thaibuddhism.net. A number of Thai temples welcome foreign students of Buddhism and meditation.Over 85 percent of Thais consider themselves Theravada Buddhists, followers of the teachings of a holy man usually referred to as the Buddha (Enlightened One), though more precisely known as Gautama Buddha to distinguish him from lesser-known Buddhas who preceded him. Theravada Buddhism is one of the two main schools of Buddhism practised in Asia, and in Thailand it has absorbed an eclectic assortment of animist and Hindu elements.
Islam is the biggest of the minority religions in Thailand, practised by between five and ten percent of the population. Most Muslims live in the south, especially in the deep-south provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narithiwat, along the Malaysian border, whose populations are over eighty percent Muslim. The separatist violence in this region has caused great tension between local Buddhist and Muslim communities, which have traditionally co-existed peacefully; it has not, however, obviously affected inter-faith relationships elsewhere in Thailand. The rest of the Thai population comprises Mahayana Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and animists.
The Buddha: his life and beliefs
Gautama Buddha was born as Prince Gautama Siddhartha in Nepal, in the seventh century BC according to the calculations for the Thai calendar, though scholars now think it may have been a century or two later. At his birth, astrologers predicted that he would become either a famous king or a celebrated holy man, depending on which path he chose. Much preferring the former, the prince’s father forbade the boy from leaving the palace grounds, and set about educating Gautama in all aspects of the high life. Most statues of the Buddha depict him with elongated earlobes, which is a reference to this early pampered existence, when he would have worn heavy precious stones in his ears.
The prince married and became a father, but at the age of 29 he flouted his father’s authority and sneaked out into the world beyond the palace. On this fateful trip he encountered successively an old man, a sick man, a corpse and a hermit, and thus for the first time was made aware that pain and suffering were intrinsic to human life. Contemplation seemed the only means of discovering why this was so – and therefore Gautama decided to leave the palace and become a Hindu ascetic.
For several years he wandered the countryside leading a life of self-denial and self-mortification, but failed to come any closer to the answer. Eventually concluding that the best course of action must be to follow a “Middle Way” – neither indulgent nor overly ascetic – Gautama sat down beneath the famous riverside bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya in India, facing the rising sun, to meditate until he achieved enlightenment. For 49 days he sat cross-legged in the “lotus position”, contemplating the causes of suffering and wrestling with temptations that materialized to distract him. Most of these were sent by Mara, the Evil One, who was finally subdued when Gautama summoned the earth goddess Mae Toranee by pointing the fingers of his right hand at the ground – the gesture known as Calling the Earth to Witness, or Bhumisparsa Mudra, which has been immortalized by thousands of Thai sculptors. Mae Toranee wrung torrents of water from her hair and engulfed Mara’s demonic emissaries in a flood, an episode that’s also commonly reproduced, especially in temple murals.
Temptations dealt with, Gautama soon came to attain enlightenment and so become a Buddha. As the place of his enlightenment, the bodhi tree (bodhi means “enlightenment” in Sanskrit and Pali; it’s sometimes also known as the bo tree, in Thai ton po) has assumed special significance for Buddhists: not only does it appear in many Buddhist paintings, but there’s often a real bodhi tree (Ficus religiosa, or sacred fig) planted in temple compounds as well. In addition, the bot is nearly always built facing either a body of water or facing east (preferably both).
The Buddha preached his first sermon in the deer park at Sarnath in India, where he characterized his doctrine, or Dharma, as a wheel. From this episode comes the early Buddhist symbol the Dharmachakra, known as the Wheel of Law, which is often accompanied by a statue of a deer. Thais celebrate this first sermon with a public holiday in July known as Asanha Puja. On another occasion 1250 people spontaneously gathered to hear the Buddha speak, an event remembered in Thailand as Makha Puja and marked by a public holiday in February.
For the next forty-odd years the Buddha travelled the region converting non believers and performing miracles. One rainy season he even ascended into the Tavatimsa heaven (Heaven of the 33 Gods) to visit his mother and to preach the doctrine to her. His descent from this heaven is quite a common theme of paintings and sculptures, and the Standing Buddha pose of numerous Buddha statues comes from this story.
