Thai Temple Offers the Ultimate Chance at Rebirth
By Spooky on May 31st, 2011 Category: Events, WTF LIKE DISLIKE
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Wat Prommanee, a Buddhist temple, 66 miles northeast of
Bangkok, offers believers the chance to lay in a coffin
for a few moments, then rise up and feel reborn…
I for one find coffins to be really creepy and I wouldn’t
dream of lying down in one if someone paid me all the money
in the world, but at Wat Prommanee people actually wait in
line and pay a fee for a chance to do just that. It’s one
of the strangest ceremonies in the world, but one that has
been rising in popularity ever since the temple started
practicing it, over six years ago. Nine colorful coffins
dominate the main hall of Wat Prommanee Temple, and hundreds
of people lie down in them every day, playing dead for
about a minute and a half, listening to religious chants,
and rise up at command feeling cleansed and relaxed.
Wat Prommanee basically offers a daily resurrection
service that many Thais believe washes away bad luck
and helps prolong their life. It makes sense that people
wish for a second chance in life, especially when
confronted with serious issues, but lying down in a
decorated coffin hardly seems like a solution. I
mean, what if it doesn’t change anything, right?
Well, they just go back and do it again. The ceremony
apparently relaxes them and gives them positive
thoughts, so many people come back to Wat Prommanee
Temple for the chance to be reborn several times
over a few years. All they have to do is pay a small fee.
Photo by Rungroj Yongrit/EPA
The entire rebirth ceremony lasts just 90 seconds – believers get into the coffin, lie on their backs, close their eyes, a shroud covers the coffins then is quickly removed, people are commanded to get up, say a quick prayer, and are urged to head toward the exit where nine more people anxiously await their new prosperous lives. It just doesn’t get any easier…
So if you were hoping for a second chance at life, give Wat Prommanee a shot, it’s quick and only costs a few bucks.
Photo by Rungroj Yongrit/EPA
Photo by Rungroj Yongrit/EPA
Photo by Rungroj Yongrit/EPA
http://www.chimburi.com/thai747.htm
Wat Prommanee was a temple we visited for the beautiful
and old Buddha statue of Luang Phor Pak Daeng, a Lan
Chang-style image (seated here behind the Emerald Buddha
statue). It's a highly revered Buddha statue seated in
the Ubosot. In 2008 when we visited, the temple was
overrun by people who chose to lay inside a coffin while
the monks prayed for good luck. Outside the building
where this happens, people line up and wait for "their
turn". The Buddha image is printed and sold on coffee
cups, T-Shirts and all kinds of other merchandise which
caused us to leave. Even when we asked for the price
of the small Buddha amulets we were told they cost
8000 Baht, which is an insane amount of money for
the normal Thai person. Visiting this important temple
left us with a bit of a bad aftertaste.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/world/asia/29iht-coffin.1.16551172.html
Death, blessing and rebirth for paying customers of Thai temple
By Seth Mydans
Published: Monday, September 29, 2008
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NAKHON NAYOK, Thailand — It is the ultimate in second
chances: A Buddhist temple here offers, for a small
fee, an opportunity to die, rise up again newborn
and make a fresh start in life.
Nine big, pink coffins dominate the grand hall of
the temple, and every day hundreds of people take
their turns climbing in for a few moments as monks
chant a dirge. Then, at a command, the visitors
clamber out again cleansed - they believe - of the past.
It is a renewal for our times, as recent economic
hardship brings uncertainty and people try seeking
a bailout on life. In growing numbers, they come
here from around Thailand to join what has become
an assembly line of resurrection.
"When the economy is down, we latch our hopes onto
some supernatural power," said Ekachai Uekrongtham,
the writer-director whose movie "The Coffin" is in
Thai cinemas with a plot that revolves around such
funerals for the living.
"When I went in I felt warm, and when I came out I
felt released," said Nual Chaichamni, 52, a masseuse
who visited recently and who said she liked the
feeling so much that she had done it six times.
"As I lay there and listened to the chanting of
the monks, I felt relaxed," she said. "When I
got up, I was thinking of good things, thinking
of the Buddha image in the hall. I felt good."
