BUDDHISM IN THAILAND

When you come to Thailand one of the first things that you can notice is Buddhism. You can see temples and monks everywhere. Every house and every building have their own house spirit, where the people pray and show their respect to Buda.

 Sometimes Thai people wake up early in the morning to give some food, flowers and water to the monks. They give the food because they will have that food in the next life, flowers to have beautiful skin in the next life and water because everything should go smoothly and they will also have water in the next life. If somebody cooks the food for the monks nobody can eat food before they give one portion to the monk.

The monks help to the people of Thailand when they need it. I remember, the flooding problem in 2011., one Sunday 12.000 monks came to the center of Bangkok to collect the food and money to help to the people whose houses are under the water. Actually they do many good things for the people all the time. That is why the monks have big respect from the Thai people. They are also highly respected for their chaste life, self-restraint, social benevolence and knowledge of spiritual practice.

 About 95% of the people in the Kingdom of Thailand are Buddhists and Buddhism involves almost every occasion such as birthdays, marriages, moving to the new house, funerals, opening business offices...

It is presumed that Buddhism was first brought to the country during the 3rd century B.C.

                                    Grand Palace in Bangkok

There are about 27.000 Buddhists temples across the Thailand. I would like to mention that there is just one White Temple in Thailand placed in Chiang Rai (northern province) and I like it a lot it is beautiful, isn't it? 

 

                                      White Temple (Chiang Rai)


It is a custom for Buddhist males over twenty years old to be monks from a few days to three months. There is a believe that is good to learn how to be good man i the Buddhism way. Every King did this even presently King Bhumibol Who is highly respected from the people of Thailand. 

I will write more about Grand Palace and White Temple in the some of the next articles.