Tuesday 5th
This Tuesday was our day off. We got to pretend to be tourists and I spent a hundred baht on feeding an elephant. That's only like four dollars, but after paying twenty baht for a nice plate of fried rice with pork, it definitely felt like tourist prices.
The most significant thing we did on Tuesday was visiting a Buddhist temple.
Buddhist practice in this country seems quite different to how it is viewed in the west. It seems to be all about performing rituals to gain merit. You do things like polish the floor in front of the statue of the old king, or put little bits of gold onto a statue of buddha, or put small coins into bowls in front of lots of little buddhas to gain "merit", which I think is some mixture of respect, good luck and doing what they can to come back as something better in your next life. It was kinda disturbing seeing all these people bowing down to motionless statues.
We went and saw the big buddha statue inside some sort of sanctuary where people get ordained as monks. Again, there were people bowing down. They were also these cups containing lots of sticks with numbers on them. People shook the cup until a stick came out, and the number on your stick was your lucky number. Once they had their number, some people would step outside and buy a lotto ticket from one of the many lotto sellers conveniently placed insid the temple. They also had a big plaque listing the people and businesses that had given money to the temple, ranked in order of how much they had given - the most was over a million baht (about $20,000 NZ, but effectively more in spending power).
We were all slightly troubled after visiting the temple, and some of us were in tears. Overall though, I think it has really strengthened our resolve to preach Christ to these people - because our God is a living God, not a statue, not a good luck charm.
David
The most significant thing we did on Tuesday was visiting a Buddhist temple.
Buddhist practice in this country seems quite different to how it is viewed in the west. It seems to be all about performing rituals to gain merit. You do things like polish the floor in front of the statue of the old king, or put little bits of gold onto a statue of buddha, or put small coins into bowls in front of lots of little buddhas to gain "merit", which I think is some mixture of respect, good luck and doing what they can to come back as something better in your next life. It was kinda disturbing seeing all these people bowing down to motionless statues.
We went and saw the big buddha statue inside some sort of sanctuary where people get ordained as monks. Again, there were people bowing down. They were also these cups containing lots of sticks with numbers on them. People shook the cup until a stick came out, and the number on your stick was your lucky number. Once they had their number, some people would step outside and buy a lotto ticket from one of the many lotto sellers conveniently placed insid the temple. They also had a big plaque listing the people and businesses that had given money to the temple, ranked in order of how much they had given - the most was over a million baht (about $20,000 NZ, but effectively more in spending power).
We were all slightly troubled after visiting the temple, and some of us were in tears. Overall though, I think it has really strengthened our resolve to preach Christ to these people - because our God is a living God, not a statue, not a good luck charm.
David
posted by James Allaway at 1:14 AM
1 Comments:
Wow. That's an experience you don't have every day.
I wish I could be provoked to tears in the same way while walking through the campus where I work.
Post a Comment
<< Home