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Tamboon: Making Merit
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Understanding Thailand and Thai people, to some degree, necessitates an understanding of Buddhism. In my experience, the biggest driver of Thai culture is Buddhism. For example, most of the country’s most significant landmarks are temples (called wat in Thai).
I don’t pretend to be an expert on Thai culture or on Buddhism. I’ve lived here close to three years; not a long time really. My formal understanding of Buddhism is based predominately on one book I read titled, Buddhism Explained by Laurence-Kantipalo Mills (available from Silworm Books).
As a boy I was raised Catholic, and attended parochial school for 12 years. I studied ‘Religion’ at least an hour a day, every school day for twelve years. I think it’s fair to say that I was fairly well-versed in Catholic dogma and practice. By contrast, when I ask Thai people to explain things to me about Buddhism, they seem surprisingly unable to explain the rites, rituals, philosophy or practices.
By way of example, when I first arrived in Thailand it wasn’t hard to notice that most people who prostrated themselves in a shrine or temple did so three times. I asked a Thai university student what the significance was, or what Buddhists were thinking when they prostrated three times. She thought about this for about 30 seconds before replying. Her answer was, “I don’t know.”
I was surprised that a question about one of the most common acts in Buddhism would result in such an unsatisfying response. (For a concise explanation of the three prostrations, click here)
While it doesn’t directly answer this question, let me share some interesting comments from the book, Buddhism Explained:
There is no idol-worship in Buddhism. The figure of the Lord Buddha in temples represents to Buddhists some of the qualities of their Teacher and teaching which inspires them to recollect those same qualities and so develop them in themselves.
Also, there is no prayer in Buddhist temples. People do not pray to the Teacher who has attained final nibbana over twenty five hundred years ago; they venerate and respect him. A prayer which asks benefits for oneself is quite foreign to Buddhist thought, whose aim is to realize no-self.
Prostrations and all the other signs of respect paid to his representations are done to strengthen the wholesome aspects of consciousness. Prostrating oneself is for individual happiness and not for the glorification of a god.
While we are on the subject of veneration, it might be useful to explain the meaning of the various offerings to the Buddha, for it is true to say that Buddhism contains nothing without meaning….
The three most common offerings [are] incense, flowers and candles…. While lighting the candle or lamp one may reflect: “Oh, may I become enlightened so that I am able to help others.” From that flame, the incense sticks (usually three in number) are lighted with the thought: “In order to achieve that enlightenment, may the fragrance of my virtue pervade all my actions of body, speech and mind, as this sweet incense spreads in all directions.” Then flowers are offered between joined palms with the thought, “But this life is short and even though these flowers are fresh and beautiful today, tomorrow they will fade and be foul smelling as it is with what I call my body.” Thus, knowing that this life is fleeting and impermanent, a Buddhist makes an effort to maintain, indeed to raise, the standard of his pure virtue, and so takes one step in the direction of enlightenment.
Now that’s the kind of answer you can sink your teeth into…one that’s chock full of information. Me, I’m an information junkie – twelve years of Catholic school can do that to you. So, for a long time I was surprised at how little I could learn about Buddhism by asking average Thai people. But the fact is, while they learn principles of behavior very effectively, Thais seemingly don’t normally get deeply involved in the study of Buddhist philosophy the way that I was exposed to Catholic dogma as a young fella.
I’m certainly not saying that all Thais are ignorant of the philosophy that defines their lives, but I spend a lot of time with working middle-class Thais who are competent with the English language. Most of them have a very limited ability to clearly communicate Buddhist philosophy.
My impression is that the details of Buddhism belong to the monks (much more so than Catholicism relies on priests for the same function). As I said before however, Buddhism in Thailand is very effective at teaching general attitudes and behaviors. Consequently, you have an entire population who share a common culture that makes them extremely homogenous, but much of what they believe and practice appears to have more in common with folk superstition rather than the cogent philosophy that is Buddhism.
I don’t intend to be dismissive or disrespectful of Buddhism. In fact, my reading of the book was a fascinating discovery of meaning. But my experience suggests to me that most Thais appear to have a limited understanding of the philosophy, even though that philosophy provides the central pillar in the structure of their lives. This reminds me of my own life and the Catholic religion in which I was raised.
