Thai Temple Offers the Ultimate Chance at Rebirth By Spooky on May 31st, 2011 Category: Events, WTF LIKE DISLIKE Share 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 Twitter Sign In to E-Mail Print Share . 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.