At one time several senior mendicants were staying near Kosambi, in Ghosita’s Monastery. Now at that time Venerable Khemaka was staying in the Jujube Tree Monastery, and he was sick, suffering, gravely ill. In the late afternoon those senior mendicants came out of retreat and addressed Venerable Dāsaka:
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Ah! Nice find! I stand corrected. It appears it is indeed a synonym for nibbāna 
Thanks @Snowbird
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Congratulations Bhikkhu
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Congratulations @Khemarato.bhikkhu ! Is it in Chonburi, which you mentioned in a previous post? i.e. with Ajahn Suchart Abijhato? I am reading his book ‘My way’, interesting that he practised fasting when staying with Ajahn Maha Boowa (I have also experimented with fasting, though so far I found it good for health but not really helpful for meditation). Do you practice fasting at your Monastery?
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Yes that’s right! I do fast some days, but usually only for one day at a time. There are some monks here who fast for weeks at a time, only consuming oil, honey, etc!
There are a few benefits: as you mentioned, there is a noticable health benefit to intermittent fasting. It actually gives you a lot of energy, surprisingly. The other major benefit is time: at this temple, when you’re fasting you can skip going to alms round, chores, etc and are thus free to meditate the whole day. Lastly, hunger can make you rather grumpy and irritable, so it provides an excellent (isolated and controlled) battleground to test your sati, samādhi, and paññā’s ability to deal with adversity.
But, that said, it isn’t helpful for everyone’s practice even here where it’s fully supported. So while I encourage you to experiment fearlessly, I also will warn against the extreme of self-mortification
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I’m sorry, @paul1, but I think you’ll have to ask someone with an artistic background! I was an engineer in my lay life 
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(the artist formerly known as AlexM)
How is this explained then?
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Oh I’m very sorry. I was making a humorous reference to when Prince changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol. The media started referring to him simply as “the artist formerly known as Prince” because nobody could figure out how to say his new name 
As a mod recently pointed out though, humor may not carry well across cultures and is probably inappropriate for this forum so I apologise for my (accidentally) misleading speech
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What are your interests in meditation?
Liberation. You? 
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I am an insight meditator by temperament, and follow the Satipatthana sutta as a central focus to the internal integrity of the Pali Canon. No I don’t want to chat via PM.
Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu 
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May your journey bring you final liberation.
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Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu!
May each year bring you a step closer to Liberation 
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Sadhu sadhu sadhu to all who continue. 
Of the other seven, were some intending a temporary period in robes? (I’m aware that this can be a type of coming-of-age rite-of-passage in Thailand.)
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Yeah, that’s right. We had one long-term monk disrobe after less than a month in robes (!) and the monk on the right of this photo wasn’t planning on staying but did. The rest disrobed as they originally intended: after the three months of the rainy season.
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He looks soo young.
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Nothing is permanent. All things change ! . May you develop in wisdom to keep you on the right path to liberation.
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