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  1. #1

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    dirtydog's Avatar
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    Wai Phra or Making a Buddhist Offering

    Wai Phra



    First off your going to need to learn to Wai, rather than look like some nerdy farang with arms and legs all over the place and wondering how high your hands should be in relation to your nose you need to read our "How and What to Wai Tutorial", another useful read is our "Giving Flowers to Buddha".


    Time to choose a Temple, now you may want to consider that you could make a real arse of yourself and may wish never to set foot inside that Temple ever again, so choose wisely, not the one you may end up visiting every week with your Thai wife or girlfriend, choose one that wont cause in problems with you and yours if you never go back to that one again, plenty to choose from, now all the stuff you will need is at the Temple, for footwear just wear flip flops, trainers or nice shoes are just a pain to take off and on at Temples, also show some respect in what you wear, trousers and a shirt do go down well, no wife beater singha beer vests and speedo swimming trunks.


    Quite often Temples will have fairs and things to raise money for various items, here is a lot of money that has been raised.




    If it is for Temple building etc you may have to gold leaf the round balls that go in the ground to protect the Temple from evil spirits, there is a certain amout of gold balls and you get that amount of pieces of gold leaf, windy days and you will lose some, that probably means really really bad things will happen to you.



    Anyway the above was from a really complex Temple raising fund, had to do just about everything Buddhist that there is to do, we just want to get the basics down pat here so you can feel confident when walking into a Temple and not feel like a complete dick as you do something really stupid like moving something over to the Monk with your foot, more on Temple Fund Raising (Hua Yai Temple fund raising).

    So first off collect your Wai Phra Kit, in that you will get a candle, 3 incense sticks, a flower or flowers and maybe some gold leaf, if there are any things that need gold leaf on them you will see them and others putting the gold leaf onto them, 1 piece of gold leaf per statue and your good to go, although do the gold leaf last, not sure if that is like a fixed rule but that's the way I see it happen every time.

    Find the Buddha image with the candles in front of it, feet behind you crawl to the statue, light the candle and place next to the others, your flower or flowers are next, normally to the side will be a bucket with water and flowers in, place yours there and lets get on with the incense sticks, light them up with your candle, hold between palms and pray like hell, once that is over and done with put the incense sticks into the sand and do the triple Wai, ie 3 Wais with palms hitting the ground, and that's all there is to it, congratulations on your first Wai Phra or Making a Buddhist Offering.

    In this photo you can see the candles, the incense sticks and of course lotus flowers have been used for flowers at this Temple.

    Making Merit (Making Merit Photos)
    The Lotus for Luck


  2. #2
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    Curious George's Avatar
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    I felt that this Post was very useful to those, not in the know. Some Wats only look for money, but others are truly interested in the people!

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