Kwan

[billzant]

In a Thai lesson a textbook gave the following:-

“Thai people believe that the head is the most important part of the entire body. It is inhabited by the kwan which is the spiritual force of life. So never pat a Thai on the head even in the friendliest of gestures.”

I said I thought that was not a Buddhist idea, and my teacher investigated the Thai internet coming up with:-

ขวัญ หมายถึง นามธรรมอันหนึ่งคล้ายพลังจิตที่มีอยู่ในตัวมนุษย์ตั้งแต่เป็นเด็กทารก มีความเชื่อว่าถ้าขวัญของผู้ใดอยู่กับตัวผู้นั้นจะมีความสุขกายสบายใจแต่ถ้าขวัญของผู้ใดหายไปนั้นจะมีลักษณะอาการตรงกันข้าม

The teacher translated this as:-

“Kwan is an abstract noun meaning spiritual power which comes with human from their birth. It’s believed that people with their kwan will have both mental and physical happiness. On the other hand, if they lose their kwan, they will be unhappy.”

Can anyone shed any light on kwan, its origins and connections with Buddhism?

Hope you are keeping well,

All the Best,

Bill Z

[camerata]

The Thai dictionary says:

1. [noun] morale; fortune; luck; courage; heart; spirit; prosperity; merit

2. [noun] whorl of hair on top of the head; cowlick

3. [noun] animistic life force; vital essence of all living things including plants and animals, especially crops

On the other hand winyaan is:

1. [noun] soul; spirit

My guess is khwan as "life force" pre-dates Buddhism. In my experience, when Thais talk about whatever is reborn they use "winyaan." I've mainly heard khwan used in the sense of morale.

[sabaijai]

Khwan comes from Tai animistic beliefs that pre-date Buddhism. For some Tai groups, including Lao and Northern Thai, there are 32 separate khwan present in your body, each with a separate function in overseeing organs and physical capacities.

The interpretation from the Thai text you quoted sounds like a contemporary, revisionist explanation of khwan -- or perhaps the central Thai interpretation, I'm not sure.

Khwan bears no relation to canonical Buddhism, bu is definitely part of the Thai Buddhist fabric, which includes many elements of animism and Brahmanism.

[billzant]

Thanks for the replies about kwan that point to it being animist. As I said on Littlebang on "Farmer's day" apparently the praahm (Brahmin?) presides over a ceremony to promote kwan, and I was also told that the King has a praahm to perform a ceremony for Him. I thought it might have had Indian origins.

I don't understand why kwan resides in the head?

Know anywhere in English where I can read about Thai animism?

[sabaijai]

The 32 khwan reside in different places all over the body, but they enter and leave via the crown of the head, supposedly at the fissure in the skull thats partially open when one is a baby.

Further info:

http://www.patana.ac.th/secondary/science/Environmental%20Studies/EcoSoc/evolution/Origins.html

http://kirjon.com/sacred-sites/animistic-beliefs.htm

http://andrejandkarenbrummer.com/?page_id=1928

http://www.thaicov.org/resources/documents/string_tying.html

http://www.crvp.org/book/Series03/IIID-3/chapter-12.htm

[healthcaretaker]

Khwan comes from Tai animistic beliefs that pre-date Buddhism. For some Tai groups, including Lao and Northern Thai, there are 32 separate khwan present in your body, each with a separate function in overseeing organs and physical capacities.

This interests me.

The brain is the headquarter of our nerve system that controls our organs and physical capacities too & Buddhism believed in meditation and its usefulness which works on the mind.

Isn't this something that showed the coherence between science & Buddhism

Looks like Buddhism is very science-based although it's long before science discovered it.

Edited February 24, 2011 by healthcaretaker

[lungmi]

Khwan comes from Tai animistic beliefs that pre-date Buddhism. For some Tai groups, including Lao and Northern Thai, there are 32 separate khwan present in your body, each with a separate function in overseeing organs and physical capacities.

This interests me.

The brain is the headquarter of our nerve system that controls our organs and physical capacities too & Buddhism believed in meditation and its usefulness which works on the mind.

Isn't this something that showed the coherence between science & Buddhism

Looks like Buddhism is very science-based although it's long before science discovered it.

In Asean countries for Lom Pran (chi'i,-chinese, Ki -Japanese), Prana (india) the center point is is the Tan Tien, two finger kun under the belly bottom (chinese), one finger under the Hara (Japanese). The brain is not the headquarter, but don't forget him.

[lungmi]

Now I understand. I had a patient in Li (Lamphun), Karen after a stroke. Impossible to touch her head for a treatment.

With the help of Luang Pho Kumjon she accepted the "clean light of the Buddha -Low level laser", 1 cm over the skin.

