The majority of Thai people are Buddhists and today we made a visit to the Buddhist temple in Lanta Old Town to learn more about the religion and traditions. Yesterday our teachers taught us how to dress and behave in a temple in order to be respectful to the monks and religion. We were also instructed to buy some food and medicines if we wanted to make a donation to the temple.
As (strict) monks are not allowed to handle money they have to live on donations made by generous people. But the generous people also benefit from this arrangement as donations to monks are considered to bring very good karma.
Our teacher Eak has been a monk for some time so he told us what it's like to live in the temple. The other teachers shared their experiences of how Buddhism influences the daily life and family celebrations in Thailand. After that we got to meet one of the monks.
The monk told us more about Buddhism on Lanta and the Buddhist holidays which are celebrated at the temple. He also taught us how to meditate and then we got to try sitting meditation for 30 minutes. After that he answered our questions and then it was time to donate our gifts. This is also done in a special way as our heads need to be lower that the monk's head and the monk is not allowed to receive gifts directly from women so he had to use a piece of cloth instead.
After donating and thanking the monk we walked around the temple area and our teachers told us more about Buddhist funerals and weddings.
It was a very interesting day and we learned a lot about Buddhism and what it's like to live in a temple or in a Buddhist family.
As (strict) monks are not allowed to handle money they have to live on donations made by generous people. But the generous people also benefit from this arrangement as donations to monks are considered to bring very good karma.
Our teacher Eak has been a monk for some time so he told us what it's like to live in the temple. The other teachers shared their experiences of how Buddhism influences the daily life and family celebrations in Thailand. After that we got to meet one of the monks.
The monk told us more about Buddhism on Lanta and the Buddhist holidays which are celebrated at the temple. He also taught us how to meditate and then we got to try sitting meditation for 30 minutes. After that he answered our questions and then it was time to donate our gifts. This is also done in a special way as our heads need to be lower that the monk's head and the monk is not allowed to receive gifts directly from women so he had to use a piece of cloth instead.
After donating and thanking the monk we walked around the temple area and our teachers told us more about Buddhist funerals and weddings.
It was a very interesting day and we learned a lot about Buddhism and what it's like to live in a temple or in a Buddhist family.
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