The Buddha “died” at the age of eighty on the banks of a river at Kusinari in India – an event often dated to 543 BC, which is why the Thai calendar is 543 years out of synch with the Western one, so that the year 2019 AD becomes 2562 BE (Buddhist Era). Lying on his side, propping up his head on his hand, the Buddha passed into Nirvana (giving rise to another classic pose, the Reclining Buddha), the unimaginable state of nothingness which knows no suffering and from which there is no reincarnation. Buddhists believe that the day the Buddha entered Nirvana was the same date on which he was born and on which he achieved enlightenment, a triply significant day that Thais honour with the Visakha Puja festival in May.
Buddhists believe that Gautama Buddha was the five-hundredth incarnation of a single being: the stories of these five hundred lives, collectively known as the Jataka, provide the inspiration for much Thai art. Hindus also accept Gautama Buddha into their pantheon, perceiving him as the ninth manifestation of their god Vishnu.
After the Buddha entered Nirvana, his doctrine spread relatively quickly across India, and probably was first promulgated in Thailand in about the third century BC, when the Indian emperor Ashoka (in Thai, Asoke) sent out missionaries. His teachings, the Tripitaka, were written down in the Pali language – a then-vernacular derivative of Sanskrit – in a form that became known as Theravada, or “The Doctrine of the Elders”.
By the beginning of the first millennium, a new movement called Mahayana (Great Vehicle) had emerged within the Theravada school, attempting to make Buddhism more accessible by introducing a pantheon of bodhisattva, or Buddhist saints, who, although they had achieved enlightenment, postponed entering Nirvana in order to inspire the populace. Mahayana Buddhism spread north into China, Korea, Vietnam and Japan, also entering southern Thailand via the Srivijayan empire around the eighth century and parts of Khmer Cambodia in about the eleventh century. Meanwhile, Theravada Buddhism (which the Mahayanists disparagingly renamed “Hinayana” or “Lesser Vehicle”) established itself most significantly in Sri Lanka, northern and central Thailand and Burma.
Buddhist doctrine and practice
Central to Theravada Buddhism is a belief in karma – broadly speaking, the belief that every action has a consequence – and reincarnation, along with an understanding that craving is at the root of human suffering. The ultimate aim for a Buddhist is to get off the cycle of perpetual reincarnation and suffering and instead to enter the blissful state of non-being that is Nirvana. This enlightened state can take many lifetimes to achieve so the more realistic goal for most is to be reborn slightly higher up the karmic ladder each time. As Thai Buddhists see it, animals are at the bottom of the karmic scale and monks at the top, with women on a lower rung than men.
Living a good life, specifically a life of “pure intention”, creates good karma and Buddhist doctrine focuses a great deal on how to achieve this. Psychology and an understanding of human weaknesses play a big part. Key is the concept of dukka or suffering, which holds that craving is the root cause of all suffering or, to put it simplistically, human unhappiness is caused by the unquenchable dissatisfaction experienced when one’s sensual, spiritual or material desires are not met. The concepts concerning suffering and craving are known as the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism. The route to enlightenment depends on a person being sufficiently detached from earthly desires so that dukka can’t take hold. One acknowledges that the physical world is impermanent and ever changing, and that all things – including the self – are therefore not worth craving. A Buddhist works towards this realization by following the Eightfold Path, or Middle Way, that is by developing a set of highly moral personal qualities such as “right speech”, “right action” and “right mindfulness”. Meditation is particularly helpful in this.
A devout Thai Buddhist commits to the five basic precepts, namely not to kill or steal, to refrain from sexual misconduct and incorrect speech (lies, gossip and abuse) and to eschew intoxicating liquor and drugs. There are three extra precepts for special wan phra holy days and for those laypeople including foreign students who study meditation at Thai temples: no eating after noon, no entertainment (including TV and music) and no sleeping on a soft bed; in addition, the no-sexual-misconduct precept turns into no sex at all.
Merit-making in popular Thai Buddhism has become slightly skewed, so that some people act on the assumption that they’ll climb the karmic ladder faster if they make bigger and better offerings to the temple and its monks. However, it is of course the purity of the intention behind one’s merit-making (tham buun) that’s fundamental.