I don"t know what happens after, but when a came later with my wife (family in Li) people asked us, where is the finger of the Buddha.

When I say Karen I'm not sure, there is a melting pot in the mountains of Lamphun.

Edited February 28, 2011 by lungmi

[fabianfred]

Today at my temple is a large ceremony to 'riak kwan' call the spirit.

It is to be held for our Abbot who has been sick for more than a month with hepatitis B in hospital. They have arranged the usual Three-legged poles into a triangle like at a house=warming ceremony with bananas and other things around each leg. Sacred white cords go everywhere and to a Photo of the Abbot in the centre with a set of his robes.

Important monks in the area are coming to chant at the ceremony....

more details later.

[sabaijai]

The tripod/pyramid-like structure and associated ceremony is a northern Thai ritual known as phithi seup chataa (life-extending ceremony). It's quite common throughout the north (but not elsewhere in Thailand), directly descended from a similar pre-Buddhist Tai tribal ritual, and performed for the sick and elderly.

[fabianfred]

Set-up before ceremony

[kokesaat]

One of my favorite homework lessons in the 56 lesson series by Thomas Gething was the story about this subject. It's rather elementary.......but made for an interesting lesson and the neighbors enjoyed discussing it with me. The pdf file is available for download online.

[please provide the online link. use of foreign language passages outside of the Thai Language subforum is against one of our Forum Rules. (apologies for the removal)]

[fabianfred]

nice read kokesaat ..do you have a link to the pdf??

[kokesaat]

The pdf and mp3 are available from http://siamwestdc.com/thaireader-UH/index.htm

[lungmi]

Set-up before ceremony

FabianFred, I stay with my heart in this ceremony.

[fabianfred]

[lungmi]

What's about copyright?

I want to send this documentary to my son to

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/thrs/buddhist-centre/projects/

I cry from heart when I see your movie.

But I'm a strong fighter when people misuse and expolit the believing of honest people for economics purposes.

[fabianfred]

I made the video so own the copyright...you are welcome to use this or any of my videos on my Youtube or my Facebook account...

http://www.facebook.com/fabian.blandford?v=feed&viewas=529691988#!/fabian.blandford?viewas=529691988&sk=photos

[sabaijai]

Set-up before ceremony

Typical seup chataa setup, with bananas and coconuts as offerings to the spirits, confirming the animist lineage of the ritual. This ritual was in danger of disappearing around 20-30 years ago but has been somewhat revived along with interest in Lanna heritage.

[Polsci]

My Kwan just returned and joined the discussion. ;-)

Traditional Thai Medicine: Buddhism, Animism, Ayurveda by C. Pierce Salguero is an excellent reference to the Kwan and can answer the OP's questions. See Chapter 6: Thai Folk Healing. Got my copy from amazon.com.

[fabianfred]

The brain is the headquarter of our nerve system that controls our organs and physical capacities too & Buddhism believed in meditation and its usefulness which works on the mind.

Do not make the common Western mistake of associating the brain with the mind..... Asians usually put the mind more in the region of the heart...although it is actually seperate from the body and therefore cannot be examined by searching for it..

[rockyysdt]

The brain is the headquarter of our nerve system that controls our organs and physical capacities too & Buddhism believed in meditation and its usefulness which works on the mind.

Do not make the common Western mistake of associating the brain with the mind..... Asians usually put the mind more in the region of the heart...although it is actually seperate from the body and therefore cannot be examined by searching for it..

Having said that, mind cannot exist without body, and body without mind.

Mind & body are co dependent.

Edited December 14, 2011 by rockyysdt

[Xangsamhua]

Sorry, clicked in error.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Xangsamhua

[Xangsamhua]

Do not make the common Western mistake of associating the brain with the mind..... Asians usually put the mind more in the region of the heart...although it is actually seperate from the body and therefore cannot be examined by searching for it..

Having said that, mind cannot exist without body, and body without mind.

Mind & body are co dependent.

Well, we all talk about the mind, but I don't know if we know what it is, let alone if it's separate from the body or embedded in it.

I'm not sure what the Buddha thought the mind was. He spoke about "thought" or "the mind", as reported in the Dhammapada, and regarded it as prior to action, but I don't know if he argued one way or the other as to whether it was separate from or included in the "aggregates" (skandhas).

Everyone just assumes that each of us has a mind and that it’s different for each of us, but it seems to me we just have different memories.

If I have a mind, I’d like to know where it is, perhaps so I could give it a tune-up or something. Naturalists, like Owen Flanagan (“The Bodhisattva’s Brain”) don’t seem to believe in minds – just brains and all the neuronal things brains do.