Buddhism in Thailand can take strange forms,
embracing animist superstition, magical practices -
and the entrepreneurial spirit of many senior
monks. Many Thais say that the true spirit of
Buddhism is being lost.
Many temples have become centers of enterprise that
parallel Thailand's economic growth over the past
few decades, selling good-luck amulets, holding
boisterous fairs and telling fortunes.
This temple, Wat Prommanee, 106 kilometers, or
66 miles, northeast of Bangkok, has offered its
unusual daily resurrection service for more than
three years, and its clientele keeps growing,
said an attendant, Pradap Butcharerm, 69.
On weekends as many as 700 people a day pay 180
baht each, a little more than $5, for the ceremony
and much more for amulets that are auctioned off
by temple acolytes.
"We have only 50 of these, a limited edition, the
price is up to you!" they cry. "Twenty baht, 50 baht,
did I hear 300 baht? Someone has run into luck." As
the number of visitors has grown, their dip into the
supernatural has become more perfunctory; now a monk
with a bullhorn herds worshipers through the row of
coffins, nine at a time.
Like Charlie Chaplin on an out-of-control assembly line,
they follow the monks' commands: into the coffin, down
on their backs, eyes closed, shroud on, shroud off,
up on their feet, quick prayer and scramble out
into a new life.
The whole process takes a minute and a half. The next
group of nine is waiting.
A cardboard sign warns visitors not to stand behind
the coffins, where bad karma sucked from the "dying"
devotees may still be hovering.
The rebirth ceremony is unusual, but not surprising,
said Suwannan Sathta-Anand, an associate professor of
philosophy at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
"These days, a lot of people in Thai society are creating
new kinds of rituals and practices to suit whatever
purposes they have," she said.
With the hierarchy of organized Buddhism slow to adapt
to changing times, she said, "people are looking for
their own expression of Buddhism that could be relevant
to their lives."
Along with the religion of their past, a tide of modern
capitalism has seized the imagination of Thais as their
country has rapidly developed in the past three decades.
Two years ago, Thailand was gripped by a frenzy for a
magical amulet called Jatukam that sold in several versions
with unambiguous names like "Super Rich," "Immediately
Rich," "Rich Without Reason" and "Miracle Rich."
The people who come to be reborn here at Wat Prommanee
are seeking help for many of the ailments and aspirations
of life.
Jirapat Winarungruang, 37, a lawyer, came one recent day
to complete a transformation that he began four years ago
when he changed his name from the less auspicious Suthep
Wina. His new name includes the suffix rungruang, which
means prosperity.
Fifty percent of a person's destiny is determined by his
name, Jirapat said, and the other 50 percent by his date
of birth. When he arose from the coffin, born again, he
said, the last vestiges of the old Suthep Wina would be gone.
Woraphot Sriboonyang, 30, an engineer, said he had come
with Jirapat and four other family members to rid himself
of bad karma.
Within just a few weeks, he said, he had suffered a
break-in and a bad car accident. He wanted his run of
bad luck to stop at two.
Sangkhom Thani, 37, who sells subsidized food for the
government, said he hoped for luck in business and
relief for his aching back and knees. "If I lie down
in the coffin, it will give me a new lease on life,"
he said as he examined an expensive new amulet.
Chalida Muansawang, 33, a hairdresser, brought her
12-year-old daughter, Saksithorn, in the hope that a
few moments in a coffin would help cure her hyperactivity.
"I'm excited and a little bit scared," said the girl,
who proceeded bravely through the process with her mother
lying next to her in an adjacent coffin.
As the morning's ceremony ended, a long line had already
formed for the afternoon shift. Among the newcomers was
the entire 36-man Royal Thai Army soccer team, in bright
red jerseys, preparing for a match the next day.
"We'll lie in the coffins and then we'll go to practice,"
said one of the players, Nippon Khamthong, 22. Asked what
he hoped his rebirth would bring him, he said, "We just
want to win tomorrow."
http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=52,7937,0,0,1,0
Dying to live again the Buddhist way
by Tibor Krausz, Sydney Morning Herald, March 22, 2009
Thais are lining-up to 'die' so they can start a better life
Nakhon Nayok, Thailand -- I lower myself into the coffin,
my curiosity tinged with uneasiness. As I lie there
"dying" inside the spacious casket, a Buddhist monk
beside it launches into a funereal chant.
