Tak Bat: The Buddhist Alms Ceremony in Laos and Cambodia

Awake before the roosters, we tumbled into a tuk-tuk with a local guide and an armful of supplies. Over fitful engine coughs, I strained to hear the rules that he shared regarding how to behave during “tak bat,” the daily offering of food to the monks.

“When you serve rice,” he said, “you must not look at the monk’s face. Keep your head bowed.” As a woman, I had to take care not to touch the monks when I placed rice in their bowls. We would stay silent through the ceremony.

We were on our way to the main road in Luang Prabang, Laos. Laos remains one of five communist countries in the world. As with all communist revolutions, religious practices were banned. A law forbade tak bat. With vows of poverty, monks do not produce their own food. The outlawing of alms equated to the devastation of monasteries.

The Lao people rejected this assault on their faith. Aided by broader geopolitical forces when the USSR collapsed, a truce between communism and Buddhism emerged. Overturning the law banning tak bat, the practice resumed, and monasteries came back to life with monks. Communism could not crush their culture.

I took my place in line with the locals to experience the resilient practice.

Tak Bat, Luang Prabang

We laid out plastic mats and baskets filled with sticky rice. Also known as “glutinous rice,” the varietal does not have a certain starch element that separates the grains. Each monk would receive a golf-ball sized serving in his bowl as he passed by in walking meditation.

Waiting and fidgeting, I tried to sit like the women next to me. I thought I could show respect and blend in by sitting on my heels. However, my legs seized with cramps. While I moved to a cross-legged position, my guide admonish me; “your feet must point behind you, not point towards the monks.” As I swung my feet around to the right side of my torso, I leaned forward. This brought a new correction; “tie your sash tighter,” he cautioned. Despite layers of conservative clothing, he worried about my modesty. I reached behind my back to tie a stronger knot in the borrowed sash that pressed my sweater tighter to my skin.

A drum sounded. Dawn broke. Tak Bat had begun.

The only sound now was a metallic “ting-ting” from each monk’s bowl as he closed the lid that had briefly opened in front of each person for their offering. A conveyor belt of bare feet and orange robes moved quickly past me. Occasionally I glanced at my neighbor. Her impeccable rice portions were uniform and timed to the open lid. Ting. Thick and gluey, the rice resisted my fingers when I scooped it. Sometimes I did not create the rice clump quickly enough and missed serving a monk. He would open his bowl for nothing. Ting, the lid closed. I hoped my guide could not see my misfires in the faint morning light.

Our offerings would be the only sustenance the monks had all day. They would take their food bowls back to the monastery and collectively share the food. These offerings would be consumed by noon, after which the monks’ daily fast resumed.

For the people, their devotion to this ritual connects to their ideas of rebirth. By feeding the monks, they earn spiritual merit, an investment in a more auspicious rebirth in the pursuit of nirvana, the end of suffering.

With physical and spiritual nourishment in play, I resolved to seek out tak bat in future travels. Years later, my next SE Asia trip started in Cambodia.

Cambodia

Cambodia is also deeply Buddhist, despite a massacre of monks during the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s. The Khmer Rouge aimed to blast their neighbors back to a primitive “year zero.” More than 50 years later, the country still suffers from their success; for example, Cambodian currency has so little value, their ATMs dispense American dollars.

After guarding my heart from absorbing the scale of suffering, I stumbled onto it in a field. I saw a particular Zebu cow breed that I knew from India. I inquired why this island outside Phnom Penh had cows with floppy humps on their back and chest. I learned that the cows descended from a herd that India donated and flew into the country. There had simply been no cows left when Cambodia needed to recover from war.

There were no active monasteries either. A few monks escaped execution and found refuge in Thailand. For the monks willing to return after the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge, they faced the struggle to rebuild temples and culture. Their newly constructed monasteries, built with scarce resources, cannot compete with the aesthetics of Angkor Wat. However, as symbols of human resilience, they have a heart-catching beauty. They inspire hope.

