Thailand's Monks and Making Merit
Monks don't beg for alms, we give alms to make merit.
As dawn broke, I walked along the beach carrying my silver tray of food and flowers for the monks. My friend assured me I would benefit from this.
Yesterday I was in the mayhem and noise of Bangkok. Today the tranquillity of Pranburi, just two hours away from Thailand‘s capital, is solace for the soul.
Dawn has not yet broken as we walk along the beach where the vendors are setting up their mini kitchens to sell boiled eggs, hot aromatic tea and noodle soup. .Old fashioned deck chairs are being unfolded, faded umbrellas erected to divert the sun from those who will soon be occupying them and rickety tables placed haphazardly on the sands. The sky begins to lighten, the red ball of the sun comes up over the Gulf of Thailand and the waters become a shimmering pink opalescence..
We are going to "make merit" this morning by offering food to the monks from the temple. We are carefully carrying some cooked rice, a sliced papaya, some pineapple, bottled water, a bunch of vivid purple orchids, and a lotus - the Buddha’s favourite flower.
Arriving at the local market we join the queue of people waiting to make offerings. As we approach the orange-robed monks I remove my shoes as instructed by my friend. I experience a twinge of anxiety lest I inadvertently touch the man who must not have contact with females but I manage to place my food in his bag without mishap. I step back from him with hands together in the praying position, the tips of my fingers touching my hairline as a mark of respect (called "the wai").
Flushed with success and the virtuous feeling that comes with such an early start to the day (I don’t normally do mornings) we sit down at one of the nearby open-air tables for breakfast, hot sticky rice cooked and served in a bamboo tube with sliced, juicy, golden mango.
"Nothing bad will happen to you today" says my friend. "You have gained merit by your offerings and you have the protection of the Lord Buddha". We stand up to go. I step into a hole in the pavement and immediately feel the pain. It’s a bad sprain. I’ll probably be laid up for days.
I turn around to my friend to make a caustic remark but he is smiling at me. "You see how lucky you are" he says, seriously. "If you hadn’t made Merit you would probably have broken your leg".