Thus bidding farewell to my life so far, he pulls a
large white shroud over the casket. In it, clasping a
hand-me-down bouquet of orchids, I become, symbolically,
the living dead, hovering for a moment between my old
life and a new one.
The cobalt-blue silk-lined chest smells faintly of mildew
and perfume, and there's a headrest. Pressed against the
small of my back is a stack of 100-baht ($4) notes left
behind as donation by the morning's previous occupants
of this coffin - the seventh in a line of nine identical
caskets arrayed inside the ordination hall of Wat Prommanee
monastery in Nakhon Nayok.
This nondescript rural monastery, about 110 kilometres
north-east of Bangkok, draws hundreds of worshippers daily
from around Thailand to its idiosyncratic cleansing rites.
Participants die ritual deaths to re-emerge cleansed of
karmic misfortune. Marital strife, financial hardships,
irksome follies - you can leave them all behind in the coffin.
"I've hit some obstacles lately and came for help to
overcome them," Ratchaphon Tandee, a fish farmer from
Ayutthya, tells me after his turn in a coffin. From a
ceramic bowl in a golden Buddha statue's lap, he scoops
up tepid holy water with a plastic cup and takes a
worshipful sip. "My cousin won the [town] lottery after
her first visit," he adds, indicating the young woman
at his side who has returned for second helpings of good luck.
A police lieutenant I meet is eager to be "reborn" into
a higher rank with more pay. A college student wants
some spiritual boost to her desire for weight loss. A
soap opera actress is here to rid herself of a baleful
miasma placed on her by a curse. She intends to entice
the malevolent spirit into a coffin and trap it there.
Saman Nuchin, who leads his bashful young daughter by
the hand, comes from neighbouring Saraburi. He wears a
sun-faced Buddha amulet around his neck. He is a
groundskeeper at a cemetery. He concedes he has never
seen people rise from coffins before, but he plans to
do just that for a new lease on life. "I'm 58 and a
fortune teller told me this age will be very ominous
for me," Saman explains. "I want to die symbolically
so I can carry on living happily."
At Wat Prommanee, Bangkok socialites rub shoulders with
country housewives, politicians mingle with village teachers,
entrepreneurs with rice farmers. In Thailand, superstitious
obsession with good luck knows no class or status, or
bounds. Amulets proliferate. Every home has its spirit
shrines, and magic tattoos are credited with protective
powers against everything from mishaps to bullet wounds.
Since 2005, when Wat Prommanee began offering its unique
services, the monastery has become a word-of-mouth
sensation. "First we thought one coffin would suffice,"
says Viehien Poomboontharig, a local journalist with
bejewelled fingers and cascades of gold amulets who
volunteers at the temple. "Now even nine aren't enough."
Nine is a sort of magic number here - the Thai word
for "nine" is pronounced the same way as the phrase
"move forward".
Rebirths happen quickly. There is no time for reveries
or much reflection inside the coffin. The monk, still
chanting in a mournful tone, walks past the chest I am
lying in and peels the large white sheet back from the
feet towards the head.
He taps me on the shoulder. I've been reborn and it's
time to get a move on. From the several dozen worshippers
waiting in orderly, sombre rows at the back, the next
nine rebirthers are already lining up.
They each walk to a coffin, grasp the well-thumbed
bouquet there, recite a plea for guardian spirits
(each casket has its own), and clamber in. They lie
down, close their eyes. The shroud goes up, the shroud
comes down. They stand up, make a wish, step out, and
off they go into their "new" lives.
"Next!"
Near columns of sandstone buddhas snack vendors
peddle psychedelic beverages, home-made crackers
and fried rat mounted between splintered bamboo sticks.
A black tomcat, famed bringer of misfortune, lurks at
a gate guarded by giant plaster elephants. A monk sits
behind a table laid with mass-produced charms, 50 baht
apiece, for "repelling misfortune".
Part of the donations - the coffin ritual costs 100
baht - goes towards buying real coffins for poor
families so they can bury their deceased loved ones in style.
"This ritual helps you see life in a new light."
says Luang Por Tueng, a monk.
No question about that. If you can leave a coffin on
your own two feet, things are already looking up.