Gilbert Ryle (“The Concept of Mind”, 1948) regarded “mind” as a category mistake. We look at all the things we think are products of the mind or mental events and we project from this that there is an entity behind them, but we can’t in fact locate it. It’s as if, having seen companies of soldiers on parade, we turn to our neighbour and ask “But where’s the battalion?”.

We know we have consciousness, and we know we have memory and imagination and reasoning ability. Moreover, we know that others have these things, too. Are these the things that constitute mind or are they derived from some kind of universal mind, something beyond our individual consciousness and on which we draw to initiate thought and action, both of which are products of the brain and the central nervous system?

In drawing on a ‘cosmic’ mind, perhaps we adapt it to our level of awareness and taint it with the karmic effects of greed, anger and delusion, thus appropriating it to ourselves in a sullied form. If this is so, the “Mind” on which we draw is untainted and, if coupled with a life lived according to the Dhamma, retains its purity. Translated into intention and action, the pure Mind exercises a therapeutic role in our lives. In Buddhist teaching, this will ensure a serene life and a good rebirth.

I’m not sure, though, how this differs from the Hindu belief that we are each individually one with the Ultimate Reality, Brahman, as expressed in the wonderful Sanskrit aphorism Tat Tvam Asi, “Thou art That” or “That thou Art”. However, one thing we can be sure of is that we can’t point to any one phenomenon and say “Thou art Mind”.

[dutchguest]

On page 95 of his book "The forgotten kingdom" ( http://pratyeka.org/...gotten_kingdom/ ) Peter Goullart describes the believe in "kwans" of a certain tribe in South-China as follows:

Their hair is black, slightly wavy and very soft; and its arrangement is a distinctive

feature of all Lolos. It is gathered through a hole at the top of their dark blue or black

turbans and hangs as a limp tail or, more often, springs up like a miniature palm-tree,

supported by a sheath of black strings. The hair of the Lolo is sacred and no one is

supposed to touch it under the pain of death. They believe that the Divine Spirit

communicates with man through the exposed lock of his hair which, like upstanding

antenna or the aerial of a wireless set, conveys the spiritual impulses, like waves to a

receiver, to the brain.

[rockyysdt]

We know we have consciousness, and we know we have memory and imagination and reasoning ability. Moreover, we know that others have these things, too. Are these the things that constitute mind or are they derived from some kind of universal mind, something beyond our individual consciousness and on which we draw to initiate thought and action, both of which are products of the brain and the central nervous system?

In drawing on a 'cosmic' mind, perhaps we adapt it to our level of awareness and taint it with the karmic effects of greed, anger and delusion, thus appropriating it to ourselves in a sullied form. If this is so, the "Mind" on which we draw is untainted and, if coupled with a life lived according to the Dhamma, retains its purity. Translated into intention and action, the pure Mind exercises a therapeutic role in our lives. In Buddhist teaching, this will ensure a serene life and a good rebirth.

I'm not sure, though, how this differs from the Hindu belief that we are each individually one with the Ultimate Reality, Brahman, as expressed in the wonderful Sanskrit aphorism Tat Tvam Asi, "Thou art That" or "That thou Art". However, one thing we can be sure of is that we can't point to any one phenomenon and say "Thou art Mind".

Using one of Camerata's interpretations of the meaning of Khan ( [noun] soul; spirit), it appears to be yet another grasping of the idea of soul, or something which is permanent or immortal, as is the Christian soul, the Atman and so on.

Mankind has always struggled with the fear of his mortality, and has entertained religions which offer something more.

I've learned that there are two camps when it comes to Buddhism:

• One in which followers believe in re birth into many lives until enlightenment takes place (and I must say, enlightenment is a 18th century word and never appeared in the original canonical works of the Buddha).
• The other is where birth death & re birth are moment to moment events, happening so fast, as with frames of a film in a movie, that we are left with the perception of consciousness and a soul.

The Buddha lived during a time when Brahmanism controlled all facets of life, and those who broke its rules could be met with death.

The Buddha spoke in metaphors and packaged his teaching in ways which fitted into thinking of the time.

It allowed the Buddha to eloquently impart his knowledge, but in such a way that those who were deluded could draw from it what they wanted to see.

Terminology such as "birth, death & re birth", easily satisfied Brahmanist who understood reincarnation.

He spoke of awakening, or to wake up to the way things really are, not enlightenment.

Awakening from delusion, aversion, and greed.

The Buddha also taught that there was nothing inside.

Our minds are simply processes with the illusion of consciousness.

That doesn't mean we don't exist, but it does mean there is no soul and upon expiration of our body, our mind (memories, volition, consciousness, conditioning) can no longer be supported.

Moment to moment birth, death and re birth supports all of the other teachings, including kharma, impermanence & awakening.