Merit can be made in many ways, from giving a monk his breakfast to attending a Buddhist service or donating money and gifts to the neighbourhood temple, and most festivals are essentially communal merit-making opportunities. Between the big festivals, the most common days for making merit and visiting the temple are wan phra (holy days), which are determined by the phase of the moon and occur four times a month. The simplest offering inside a temple consists of lotus buds, candles and three incense sticks (representing the three gems of Buddhism – the Buddha himself, the Dharma or doctrine, and the monkhood). One of the more bizarre but common merit-making activities involves releasing caged birds: worshippers buy tiny finches from vendors at wat compounds and, by liberating them from their cage, prove their Buddhist compassion towards all living things. The fact that the birds were free until netted earlier that morning doesn’t seem to detract from the ritual. In riverside and seaside wats, fish or even baby turtles are released instead.
For an insightful introduction to the philosophy and practice of Thai Buddhism, see thaibuddhism.net. A number of Thai temples welcome foreign students of Buddhism and meditation.
It’s the duty of Thailand’s 200,000-strong Sangha (monkhood) to set an example to the Theravada Buddhist community by living a life as close to the Middle Way as possible and by preaching the Dharma to the people. The life of a monk (bhikkhu) is governed by 227 precepts that include celibacy and the rejection of all personal possessions except gifts.
Each day begins with an alms round in the neighbourhood so that the laity can donate food and thereby gain themselves merit, and then is chiefly spent in meditation, chanting, teaching and study. As the most respected members of any community, monks act as teachers, counsellors and arbiters in local disputes, and sometimes become spokesmen for villagers’ rights. They also perform rituals at cremations, weddings and other events, such as the launching of a new business or even the purchase of a new car. Many young boys from poor families find themselves almost obliged to become either a dek wat (temple boy) or a novice monk because that’s the only way they can get accommodation, food and, crucially, an education. This is provided free in exchange for duties around the wat, and novices are required to adhere to ten rather than 227 Buddhist precepts.
Monkhood doesn’t have to be for life: a man may leave the Sangha three times without stigma, and in fact every Thai male (including royalty) is expected to enter the monkhood for a short period, ideally between leaving school and marrying, as a rite of passage into adulthood. Thai government departments and some private companies grant their employees paid leave for their time as a monk, but the custom is in decline as young men increasingly have to consider the effect their absence may have on their career prospects. Instead, many men now enter the monkhood for a brief period after the death of a parent, to make merit both for the deceased and for the rest of the family. The most popular time for temporary ordination is the three-month Buddhist retreat period – Pansa, sometimes referred to as “Buddhist Lent” – which begins in July and lasts for the duration of the rainy season. (The monks’ confinement is said to originate from the earliest years of Buddhist history, when farmers complained that perambulating monks were squashing their sprouting rice crops.)
Some monks extend their role as village spokesmen to become influential activists: Wat Tham Krabok near Lopburi and Wat Nong Sam Pran in Kanchanaburi are among a growing number of temples that have established themselves as successful drug rehabilitation centres; monks at Wat Phra Bat Nam Pu in Lopburi run a hospice for people with HIV/AIDS as well as a famously hard-hitting AIDS-awareness museum; monks at Wat Phai Lom near Bangkok have developed the country’s largest breeding colony of Asian open-billed storks; while the monks at Wat Pa Luang Ta Bua Yannasampanno in Kanchanaburi hit the headlines for the wrong reasons with their controversial, now closed tiger sanctuary. Other monks, such as the famous Luang Pho Khoon of Wat Ban Rai in Nakhon Ratchasima province, who died in 2015 aged 91, have acquired such a reputation for giving wise counsel and bringing good fortune to their followers that they have become national gurus and their temples now generate great wealth through the production of specially blessed amulets and photographs.
Though the increasing involvement of many monks in the secular world has not met with unanimous approval, far more disappointing to the laity are those monks who flout the precepts of the Sangha by succumbing to the temptations of a consumer society, flaunting Raybans, Rolexes and Mercedes (in some cases actually bought with temple funds), chain-smoking and flirting, even making pocket money from predicting lottery results and practising faith-healing. With so much national pride and integrity riding on the sanctity of the Sangha, any whiff of a deeper scandal is bound to strike deep into the national psyche. Cases of monks involved in drug dealing, gun running, even rape and murder have prompted a stream of editorials on the state of the Sangha and the collapse of spiritual values at the heart of Thai society. The inclusivity of the monkhood – which is open to just about any male who wants to join – has been highlighted as a particularly vulnerable aspect, not least because donning saffron robes has always been an accepted way for criminals, reformed or otherwise, to repent of their past deeds.
