Monastic life on Sukhumvit
October 28th, 2008On my flight home to Tokyo from my last trip to Bangkok, Thai Airways invited monks to board first before making the usual announcement about “guests traveling with small children and people needing extra time.”
When I got to the counter I asked why and they told me that monks are not allowed to touch women, and letting them board first helps keep them from getting accidentally jostled. Apparently it works the same on the metro:
I wonder if monks are allowed to touch ladyboys.
While walking down Sukhumvit Road, I’ve been approached on two occasions by a man wearing saffron monk robes. He was very aggressive in asking for money, and singled me out of a host of Thai people walking down the same street. I didn’t give him any money for several small reasons: He was wearing street shoes, not sandals; he singled me (the foreigner) out, which I didn’t want to encourage; he was out begging in the early evening and I had read that monks were meant to live on alms they collected each day before noon.
I understand that all Thai men are monks at some stage in their lives, even if it’s only for one day. It seems to me that the point of living from alms is to learn humility and self-denial, and to understand your interdependence with other members of your community. You can’t learn these things by begging from tourists (presumably because they have more money) rather than your co-religionists.
On the other hand, I read this excerpt from the Diamond Sutra quoted in Paul Theroux’s Ghost Train To The Eastern Star yesterday:
Buddha teaches that the mind of a Bodhisattva should not accept the appearances of things as a basis when exercising charity.
October 14th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
It shouldn’t have been the fact he was asking in the evening that tipped you off, it should have been that he was ASKING, and asking for MONEY. The Thais wouldn’t have believed for 2 seconds he was an actual monk.
Buddhist monks (and nuns, in case you happen to meet one of Thailands 7 nuns) must not ever ASK for anything.
It is also prohibited for them to handle money, although, given the widespread levels of corruption in the Thai monastic sangha (community) many do. Good monks won’t take money if you give it to them.
And, for the record, monks may touch lady-boys, but not in a suggestive or sexual manner, i.e. no massages, or anything else, and nothing else which could have even the slightest possibility of being taken the wrong way. And seeming the risk of it being taken the wrong way is high with lady-boys, it’s the kind of thing which is inadvisable.