Giving Alms and Nourishing the Dead

I don’t go in for much ‘woo’. In fact being an atheist is an important part of who I am. And yet I jumped at the chance to tag along to a ritual-filled morning of blessings and prayers and feeding spirits of the dead.

The Lotus - some see a symbol of Buddhist thought - I see a pretty flower that would look quite nice in a garden water feature

After wangling myself an invitation to this morning’s ceremony, I couldn’t really complain about the sacrificed sleep. I got up early, donned a sinh and went to the wat.

A sinh-er... (Ha! see what I did there?)

I work in a Buddhist country with a bunch of lovely, moderately religious (or compliant) people who believe in the ideals of Leninist communism, in the philosophy of the Buddha,  Buddhism's associated rituals and in the power of the spirits of the dead. Some I’ve asked don’t actually believe in these rituals but do them anyway; many don’t question them; some are totally convinced that following these beautiful, history-steeped practices is the way to true happiness and peace on earth.

As it was described to me, today was the day that the king of paradise gives permission for the spirits of the dead to revisit family and be fed and appreciated and generally bask in the love of their descendants. (I might have got some of that wrong - I'll ask someone else tomorrow).

Shucked shoes

The morning started with the usual shucking of shoes on the temple steps and some side-ways sitting on plastic mats until my legs ached (didn’t take long).

Me with Leurt-from-work

Noy had set me up with an appropriate sash (serendipitously one that matched my sinh), a silver bowl of biscuits, several crisp new 1000K notes and a little basket of sticky rice. I’ve done this before so I knew the routine.

Giving alms

Shuffling along a trestle table of monk’s bowls and plastic bags we placed a small lump of rice into each bowl, bickies and money into the plastic bags. Noy told me that as we handed over the goods we were giving sustenance to our dead ancestors or other spirits we cared about. (Each monk will get a full bowl of rice and a bag of goodies but I always feel it’s not fair that the first and last bowls get the most stuff. I hope they share.)

We did some more sitting and listening with clasped palms and bit of shifting from side to side – from one buttock to the other (sitting like that is so much harder now than it was 15 years ago!). As my hips ached and my candles burnt, the collection tray came around a few times and the monks chanted.

At one point we poured water into our silver bowls. Noy had provided a little bottle of water for me but her own set-up is a gorgeous silver jug that looks like a miniature middle eastern coffee pot.

Noy pouring water and praying

As we poured we were to send prayers to our ancestors. I poured and thought how my grandparents’ ghosts were unlikely to be within earshot and probably wouldn't listening anyway. They sure as hell wouldn't have eaten sticky rice after it had been handled by so many people.

It's a long way from Drouin

Afterwards I did the tourist-with-camera thing and watched people putting candles, small balls of rice and flowers at the feet of Buddha statues...

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on the statue's hands...

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and even in a Naga serpent’s mouth... 

Some enterprising folk had set up temporary shops to service the masses. Here's some food for sale...

  

and other glittery, flowery, temply stuff...

Stupas for individual dead people and a very much alive little kid

Gradually, around 10ish, people wandered away to go to work, home or to visit a waterfall (I was told this was a popular thing to do on a day like today)

 

Noy and Leurt

Before going back to work we dropped in on Noy’s Mum,

Me and Mae

We ate too much...

Noy, Noy's Mum, Leurt and second breakfast

... and we lazed around a bit watching karaoke DVD that sung the praises of The Party and of the Institute of Politics and Administrative Studies (I might have that name wrong).

(click to enlarge - go on, I know you want to)

This  DVD included images of students sitting at desks, majestic buildings, some black and white images of revolutionaries in caves and some hammer-and-sickle flags

 

 Communist Karaoke

... all with gentle, non-screeching Lao music sung by smiling young men with the words running along the bottom of the screen so the literate could sing along.

I really wish I was literate in Lao.