compared to other merits due to the following reasons.
1) Restriction of time – Kathina has to be conducted within one month after the final day of Buddhist Lent;
2) Restriction in the type of offering – the offering is made to the entire monastic community, not to any one particular monk like other offerings;
3) Restriction of frequency – it can be conducted only once a year;
4) Restriction of recipient – in order to conduct Kathina, there has to be a minimum of five monks who had resideded at a specific temple or location during the entire three months of Buddhist Lent;
5) Restriction of time to contemplate the robe – the venerable monk designated to receive the Kathina Robe must complete the ritual to contemplate the robe the same day that it was offered;
6) Restriction of cloth – the Kathina Robe has to be one of the monk’s set of three robes. Sanghati, or the most external robe, is traditionally chosen to be the Kathina Robe.
The merits from offering Kathina Robe
Be prosperous in all endeavors.
Gain admiration, respect and support from everyone.
Be replete with great material wealth.
Have purity in all our actions, speech and thoughts.
Easily attain the Dhammakaya within.
Be reborn only in the heavenly realm.
Kathina Ceremony Program Schedule
Morning Session:
6:30 Alms Offering
09:30 Meditation
Ceremonial Food Offering to the Buddha
11:00 Food Offering to the Monastic Community
Afternoon Session:
13:30 Kathina Robe Offering Ceremony
Meditation
15:30 End of Ceremony
18:00 Contemplation of the Kathina Robe
(In order to preserve the sacred atmosphere and the wonderful Buddhist culture,
please kindly come dressed in all white attire when attending the ceremony.)
For more information, please contact: 02-831-1000
or visit www.dhammakaya.net www.dhammakayapost.org
Lord Buddha once said whoever invites others to join in making merit when cultivating great merits will be reborn in a fortunate realm replete with abundant wealth and retinues.
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