Thailand is a Noisy Place

[beautifulthailand99]

Sometimes it must be the heat and the noise and the smells and the crowds and the swirling mass of humanity that is Thailand - particuarly on a Sunday most people's day off and particuarly in a temple known for it's food and markets next to the Chao Prya river. There was one fine fellow - armed with a microphone who made a running hour long commentary trying to enthuse the people to donate to the temple. Sometimes it feels like this in this country - ENOUGH IS ENOUGH - so I videoed him and when I got back to the house made this tribute to the feeling. The girl meditating at the end is one I filmed when touring round the crazy UFO temple that is Wat Dhammakaya. Probably time to go home ... (England that is ) .

[sms747]

The annoying music on the clip is almost as bad

[thrilled]

Wear ear plugs.It's just the norm in Thailand.

[beautifulthailand99]

The annoying music on the clip is almost as bad

I've been infected with partial Thainess - I am trying to express the general noise in my head !

[lillyhofs]

Neve been there but heard a lot !! So apparantly yes a noisy place!!

[beautifulthailand99]

Stuffed wet toilet paper in my ears on the way back form visiting Nakhorn Pathum yesterday - 4 women in the back and one driving - all shouting to get heard (my wife is youngest of ten) - had a headache. My wife says the only way to get heard in his house when she was growing up was to shout. Bloody annoying but earplugs help - morning starts with distant monks chanting , cocks crowing , dogs barking , planes going off followed by motorbikes and cars and then the noisy birds.... time to go to the islands - Ko Chang tommorow thank the Buddha ...

Yes Thailand is a noisy place..

[longstebe]

Move to a village in Isaan. From 9am-3pm is absolute silence.

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[beautifulthailand99]

It's on my list of things to do have a friend who lives in a deep village near Nong Khai and would love to spend a few days deep in the boonies - but will then no doubt be missing the noise.

[longstebe]

It's on my list of things to do have a friend who lives in a deep village near Nong Khai and would love to spend a few days deep in the boonies - but will then no doubt be missing the noise.

555555

It all got a bit too quiet for me Tbf. We've now moved into the city, still Isaan though.

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[fabianfred]

That temple doesn't need yet more donations. It has enough already to have fine stainless fences and gates.

All temples seem to do nowadays is raise more and more money....but they do nothing to raise awareness of the true teachings of the Buddha...just tell the people BS about going to heaven.

[beautifulthailand99]

You're right of course fabianfred. I've often thought the best way to look at Thai Buddhism is like its medieval Christian equivalent - deeply superstitious and idolatrous with a wealthy and corrupt monastic order wielding considerable power. It took a venal Henry 8th desirious of numerous marriages and envious of the popes power in Europe as the King of Kings to take a shot at the reformation. Thailand's reformation is long overdue.

From Wikipedia..

Dissatisfaction with the general state of regular religious life, and with the gross extent of monastic wealth, was near to universal amongst late medieval secular and ecclesiastical rulers in the Latin West. However, in the early 16th century, these concerns acquired a vigorous, witty and eloquent articulation in the writings of the humanist scholar, Desiderius Erasmus. Erasmus's works were widely read and immensely influential; with strong support not only amongst men and women who would subsequently become Protestant, but also from those who were to be their committed opponents—such as Thomas More, John Fisher and Reginald Pole. Erasmus remained a faithful Catholic; but one who emphasised strongly the prime Christian duty of living in the world of God's creation according to the Way of Christ as revealed in the Gospels, and supported through the Grace of God in the divinely ordered sacraments, especially Baptism and the Mass. Erasmus's criticisms of the monks and nuns of his day were threefold;

– that, in withdrawing from the world into their own communal life, they elevated man-made monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience above the God-given vows of sacramental baptism; and elevated man-made monastic rules for religious life above the God-given teachings of the Gospels;

– that, notwithstanding exceptional communities of genuine austere life and exemplary charity, the overwhelming majority of abbeys and priories were havens for idle drones; concerned only for their own existence, reserving for themselves an excessive share of the commonwealth's religious assets, and contributing little or nothing to the spiritual needs of ordinary people;

– that the monasteries, almost without exception, were heavily involved in promoting and profiting from the unscriptural and superstitious veneration of relics, in the form of pilgrimages and purported miraculous tokens. The cult of relics was by no means specific to monasteries, but Erasmus was scandalised by the extent to which well-educated and highly regarded monks and nuns would participate in the perpetration of obvious frauds against gullible and credulous lay believers.

Summarising the state of monastic life across Western Europe, David Knowles said;

The verdict of unprejudiced historians at the present day would probably be—abstracting from all ideological considerations for or against monasticism—that there were far too many religious houses in existence in view of the widespread decline of the fervent monastic vocation, and that in every country the monks possessed too much of wealth and of the sources of production both for their own well-being and for the material good of the economy.