Pics from the event can be viewed here.
SBS KATHINA – FAQ on making offerings & Transport arrangements
(A) Offerings
1. Offering of Kathina cloth (7:30am)
Sponsor for SBS Kathina 2019 is Firefly Mission group from Singapore.
Ten representatives of the group will offer the Kathina cloth at 7:30am in the sima hall.
The cloth is then cut and sewn into a robe by the participating monks.
2. Offering of rice (8:45am)
Devotees will get to offer rice (pindapata style) to the monks.
To participate in this, please line up, following the instructions of the pindacara marshals wearing orange vests.
You will then be given a small box of rice plus a spoon. The monks will walk along the pindacara route for you to offer rice into their bowls. Folllowing the monks are volunteers who will collect the empty rice boxes and spoons.
3. Offering of requisites (8:45am)
After offering rice, please remain in line. Appointed representatives will walk past you with trays of robes & other requisites to be offered to the monks at the Kathina Bojhana Sala. You are invited to touch the trays as a symbolic gesture of offering.
Individuals do not offer robes to monks.
If you wish to offer robes, please contribute to the Kathina Fund**,
which is used to buy the robes & other requisites, and to defray the expenses of the Kathina ceremony.
Any excess will go to the support of the SBS Sangha and maintenance of SBS. This way, everyone has a share in contributing towards all the above. It is not a practice for individuals to offer robes on this day because the monks don’t need so many robes.
**Contributions can be deposited to:
Taiping Insight Meditation Society
Maybank Taiping A/C No. 508056329058
4. Requisites brought by individuals
Any extra requisites should be placed at the Monks’ Requisite Station at the Sangha Court. When the kathina robe has been sewn, washed dyed and dried at night, then the resident monks will decide what to do with the extra offerings brought by individuals.
5. Supporting monks with what is potentially allowable
Please hand your ang powsto the volunteers at the Monks’ Requisites Station. Or, you can place your ang pows on the tray carried by a volunteer who will walk past you during the offering of rice and requisites.
Each member of the Sangha present at the SBS kathina ceremony will receive what is potentially allowable from a portion of the total sum collected from your ang pows. The ang pow of that portion will later be entrusted to his kappiyakāraka to provide what is allowable in times of need. The remaining sum will be deposited in the SBS Sangha Dayaka Fund.
In order to invite the monks to obtain whatever is potentially allowable and obtainable from the ang pows, all devotees will repeat after the emcee and recite in unison:
Ven. Sirs, we entrust these ang pows
to the head of the kappiya-kārakas
Bro. XYZ.
He will subsequently hand a portion of the ang pows
to the kappiya-kāraka you have appointed
who will provide
at your request
whatever is allowable.
(B) Transport logistics (please refer to maps below)
1. Car parks
Devotees who arrive before 7:30am can park their cars within the Greeneries Memorial Park at places as guided by Rela members.
Devotees who arrive after 7:30am, please park your cars along the road shoulder leading to the entrance of Greeneries Memorial Park as well as at car parks at the Golden Point Taiping Business Centre.
2. 4WD service & Bus shuttle service
Due to limited number of 4WD vehicles, all devotees who are fit enough to walk are encouraged to hike up to the Kathina venue and also down again after the ceremony.
There is a convoy of 4WD to shuttle devotees part of the way, between the crematorium and the entrance to the stupa area below SBS. The hike is only a section of the route taken by the monks on their daily pindacara walk and takes only 10-15 minutes.
It is faster to hike than to queue and wait your turn for the convoy of 4WD to take you all the way to the kathina venue. The 4WD service from the crematorium area to the kathina venue is for the elderly and those unfit to hike up/down SBS.
For those who wish to park their cars outside of the Greeneries Memorial Park grounds, a bus shuttle service will pick devotees up, starting from the Golden Point Taiping Business Centre to the crematorium area in the Greeneries Memorial Park.
