Is It Thai/buddhist Tradition To Be Away For 3 Months?

[Salsero]

Hi, sorry I've been searching for this and can't seem to find it anywhere, so thought I'd ask here, just wondering if it is tradition for Thai Buddhists to go away and either be at the temple for 3 months straight at one point in their lives? to cleanse their body mind?? just curious, thank you..

[mallyrd]

Its not unusual for someone to do this but it is not a requirement. You must remember that Budhism is not a religion but more of a way of life with choices to be made by the individual. Twice a year my wife will spend three days at the temple.

[eggomaniac]

Its not unusual for someone to do this but it is not a requirement. You must remember that Budhism is not a religion but more of a way of life with choices to be made by the individual. Twice a year my wife will spend three days at the temple.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors...a/wheel085.html

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So much for the education of 'long-term' monks. As for those who enter the Order temporarily, mostly for a period of three rainy months during the Vassa, or Buddhist Lent, the education is brief and devoted to the main tenets and features of Buddhism only. As pointed out above, such people enter monkhood either by their own genuine desire for knowledge of the Dhamma, by the dictum of custom or, as generally is the case, by the two reasons combined. Monks of this category return to lay life again as soon as the Lent is over. This is the reason why accommodations in monasteries (wats) are usually full during the Lenten period. Nowadays, owing to the pressure of modern life, the custom of temporarily entering monkhood is not so rigorously observed by people living in urban areas as by those in the countryside. The custom has its parallel in Burma, Cambodia, and Laos where Theravada Buddhism prevails.

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It is well-known that many of the Thai rulers, not satisfied with being mere lay-devotees, got themselves ordained into monkhood and became famous for their erudition in the Dhamma. King Mongkut, Rama IV, probably stands out as most distinguished among this class of royal devotees. The custom of Thai males entering the Sangha also contributes much to the better understanding and cooperation between the lay community and the monkhood. After all, personal experience is better than mere theoretical knowledge.

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Cooperation between the laity and the Bhikkhu Sangha in Thailand is close and spontaneous. To a very great extent this is due to the fact that in an average Thai family some of its members are certain to be found who have for some time served in the Sangha.

[Jonathanpattaya]

All of the better-half's three brothers have done at least one stint of three months in their local temple each. This is quite normal it seems.

[Brucenkhamen]

Its not unusual for someone to do this but it is not a requirement. You must remember that Budhism is not a religion but more of a way of life with choices to be made by the individual. Twice a year my wife will spend three days at the temple.

Yes it's a tradition that goes right back to the time of the Buddha, it is variously called rains retreat, vassa, or pansa.

Though Thais being Thais often shorten it to as little as a weekend.

[phetaroi]

Its not unusual for someone to do this but it is not a requirement. You must remember that Budhism is not a religion but more of a way of life with choices to be made by the individual. Twice a year my wife will spend three days at the temple.

Yes it's a tradition that goes right back to the time of the Buddha, it is variously called rains retreat, vassa, or pansa.

Though Thais being Thais often shorten it to as little as a weekend.

Yes, and Thais sometimes will become monks for some period of time in thanksgiving for some particular event. For example, in a family that I am very close to up in Chiang Mai, the older son and his wife seemed to be unable to have children and remained childless through their 20s and 30s. They finally did have a child when they were about 40 years old, and in thanks he became a monk...I think for about 3 months, although it may have been a somewhat shorter time (although certainly not less than a full month).

[khaowong1]

Its not unusual for someone to do this but it is not a requirement. You must remember that Budhism is not a religion but more of a way of life with choices to be made by the individual. Twice a year my wife will spend three days at the temple.

Yes it's a tradition that goes right back to the time of the Buddha, it is variously called rains retreat, vassa, or pansa.

Though Thais being Thais often shorten it to as little as a weekend.

I had one young man stay at my temple for a week, and still never figured out how to tie his robes right.

[honu]

It's a separate tradition but Thais also sometimes ordain to accumulate merit when someone in the family dies (for that person, in part--long story). Since I've seen it in the context of corporate co-workers ordaining it's usually for short periods of time, usually for about a week.

The other replies seem to fill in most of the rest: it's a Thai tradition for all males to ordain for the rainy season as a rite of passage that's been shortened to a week or two in modern use.

As for being "away": I was surprised at the lack of limitations related to family members visiting (when I ordained; foreigners can do the same, there are no nationality restrictions, even being a Christian wouldn't necessarily exempt someone). My wife visited very infrequently (surely the traditional approach, if complete seclusion hadn't been) but in some others' cases friends or girlfriends stopped by regularly. One temporary monk brought his father to act as his lay-assistant. In that unusual case it provided an opportunity for his father to also "make merit" since it's atypical for older males to go on the short outings (but again I think the opportunity is quite open; to my knowledge there is no restriction on how many times someone can ordain).

One of the practical points is to learn that part of the traditional culture but the main point (for Thais) is to generate good kamma (in Sanskrit, karma) for themselves and their family, or perhaps especially for their family, including dead relatives. You could generate this kind of merit other ways (charity, living a good life, supporting other monks) but it's supposed to be an unusually effective approach. Another supposedly effective approach is to support the "highest" monks (so making an offering to the Buddha would have yielded the karmic best value, but today you'd just have to seek out the more senior monks for the same end). Thai's don't take this seriously enough to discriminate with how they make offerings all that much, which accords with common sense given that greed for merit return kind of defeats the intention.