Visakha Bucha Day

Visakha Bucha Day

May 24, 2013

Visakha Bucha Day is celebrated by Buddhists all over the world. It commemorates the most important events in the Buddha’s life: birth, enlightenment, and death, all of which happened on the same date (but not in the same year of course). One way that Thai people observe this day is to make merit by giving gifts of food to monks.  Merit-making is too big a subject to delve into here, but essentially, it means to do a good deed unselfishly and from the heart.

One of many depictions of the three events.

May 24 is a national holiday and schools are closed. At our school, Visakha Bucha was observed the day before. It was a rainy morning, so instead of gathering at 8:30 a.m. at the flagpole as usual, we went to the assembly hall. The children were excited, sitting in rows on the floor with their gifts on trays or in plastic bags. Each person should bring nine gifts, I was told; there would be nine monks. Two monks were there at the start of the event and the others came one by one, the last two arriving halfway through the gift-giving.

Two teachers who have leadership roles at the school opened the ceremony with speeches and led the students in prayers. The children all knew what to do, reciting in unison or performing the wai (not the greeting, but the one where you are on your knees and prostrate yourself three times). Finally the gift-giving started.  The students filed past the monks, who held bowls to receive the gifts – most often, little plastic bags of cooked rice, boxes of soymilk, or other non-perishable foods. Many of the children also had “kanom” (the Thai word for any dessert or snack) – candy bars, little packets of cookies, packages of dried bananas or other sweets.  A few mothers rushed in at the last minute with gifts for their child to add to the bounty. The monks’ bowls were quickly filled up and the contents emptied into sacks held by waiting students – a team of the older boys, who put the sacks into wheelbarrows, took them away, and came racing back with the wheelbarrows again to get more.  I was prodded into line at one point (not having a clue when it would be appropriate for me to go), with the whispered reminder: Take your shoes off!  -- Duuh, of course, nearly five months in Thailand and I still forget to do that. – After all the students had filed past, one of the monks chanted a prayer and the ceremony was finished.

People giving gifts to monks

At lunch that day with several fellow-teachers, I commented:  “Man, those monks got a lot of kanom! Rice and soy milk are basic foods, but kanom are a snack.” Politely, the others set me straight:  The children like to give the things that they themselves like. In so doing, they make a gift from the heart, which is the in the true spirit of the giving.  – Abashed, I nodded contritely and finished my lunch.