Surfcrest (November 23rd, 2017)
What are you talking about? Yes they do, all the time. Everytime someone is married, dies, a kid is born, buys a house, or anything else.... the monks make a house visit to do a blessing ceremony.
When Leo and myself manage to make it out to his village and have our wedding / celebration of life ceremony, the monks will come by and bless us.
Believe it or not, this is not about you. I just wanted to shed light on monastic protocols and practices. Readers who are interested in these things are encouraged to do their own research and not apply what they see in Pattaya or in any local setting to the country and (Thai) Buddhism as a whole for eg the aberrant practice of blessing beer bars or the story of a monk accepting 500 Baht that wasn't put into his morning collection bowl..
Last edited by sglad; November 22nd, 2017 at 00:43.
Don't give me that. Behind your know-it-all pronouncements about monastic behaviour in two separate posts is the clear implication that I made up my meeting with a monk in a village. That DOES concern me. You then proceeded to link me to a poster with whom I have no connection whatsoever. If you're going to stir the pot at least have the courage of your convictions and don't get all mealy-mouthed about it.
Monks will indeed come to one's house for various reasons ... you've named most of the obvious ones. But they don't come uninvited. These different blessings are not cheap and are not done gratis ... lots of loot is passed from household to temple, and monks themselves.
Some homestead visitations (as well as going to the temple) are hugely expensive and the poorer families can easily go into deep debt because of it. Happens all the time.
sglad (November 22nd, 2017)
Why is everyone caring about this LEO guy.....enough...
Anyone who is interested in Thai buddhist ceremony (in this case my old man becoming a monk) you are invited to read this Sawatdee post from some years ago:
https://sawatdeenetwork.com/v4/showt...highlight=monk
cdnmatt (November 22nd, 2017), splinter1949 (November 23rd, 2017), Tintin (November 23rd, 2017)