Word: monkhood
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...Vowz presents an opportunity for Tokyo's youth to "wind down and enjoy a drink in religious surroundings," explains Fujioka, who is a member of the Jodo Shin sect. Like Ueno, he studied for four years to qualify for the monkhood, but now seems to have found his mission amid Vowz's barstools and cocktail shakers. There's plenty in the venue to remind him of a monastery, from a miniature butsudan shrine in the corner to Nepalese mandalas on the ceiling, the ever-present haze of incense and a powerful Bose woofer system playing the synthesizer-backed chants...
...According to local lore, the giant snake?which was forbidden from entering the monkhood by the Lord Buddha because it wasn't human?has roamed a subterranean universe known as the Muang Badan for thousands of years, slithering through a vast network of caves and tunnels. The main thoroughfare?the Naga superhighway, if you like?is said to run from Kam Chanode in Udon Thani province to Wat Paa Ahong, a temple on the riverbank more than 100 kilometers away in neighboring Nong Khai. Pilgrims, I was told, visit Kam Chanode to anoint themselves with water from the Naga...
...booming and people were working hard to pay for fancy cars, mobile phones and Versace clothes. Temptations also breached the temple gates. Some Buddhist leaders were now being chauffeured in Mercedes-Benz, wearing silk robes and soliciting fortunes in donations to build ever gaudier houses of worship. "The monkhood used to be a paradigm for society," says Sulak. "Now the monkhood mirrors society, with all its problems...
...second section begins as Berryman leaves America after college. At the same time, he leaves behind some of the callousness of the undergraduate poet. He is overwhelmed by Cambridge, by the poets who have preceded him there, and likewise removed from his hyperactive social life to "Monkhood": "I don't show my work to anybody, I am quite alone. / The only souls I feel toward are Henry Vaughan and Wordsworth." The Berryman of this section is naive, lacking the cocky self-assurance of his undergraduate predecessor. He is easily awed by Paris, and completely stripped of his Columbia sophistication...
...born Pham Bong on Dec. 31, 1923, in Diem Dien, a village in central Viet Nam now under Hanoi's rule. One of three sons of a well-to-do farmer, he was sent at the age of 13 to the Bao Quoc pagoda in Hué to train for monkhood. Wild and fond of practical jokes at first, he was expelled, then given a second chance. He matured into a student with a photographic memory and a searching intellect. His teacher at Bao Quoc, Thich Tri Do, who now heads the tame Buddhist church of North Viet Nam, guided...