Karmic Precautions

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To ensure Buddha will be looking favourably to our endeavours in the Orient, we have taken most of the available karmic precautions one can find in the city of angels. We have made merits in sacred sites, trawled through a bizarre amulet market acquiring some powerful charms to protect us from malevolent spirits and paid a visit to a hidden shrine of phallic proportions.

As Buddhism, spiced up with odd bits of Hinduism and animism, is interwoven to everyday life of Thais, making merit is a way of life for most Thai people. Making merit is a way to gain happiness in this life and to increase your slim chances of not reborning as a louse in the rectum of a stray dog in your next life. An old Thai proverb illustrates this karmic balancing act eloquently: if you do good you will receive good; if you do evil you will receive evil . Karma it seems, pardon my French, can be a real vengeful bitch. Karmically speaking, you might be doomed in misery for your entire life before you are even born, simply because you messed up royally in your previous life. Before sinking deep into existential despair, you might appreciate to learn there is a Get-out-of-Jail card in this karmic lottery, that is reaching Nirvana, a state of enlightment, where one is released from the otherwise endless cycle of reincarnation. Never mind that getting there usually requires a few thousand of years of concentrated effort, it is a consoling thought nonetheless.

If you are still with me instead of contemplating your prospects for next life, let me breeze through the ways of making merit we went about. We skipped the most popular one available for non-Thais, which is releasing either a caged bird in a temple or a fish into a river at a riverside temple, mainly because the riverside temples are currently a no-go area due to the ever-worsening situation with the deluge. Alternately, we have added some hard currency to a blessed tree of money, rang the bells on top of the golden mountain, offered incense sticks and lotus flowers to Buddha, added a golden foil to revered statue of Buddha, dropped money in tens of cauldrons circling the reclining Buddha and given alms to charities helping the victims of the flooding. We are planning to do one more on Thursday, offering red roses to the Hindu god of love, Trimurti. Celestial love life guaranteed. Needless to say, it was my gorgeous soon to be wife who came up with the last idea.

While the karmic forces are unimpeachably with us now, another layer of mystic defences would do no harm, for that end, a visit to an obscure amulet alley was required. The streetside amulet market is situated close to the Wat Phrai Kaew, the most important temple in Bangkok. Ranging from pendant-sized to medallion- sized, phrá khrêuang (amulets) come in various classes, from rare objects or relics including antlers, stones from monestary's soil or my personal favourite the dentures of abbots to images of Buddha or famous monks embossed in bronze, wood or clay. The amulets are sold by dealers on blankets along the broken sideway across from the temple and by more permanent shops proliferating in the sunless alleyways. The value of the amulets is based on the detail and craftsmanship as well as on the ranking of the monk called upon to bless and consecrate it. The clientele is mostly made of the natives, especially monks, taxi drivers and people in hazardous occupations. The amulets are believed to provide protection and bring good fortune with different charms offering very specific protection, for example, against getting stopped for speeding. If only I still had my black beastess, that would have been the amulet for me. Instead we settled for some potent charms warding off the evil spirits of the third world and the burdens of a salaried life.

With magic and karma on our side, there was only one more goddess to pay our respects to - Chao Mae Tuptim, residing at Lingam Shrine. This little known shrine is not mentioned in any glossy tourist brochure and it hidden away behind a former Hilton hotel. What makes this shrine rather unique is the hundreds of lingams, phallic forms of the Hindu god Shiva, placed around the park, a small army of ribbon wrapped cocks guarding the goddess. Legend has it that a worshiper became pregnant after making a request to the goddess of the shrine. The grateful woman left a phallic offering as a thank you for the birth of her child. Subsequently the word got around about the successful pregnancy, those hoping for children are still bringing lingams to the shrine. Divine fertility treatment.

To wrap up this somewhat spiritual ranting and bring it down to the earth, we would like to inform all our worried family members and friends that we are fine. The floods have arrived at the gates of Bangkok and the city is under a siege but people still go about with a smile on their faces. The city proper is expected to go under during the weekend when high tides coincide with the water masses surging towards the city. We will move to a hotel close to the airport tomorrow and take a flight to Kathmandu on Friday, a timely exit, I reckon.

Karma police I've given all I can, it's not enough, I've given all I can, but we're still on the payroll
- Karma Police by Radiohead

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Comments

[Andy]

I've got a poster on my wall saying "Karma is only a bitch if you are". Without irony, it's become my guide in life.

[Anastasiya and Kalle]

Hear hear! With that karmic wisdom in your hand, you will hit a jackpot in the roulette of reincarnation. Might even reborn as a monkey!