Maka Bucha Merit

This week was Maka Bucha Day, one of the most important Buddhist holidays in Thailand. Maka Bucha commemorates the day in which the Buddha preached a sermon to a spontaneous gathering of his first 1,250 disciples. It's a national holiday in Thailand, and in the modern era, it's a popular day for visiting temples and making merit.

Pinky and I both had the day off, so we decided to go out to Chinatown to visit a few temples. First, we stopped by at Wat Hua Lampong and the Ruamkatanyu Foundation.

This Chinese-Thai charitable organization dates back to the 1950s and operates a small shrine at Wat Hua Lampong that is open 24 hours a day.

The main purpose of the foundation is to provide coffins and burials for unidentified bodies or for those who cannot afford it. A tax-deductible donation of 500 baht is enough to purchase one coffin and is viewed as a good act of karma and merit-making.

After that we headed to Wat Mangkorn, the main Mahayana temple in Bangkok. This historic Chinese temple is always crowded, especially with people hoping to pray for blessings or good luck.

We have a traditional ritual that we like to do every year where we purchase stacks of paper printed with gold leaf and symbolically wipe away our bad fortune. Afterwards, the monks will ritually burn the paper in a special ceremony to purge any bad luck we may have.

For lunch, we stopped in at a little local restaurant for a big hearty bowl of Chinese-style noodles. The hearty portion of egg noodles was served with barbecued pork, soft crab meat, steamed pork dumplings, bok choy, crispy pork rinds and a soft boiled "onsen" egg. It was topped with crushed peanuts, sliced green onion, and chili, and made for a really flavorful and super filling bowl of noodles.

Energized and refreshed after a good meal and a break from the crowds of Maka Bucha worshipers, we called a taxi and headed on.

After lunch, we made our way to the San Chao Pho Suea Shrine, better known in English as the Tiger God Shrine. The historic old Taoist shrine is built in a southern Chinese architectural style and is said to honor the powerful spirit of a tiger who once lived in the jungle surrounding what is now Bangkok. The bones of the tiger are said to be kept in the main shrine area where his spirit is enshrined and resides.

The shrine is often crowded, especially on festival days, and is most popular amongst the Chinese-Thai community. People will come here to make wishes and pray for big life changes.

We've got some potential big life changes coming up in the next year or so, and we decided to make an offering and pray for a little extra luck. If our wishes come true, we'll have to return to the shrine to make another offering and light some candles and incense in thanks.

Do I believe in karma and merit? I don't know. I like to say that I only believe in good luck, and I figure that a little extra good luck can never hurt.