March of the Monks : Buddhists’ Weekly Walk for Alms, an Oddity to Many, Is Ancient Ritual

Walking single-file, the Thai monks slip unnoticed through a residential section of North Hollywood each Saturday at sunup.

They move deliberately, their sandals flapping softly against the sidewalk, their orange robes billowing. Sooner or later, their orange robes betray their presence.

A dog barks. Sleepy-eyed motorists stare.

“I don’t know where they go,” said Richard Holmquist, who paused while tying a bag of garbage in his driveway to watch the procession. “They come by every week. I call them the Orange Brigade.”

Though an oddity to neighbors, the march of the monks is an ancient ritual meant to help rid them of earthly desire, a first step on the path to Buddhist enlightenment.

The route takes them from the Wat Thai temple to the front yards of about a dozen Thai-American families. There, the monks are offered fruit, rice, bags of curried meat and bottles of water from small tables or the hoods of cars.

In Thailand, where most of the population is Buddhist, providing food for monks has been practiced for centuries and is not considered charity. By feeding monks, adherents help their mentors become free of material needs, which in turn enhances their own spirituality.

“Hello, Phra Setthakit,” Nith Duangkam, 77, said in Thai, bowing deeply as she scooped rice into his bowl. “I’m sorry, I cannot come to the temple tomorrow.”

“That’s too bad,” Setthakit said. “I hope you can come soon.”

In Los Angeles, which has the world’s largest Thai community outside Thailand, the alms walk is largely symbolic. The monks say it helps them and their followers remember who they are in the concrete sprawl.

Outside another home, Phra Anon Puangsuwan poked his wooden bowl through his robe to accept a neatly wrapped bundle of skewered meat and a box of chocolate milk from a woman bent respectfully low.

Later, Phra Anon confided, “I like chocolate milk.” But, perhaps sensing a transgression, he quickly added: “I like all food the same.”

The monks work to shed all desire, and the achievement is their source of holiness. They succeed to varying degrees, depending partly on how long they spend in monkhood. Anon, 57, quit his computer data entry job three months ago to spend five months as a monk at Wat Thai before he begins another job in Hawaii. For Thai men, joining a temple for at least a few months of their lives is considered crucial to understanding the Buddha’s teachings.

“My life has been about getting things,” Anon said. “I am learning that money is not so important. Maybe when I go back, I won’t be so attached to it.”

Back at the temple, the rice, curries, bananas, grapes and other foods are prepared by volunteers for the 20 monks who live at Wat Thai--the largest Thai temple in the United States. But the supplies will last only a day. The rest of the week, a cook hired by temple supporters prepares food for the monks, who, according to the teachings of Buddha, are forbidden to handle money.

*

More than 17,000 Thais live in Los Angeles County, according to 1990 census figures, with six temples serving their spiritual community.

Phra Sumana, head monk at Wat Thai, said thousands visit the temple each month to ask advice from the monks, pray or study Thai language, dance and flower arranging.

The monks keep no membership rolls.

“People are free to come and go,” Sumana said. “I only know there are many who come.”

*

The monks usually stay within the two-acre temple, where they chant in groups in the morning and evening, meditate alone during the day and perform chores such as sweeping and decorating.

A strict interpretation of the Buddha’s teachings allows them only eight possessions: two robes and an undergarment (all saffron colored), a bowl for accepting food, a razor for keeping the head and face shaved, a sewing needle, orange thread and a cloth water filter.

“We don’t need anything more,” said Phrakru Setthakit Samahito, a 30-year monk, demonstrating how one robe is used for a pillow while the other serves as a blanket. “We can sleep on the ground if we need to.”

A few other accouterments, such as eyeglasses, sandals and socks, have made their way onto the unofficial possessions list.

*

Living in Los Angeles, too, has forced the monks to abandon a few taboos. Sumana admits to having been forced several times to drive to a grocery store himself, because no help was available.

“A monk in a store does not look right,” Sumana said. “But we have to adjust.”

As have the neighbors of the temple.

Certainly, the sight of the robed monks jaywalking across Coldwater Canyon Boulevard is as bizarre as that of their ornate, gold-leafed temple flanked by a Mobil station and a tract of stucco homes.

A block west of Wat Thai is the independent evangelical Grace Community Church of the Valley, which the monks walk past each Saturday morning.

“They look like they’re out for Halloween,” said Rod Smith, security guard and member of the church, as he watched them pass. “I pity them. I believe they are lost.”

Other neighbors, though, are less derisive.

“They are part of the community,” said Vytautas Barkus, a Lithuanian American who walks his dogs near the temple. “They are very peaceful. They cheer me up.”