Wednesday 15 July 2009

Merit during Birthday

An old Thai proverb says it best: “if you do good you will receive good; if you do evil you will receive evil ”.

The Thai Buddhist tradition is to contemplate your birth and consider too that sometime your life will end as part of the circle of life, death and rebirth. It’s also the day to pay respect to your mother for the endurance in carrying and giving birth to you and bringing you up.

Many Thais rather spend their birthday giving, or making merit, than receiving gifts. The typical merit for your birthday in Thailand is to donate a coffin to be used by a poor family to part from their beloved. The idea behind it is that giving without expecting returns will benefit your karma and thus promote your own luck.

I was mentioning that I wanted to get the Alm Bucket~ small beach buckets filled with rice, candles, incense, flashlight, and other things the monks need.) for the monk on my birthday and I am still thinking of many other ways which I can do it too, such as through prayer, donating of coffin, monk robe and perhap donating blood.

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