Tak Bat, Battambang

I experienced a Tak Bat in Battambang, a city in the far northwest of Cambodia. Like Luang Prabang, Battambang is a river town and former French colony. I bathed in the vibe and humidity. Frogs croaked, temple gongs chimed, scooters kicked up trails of rust-colored dust. Two-story colonial architecture decayed, supporting a jumble of electrical wires overhead. Along the river, cafes served mango juice and sweet coffee. One street vendor prepared grilled honeycomb while another scissored snails the size of a fist into a curry cooking over open coals.

People smiled, made eye contact and asked their typical greeting, “Hello! Are you happy?” “Susaday! Sok Sa Bai?” This expression felt both incongruous and incredibly hopeful in what is still a war-wounded land.

I walked towards the central market. A group of women called out, “Susaday! Sok Sa Bai?” I joined them as they laughed and gossiped and packaged fish for the monks, stacking plastic bags into brightly colored laundry hampers.

About 9am, the monks arrived on bare feet, swaddled in orange robes, wooden bowls in hand. The women walked down the line of monks ladling out servings of rice and fish. Then, the women bowed, their day started with an act of generosity, their hands in prayer. The monks chanted a blessing before moving on to another shop.

A religious rhythm flows into everyday activities and into every life in this community. Traditionally, every male joins a monastery at some point in his life. There is a Cambodian phrase for a man who has not yet fulfilled his monastery duty; he is said to be “unripe.” Temples teem with boys as young as seven through to old men as they cycle through their service.

Luang Prabang. A return trip.

After Cambodia, I returned to Luang Prabang before heading home. The town had astonished me. I remembered it like a Fabergé egg; exquisite, refined and from another era. I wanted to see it again.

Reaching back before the communists, before French colonialism, and before Thailand’s domination, Luang Prabang had been the capital of one of the largest kingdoms in SE Asia. From 1353 until the early eighteenth century, Lan Xang Hom Khao, romantically translated as “The Land of a Million Elephants and the White Parasol” extended well beyond the modern borders of Laos. As the home of kings, Luang Prabang holds a legacy of riches. Temples are artistic marvels. Their swooping rooftops are said to look like birds about to soar. Their walls are embellished with gold stenciled dancers and glittering mosaics. Interiors overflow with statues, which are even more atmospheric in the evening when they are lit by an abundance of candles and the monks are chanting.

The geographical setting of the town amplifies this chimera of an enchanted kingdom. Nestled between the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers, the town’s cooling breezes carried the scent of frangipani. Boating down the Mekong at sunset, I watched fisherman in long tail boats cast their nets. Farmers lugged river water with metal cans strung out on long poles across their shoulders up the banks to irrigate vegetables. White and black water buffalo bathed, off-duty for now.

Before dawn, I went out to see the alms ceremony. Instead of a single drum sounding at dawn, a bullhorn broke the silence. Foreign guides bellowed at large groups of tourists, their tour buses belched fumes. Hawkers sold plastic-wrapped junk food and stale rice for tourists to pass out to the monks. People in shorts and tank tops jostled each other for a prime position to photograph the monks. Bright flashes brought on temporarily blindness. I ran.

Saddened by the spectacle, I sat on steps that descended to the riverbank. I recalled the reverence of my original guide who had facilitated my original participation. While I ruminated, a group of monks filed past me to waiting boats. In addition to their traditional food bowls, they carried plastic sacks of sodas, instant noodles, and candy bars.

It seemed that spirituality and authenticity had been sacrificed to tourism.

Disappointed that commercialism had overrun sacred Luang Prabang, I walked to a favorite café for breakfast. For the first time I noticed that the large flowerpots flanking the entrance were made from bomb casings. Another legacy from the 1970’s, the murderous metal burst with coral flowers; weapons transformed to containers for life.

Hope bubbled. People who nurtured their culture through communism and reeducation camps could expect to endure crass tourism. Perhaps the cosmic scorekeeper for nirvana even has a sense of humor, awarding “bonus” merit to people who feed the monks through a gauntlet of selfie sticks instead of feeding them under ideal conditions.

This daily exchange of what the body needs for what the spirit needs feels enduring. May their commitment to culture triumph again.

A few more photos…..