KATHINA FESTIVAL

On Sunday, Lai Yoong, Aunt Linda and I went to the Dhamma Pati Meditation Monastery to attend the Kathina Festival. This festival, which originated 2,500 years ago, celebrates the largest alms-giving ceremony of the Buddhist year.

Kathina is a Buddhist festival which comes at the end of Vassa, the three-month rainy season retreat for Theravada Buddhists. The season during which a monastery may hold a Kathina festival is one month long, beginning after the full moon of the eleventh month in the Lunar calendar.
It is a time of giving, for the laity to express gratitude to monks.Lay Buddhists bring donations to temples, especially new robes for the monks.

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