Interestingly, back in the late 1980s, the influential monk Phra Bodhirak (Photirak) was defrocked after criticizing what he saw as a tide of decadence infecting Thai Buddhism. He now preaches his ascetic code of anti-materialism through his breakaway Santi Asoke sect, famous across the country for its cheap vegetarian restaurants, its philosophy of self-sufficiency and for the simple blue farmers’ shirts worn by many of its followers.
Although the Theravada Buddhist hierarchy in some countries permits the ordination of female monks, or bhikkhuni, the Thai Sangha does not. Instead, Thai women are officially only allowed to become nuns, or mae chii, shaving their heads, donning white robes and keeping eight rather than 227 precepts. Their status is lower than that of the monks and they are chiefly occupied with temple upkeep rather than conducting religious ceremonies.
However, the progressives are becoming more vocal, and in 2002 a Thai woman became the first of several to break with the Buddhist authorities and get ordained as a novice bhikkhuni on Thai soil. Thailand’s Sangha Council, however, still recognizes neither her ordination nor the temple, Watra Songdhammakalyani in Nakhon Pathom, where the ordination took place. The Watra (rather than Wat) is run by another Thai bhikkhuni, Dhammananda Bhikkhuni, the author of several books in English about women and Buddhism and of an informative website, thaibhikkhunis.org.
Hindu deities and animist spirits
The complicated history of the area now known as Thailand has made Thai Buddhism a confusingly syncretic faith, as you’ll realize when you enter a Buddhist temple compound to be confronted by a statue of a Hindu deity. While regular Buddhist merit-making insures a Thai for the next life, there are certain Hindu gods and animist spirits that many Thais – sophisticated Bangkokians and illiterate farmers alike – also cultivate for help with more immediate problems; and as often as not it’s a Buddhist monk who is called in to exorcize a malevolent spirit. Even the Buddhist King Bhumibol employs Brahmin priests and astrologers to determine auspicious days and officiate at certain royal ceremonies and, like his royal predecessors of the Chakri dynasty, he also associates himself with the Hindu god Vishnu by assuming the title Rama IX – Rama, hero of the Hindu epic the Ramayana, having been Vishnu’s seventh manifestation on earth.
If a Thai wants help in achieving a short-term goal, like passing an exam, becoming pregnant or winning the lottery, he or she will quite likely turn to the Hindu pantheon, visiting an enshrined statue of Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva or Ganesh, and making offerings of flowers, incense and maybe food. If the outcome is favourable, the devotee will probably come back to show thanks, bringing more offerings and maybe even hiring a dance troupe to perform a celebratory lakhon chatri. Built in honour of Brahma, Bangkok’s Erawan Shrine is the most famous place of Hindu-inspired worship in the country.
Whereas Hindu deities tend to be benevolent, spirits (or phi) are not nearly as reliable and need to be mollified more frequently. They come in hundreds of varieties, some more malign than others, and inhabit everything from trees, rivers and caves to public buildings and private homes – even taking over people if they feel like it.
So that these phi don’t pester human inhabitants, each building has a special spirit house (saan phra phum) in its vicinity, as a dwelling for spirits ousted by the building’s construction. Usually raised on a short column to set it at or above eye level, the spirit house must occupy an auspicious location – not, for example, in the shadow of the main building. It’s generally about the size of a dolls’ house and designed to look like a wat or a traditional Thai house, but its ornamentation is supposed to reflect the status of the humans’ building, so if that building is enlarged or refurbished, the spirit house should be improved accordingly. And as architects become increasingly bold in their designs, so modernist spirit houses are also beginning to appear, especially in Bangkok where an eye-catching new skyscraper might be graced by a spirit house of glass or polished concrete. Figurines representing the relevant guardian spirit and his aides are sometimes put inside, and daily offerings of incense, lighted candles and garlands of jasmine are placed alongside them to keep the phi happy – a disgruntled spirit is a dangerous spirit, liable to cause sickness, accidents and even death. As with any religious building or icon in Thailand, an unwanted or crumbling spirit house should never be dismantled or destroyed, which is why you’ll often see damaged spirit houses placed around the base of a sacred banyan tree, where they are able to rest in peace.