Mettā Sutta in Arabic

So good to know there are buddhist monks amongst the middle eastern people. You’re the first one I know about. I am also considering ordination but still having doubts.

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Interest in Buddhism is growing very rapidly in the Middle East. People there are naturally disposed to spirituality and the practice of renunciation is already well known in Sufi and Christian contexts. Must not forget that Christian asceticism had issued from Egyptian and Syrian monasteries and that the earliest ascetic saints were from these lands. Sufism itself, the growing evidence suggests, has come to the Middle East from the Far East, as a direct result of contact between Arab and Chinese (Mahayana) merchants and travellers during the Renaissance-type time for Arabs back in the middle ages. At present nothing prevents the spread of Dhamma in that part of the world except political constraints; but with the availability of Dhamma texts in English (and certainly in Arabic too), you can surely expect to see so many more Buddhist renunciants from this part of the world, and ones who are quite more interesting and energised than myself. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Me and my boyfriend had a young lady from Saudi Arabia stay with us for a short while while I was in university. She was very very interested in Eastern spirituality, but also atheism. It was like atheism was the most interesting thing coming out of the West for her, and Buddhism, which is “sort-of” an atheism, the most interesting thing coming from the East.

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