Buddhist Monks Etiquette

This is one of my favourite pictures from Angkor. Buddhist monks are part of one of the world's oldest religious traditions, and although some orders have adapted to changing social conventions, monks still follow strict rules about etiquette and behavior: 

• They live a life of poverty.This means that everything monks possess and consume must come to them as a gift.Monks also have rigid customs when it comes to clothing, and they shave off all of their hair in imitation of the Buddha himself.
• Monks can only receive and consume food between the hours of dawn and noon, though he can drink plain water at any time of day.Most orders encourage vegetarianism.
• They can't touch woman and can't be touched by woman.(Some sects in Japan have changed this custom, and monks have right to get married and have children, encouraging the practice as a means of continuing the heredity-based succession at temples. In stricter denominations such as in Cambodia or Thailand, etiquette dictates that the gifts of offered by a female must be given through a cloth.

Picture of my own.