In Catholicism of the mid-20th century when I was a young boy, Catholics had become separated from their faith by rituals that they didn’t understand, performed in Latin – a language most of them did not know — and controlled by a mystical group of priests who understood the mysteries of the faith but often didn’t share it with the flock. This changed dramatically following Vatican II, the re-examination of the faith carried out by the pope, cardinals, bishops and priests from 1962 to 1965.
There were many statements issued by the Council, and reforms instituted. Here’s an example of some of the language at the time:
“Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious and active participation in liturgical celebrations…. “
Vatican II went much further in encouraging “active participation” than previous Popes had allowed or recommended. The council fathers established guidelines to govern the revision of the liturgy, which included allowing the use of the vernacular (native language) instead of Latin. This had the effect of de-mystifying the faith and involving the people again.
Buddhist practice in Thailand today reminds me of the Catholic Church of my childhood. It often appears to be filled with ritual without understanding, and pervasive general attitudes without the support of specific knowledge.
Buddhism Explained is a book of about 200 pages, and yet it is really just a summary. I won’t pretend that I’m going to provide much understanding of it in a short blog.
I want to talk about one particular aspect of Buddhism today; making merit. While this isn’t a great translation from the Thai word tamboon it is the normal phrase used in English to describe a specific Buddhist practice.
Buddhism calls for selflessness and giving. I guess all religions or philosophies do, but in my Catholic upbringing selflessness and giving were presented as sacrifices; something that ran counter to our personal nature. In Buddhism, as opposed to sacrifice, selflessness and giving provide a positive feeling for the individual. Thais give freely, naam jai, driven by two ideas. The first is that they will feel a sense of satisfaction from giving, and the second is that kamma (or Karma) accumulates for an individual through a series of re-births.
In the concept of kamma, Thais can positively or negatively affect their lives (this life and future re-births) through their actions today. Wholesome actions have good effects, unwholesome actions have bad effects. Your life is influenced greatly by your accumulated kamma.
So, when a Thai person is having a difficult time, they often resort to making merit in an effort to improve their kamma. They will often describe it in English as trying to change bad luck.
But Thais don’t only tamboon (make merit) when they are having bad luck. Ask a Thai person what he did on his birthday, and he may answer that he had a party, but he is more likely to say that he went to the wat (temple) to make merit.
On the anniversary of the death of a relative or close friend most Thais will go to the wat to make merit on that person’s behalf.
And because Thais hate to do anything alone, they will often go to the wat just to accompany a friend who has reason to go.
Making merit is about giving; in this case it is specifically about giving to the wat or to the monks. But Thais make merit more generally by every wholesome action they undertake each day.
What does the book Buddhism Explained say about Giving? Quite a lot actually; here are a few samples:
Why is giving so important? If we are to make any progress along the Buddha’s way, we shall have to reverse our normal worldly ways. Worldliness talks about getting, and the Way talks about giving. So, the objective of giving is to break down, or at least to make a start on the destruction of the prison walls of ‘I have’. Now, giving should be done from the heart, proceeding from a pure faith which holds that the act of giving is meritorious, that the person to whom the giving is directed (often Buddhist monks and nuns) are pure and strive to lead a good life, and that the effect upon the giver is to ensure a happy rebirth, if nothing more. In the practice of giving one should never expect any return, the only return being that one’s own heart then becomes flexible and one’s ways easier to train.
Merit, as explained above, cannot really belong to one. Merit is actually made by giving away one’s merit. This is a way of teaching that one should not even be attached to the results of wholesome conduct but using wholesome conduct, one should push on to nibbana [Nirvana], beyond both merit and demerit.
This may give you a sense of why the average Thai person finds it difficult to explain Buddhist concepts to me. They are often counter-intuitive to foreigners’ way of thinking, and involve concepts (for example dhamma, kamma, nibbanna and the wheel of life) that don’t really exist in western thought.
So perhaps the Thai people do understand what it’s all about. Perhaps their hesitancy to answer my questions is rooted in the idea that it’s just too tough to explain it to me.
They may appear to carry out empty ritual, when in fact the shortcoming is mine. Perhaps Thais despair at the very thought that I could hope to understand the complex ideas of following the Way.
Who knows?
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