The Buddha was brilliant but he lived in the physical world.

He taught people to free themselves from delusion (Brahmanism and religion), greed, and aversion.

This ties in with Kwan as it appears that those who cling to it, or to such things as Nirvana (A Buddhist heaven in which one is reunited with a universal mind) Christian Heaven, Valhalla, and other such places, appear to be clinging to delusion, aversion & greed.

Edited December 15, 2011 by rockyysdt

[dutchguest]

At the moment I am reading “The Tibetan book of the dead”. From this I get the impression that the kwan is the “vital force”, residing somewhere in the navel-area and entering and leaving the body through the crown of the head in the bardo-state, the state between death and possible rebirth.

There are many gods and other supernatural beings in the book which might deter some to read the book or take it seriously, but if you perceive them metaphorically, as projections of our mind and not as really existing beings in the outer world, it may make some more sense. I understood that the Tibetans percieve them as well metaphorically as as really existing, just like many Thais see dreams and ghosts in the same time as projections, fantasies and as having a real existence and meaning.

http://www.summum.us.../book1.shtml#p1

“If the person dying be disposed to sleep, or if the sleeping state advances, that should be arrested, and the arteries pressed gently but firmly. Thereby the vital-force will not be able to return from the median-nerve and will be sure to pass out through the Brahmanic aperture. Now the real setting-face-to-face is to be applied”.

[dutchguest]

At the moment I am reading “The Tibetan book of the dead”. From this I get the impression that the kwan is the “vital force”, residing somewhere in the navel-area and entering and leaving the body through the crown of the head in the bardo-state, the state between death and possible rebirth.

There are many gods and other supernatural beings in the book which might deter some to read the book or take it seriously, but if you perceive them metaphorically, as projections of our mind and not as really existing beings in the outer world, it may make some more sense. I understood that the Tibetans percieve them as well metaphorically as as really existing, just like many Thais see dreams and ghosts in the same time as projections, fantasies and as having a real existence and meaning.

I want to add a few remarks:

There is some objective, provable reality in these eastern concepts about the kwan or vital force. We must be careful not to throw away the baby with the bathwater. Our western skeptic, scientific mind has still a rather limited understanding of what is subjective experience and what is objective reality and the relation between the subjective and objective, based on an absolute separation of the two spheres in science, while in an absolute, ultimate sense they are one and the same. Also our dreams and fantasies belong to the objective world of facts and happenings. And, according to Buddhism, nothing happens without a reason.

The Japanese ritual form of suicide, the harakiri, seems to be the fastest way of committing suicide as it is a direct attack on the vital force in the navel area. A knife has to be put in exactly the right place and death will follow immediately.

[Polsci]

At the moment I am reading “The Tibetan book of the dead”. From this I get the impression that the kwan is the “vital force”, residing somewhere in the navel-area and entering and leaving the body through the crown of the head in the bardo-state, the state between death and possible rebirth.

There are many gods and other supernatural beings in the book which might deter some to read the book or take it seriously, but if you perceive them metaphorically, as projections of our mind and not as really existing beings in the outer world, it may make some more sense.

Ah, thanks for bringing up the title of my favorite book! Morbid, yes.

You got it right that Kwan is a vital force and is called such only for the living. It's the vin-yaan (Vinnana in Pali) that permanently leaves the body upon physical death.

[dutchguest]

At the moment I am reading “The Tibetan book of the dead”. From this I get the impression that the kwan is the “vital force”, residing somewhere in the navel-area and entering and leaving the body through the crown of the head in the bardo-state, the state between death and possible rebirth.

There are many gods and other supernatural beings in the book which might deter some to read the book or take it seriously, but if you perceive them metaphorically, as projections of our mind and not as really existing beings in the outer world, it may make some more sense.

Ah, thanks for bringing up the title of my favorite book! Morbid, yes.

You got it right that Kwan is a vital force and is called such only for the living. It's the vin-yaan (Vinnana in Pali) that permanently leaves the body upon physical death.

Thanks for your explanation. So if I understand well vinyaan can be seen as the eternal and universal awareness that is temporarely manifesting itself in the human form and is in a certain way the medium through which rebirth and karma are possible. May be my reference to the book of the dead is not so lucky in a topic about “kwan”. I am not so at home in the spiritual world and in the terminology so I have to grope in the dark a bit, but I have a intuitive feeling it is an important book, although beyond my rationality and experience. I also have a feeling such a book could only be written in Tibet at that time and by an enlightened person. It must have been a very sacred and meditative atmosphere and culture. It would be nice if an enlightened person could write a actualized version of the book about his experiences with death and rebirth and the time between and his remembrances of past lives.