How An Empty Bowl Can Teach You The Meaning of Kindness

Photo by Thomas Brath Photography

I thought I knew kindness. I thought I knew how to give selflessly and appreciate being given to, and then I found myself as an outsider at the head of an Almsgiving ceremony in Luang Prabang, Laos.

It was dawn and I headed to the temple as my hostel had advertised how the people of the town came together every morning to give alms at the Wat Mai. It was an act of…