Smiles, did you shag a Monk? You made no mention of making the beast of 2 backs with your husband turned Monk. @-)
Smiles, did you shag a Monk? You made no mention of making the beast of 2 backs with your husband turned Monk. @-)
These are the good'ol days
It's a good question. I'll answer it through Pot's words (we talked about this last night).Originally Posted by newalaan2
The answer lies in the antics of the Black Heart (i.e. Pot's older brother Tuan Tong who came to the ceremony and who's story can be found above) and the troubles he's been causing for his family for a number of years now ~ too complicated to describe properly.
Purely coincidentally, the family furor had come to some kind of head at the very same time that Pot was going into the temple. Needless to say the upheavals in Surin affect him here in Hua Hin.
He chose a temple in Hua Hin because, in his words, he wanted to have some peace and quiet during his monkhood rather than to get caught up in Tuan Tongs shenanigans during it ... which would surely have happened if he had chosen a temple in Nang Mut.
There are a couple of other reasons as well, but this was the primary one: his desire for inner calmness during his study week, then during the ceremony itself.
By the way, it's not necessarily expected that the monk-to-be goes through the ceremony in his home town ... I learned last night. Some men chose a temple which has a well-known, intelligent, kind Head Monk. Some choose a temple which has been physically visited by the King. Some choose a temple which has huge piles of 'merit' accumulated over many years.
However, the majority do indeed choose the temple just down the road.
Just another reason why I love living in Thailand
Smiles...
I enjoyed reading your story and can sense from your words (and in between them) that you are proud of Phot for his devotion to task, and you should be.
Being raised by a father who was Buddhist, a mother who was Lutheran, a sister who jumped the fence to become a Catholic, and a hippie brother who seemed to worship posters of bald-headed Hindu's smoking bongs in his bedroom - made it a bit confusing to me to say the least, but in any event, I always seemed content walking my own path similar to the way my father did.
Going through the process of becoming a novice monk is a personal journey (inside self) making it a bit difficult to truly understand the motives of those who go through this process. Making merit with family seems the most obvious to most, and in many cases this is true, especially with the younger novice monks who are commonly prompted to do this by their parents for that very reason, but is some cases, especially when an older guy wants to experience this process, it's because of other reasons that are personal to him, i.e. something he wants to find, or understand, or connect with within himself.
Thanks for sharing...I'm sure you're glad to have him back...the pic's are great too!
Thanks Smiles,
So pleased that this went well and that you were able to be there. I enjoyed and was moved by your account and by the resonances to my own experience. Curiously Lek was also mostly motivated by the desire to make merit for his father who had died a few years earlier, but "feeling guilty and slightly unfulfilled" sums it up nicely.
Time flies. It was 2001 when I originally posted my experience.
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