Couple agrees to remove Buddha images from fence at their Chiang Mai house

[Muzarella]

2 minutes ago, owl sees all said:

I do live here. And I am trying to tread the path between respect for an absurd Thai form of religion and atheism. It's not easy as most here will know.

 

Before Darwin westerners had an excuse for religion. What else could explain the catatrophes of life. Now they are more educated they know differently. 

 

What I know about Thai buddha culture does not reflect on anything good in my book. It's more about greed, saving face and lies. 

Really may be dificult to live in a Buddhist country with negative views of Buddhism

[owl sees all]

Just now, Muzarella said:

Really may be dificult to live in a Buddhist country with negative views of Buddhism

So a person living in a different country is going to find it difficult!

 

I have no views on buddhism; except what I see. I'm an athiest. Yes,,, I do find it a challenge but I've got more love and respect for things in Thailand than most of the Thais I know. I find them very shallow indeed. Will change direction at a moment's notice. And principles!!! One of the posters on TVForum has this quote; "Those are my principles and if you don't like them,, well I have others." Thais all over.

[Kieran00001]

 

1 hour ago, jak2002003 said:

 

I take it you are making a joke?

 

The sad thing is, as all the complaining and outraged Buddhist followers can't see.. is if Buddha actually came back and walked past that house... he would not care less about the golden heads displayed there..   as usual, religious stupid people doing things that are totally against the meaning of their religion..... they should not even have temples set up.. and those temple should never ask for money or material offerings!  It's all turned on its head and become worthless to most people.

 

Considering all he said about concentrating on his teachings rather than idolatry I think he would at least be a little disappointed.

 

And if they "should not even have temples set up" then why did Buddha say, “Any human being building Buddha’s temple, even while still in samsara, in future lives will always have incredible wealth, like radiating palaces, like the king of devas. In all the lives you will have happiness, will get good rebirth, and will create good karma in the next lives. While experiencing the result for ten millions of eons, all the time you will enjoy your life, with joyful mind, with no sorrow, and in the end will achieve the state of peace, the cessation of suffering and its causes.”

 

And no, temples should never ask for money, but what they should do is give their visitors the chance to make an offering in order to fulfil Dana, the option should always be there to give without receiving, and I have never been asked to pay anything in all the temples I have been to, I have had bowls held in my direction but never once a request made, have you?

[jak2002003]

42 minutes ago, Kieran00001 said:

 

No, nothing wrong with making them or indeed looking at them while praying, but it must be kept in mind that you are only looking at a statue not Buddha, so absolutely no worship of the statue itself, but if you think it helps you to remember Buddhas teachings and to stay focussed then no problem in looking at his image.  A previous school I taught at had an interesting approach to teaching this, we had a large statue of Buddha in the grounds but when we prayed the children were instructed to always face away from the statue as to not confuse Buddha for this piece of concrete.

That's very good of the school.

 

But in practice most people do worship the statue and seem to think it is Buddha.  Just go to a temple as Songkhran and see them pouring holy water over its head.

 

Watch a Thai person in their house in the Buddha room... kneeling in front of the stature or picture, lighting incense sticks and praying to it.

 

Then there are the rules about not exporting the statues, covering up their faces when transporting the big ones, even down to the Buddha giant footprints in the rocks that people cover with gold and get good luck from...... 

 

All that seems to me that they are worshiping the statue or image.  Even bowing down and laying on the floor in front of them.  

 

[LionofMedaCM]

This too fake rather than redicilous , Buddha him self is not a god ! too simply a good men and said" i'm not the god " also said do not build any image or statue after me, so the temple it self is illegal and doesn't represent buddhism so poitnless to ask peopel removing heads while you are building things doesn't belong to buddhism ,moreover  the American deserve what happen to him as he tried to adopt something not given to him ......anything with a middle men is unsure and most of unsure things are either fake or non- real

[jak2002003]

3 minutes ago, LionofMedaCM said:

This too fake rather than redicilous , Buddha him self is not a god ! too simply a good men and said" i'm not the god " also said do not build any image or statue after me, so the temple it self is illegal and doesn't represent buddhism so poitnless to ask peopel removing heads while you are building things doesn't belong to buddhism ,moreover  the American deserve what happen to him as he tried to adopt something not given to him ......anything with a middle men is unsure and most of unsure things are either fake or non- real

Best post I have read on this thread.  

[Kieran00001]

34 minutes ago, jak2002003 said:

That's very good of the school.

 

But in practice most people do worship the statue and seem to think it is Buddha.  Just go to a temple as Songkhran and see them pouring holy water over its head.

 

Watch a Thai person in their house in the Buddha room... kneeling in front of the stature or picture, lighting incense sticks and praying to it.

 

Then there are the rules about not exporting the statues, covering up their faces when transporting the big ones, even down to the Buddha giant footprints in the rocks that people cover with gold and get good luck from...... 

 

All that seems to me that they are worshiping the statue or image.  Even bowing down and laying on the floor in front of them.  

 

 

Some no doubt do, but hard to say if it is most and you would actually have to know what they are thinking to ascertain that, one thing is certain, a lot of Thai Buddhists do not have Buddha on their shrine or not in pride of place but off to the side somewhere and have their family monk in the front.

Lighting incense, kneeling before the statue and praying does not actually necessarily mean that they are worshipping the idol, they may be but they may also just be using the statue as focus, that is something encouraged by many teachers.

Not sure the actions seen or rules of respect in place are evidence of what you think, similar actions and rules are in place for pictures of the King and no one thinks those are actually the king.

[SunsetT]

23 hours ago, cmsally said:

It was surprising to see that this made front page of a national newspaper (Thai language) today.

Actually almost half in the picture are Ganesh, how would that be disallowed seeing as its a Hindu deity.

The Buddha was a Hindu and Buddhism grew out of Hinduism. Hinduism and some of its deities including Ganesh permeates Thai Buddhism.

 

I told my Thai missus about Buddhas being popular as garden ornaments in the West and she it is sacrilegious in Thailand to place images of the Buddha on the ground. So it is an altitude thing. Similarly wall pictures of the King and of the Buddha must be higher on the wall in the home than any other images like family photos or art. Also the head being the highest point in the body and believed to house the highest chakra is regarded as sacred and it  is insulting to touch a Thai  head. The feet (walking in the dirt) are regarded as the lowest spiritually as well as literally  which is why it is insulting to point them at someone in Thailand or India. In my experience I think this is rarely a concern, as in 12 yrs I have never come across it being a consideration by any Thai.

 

The Buddha heads high on the wall might seem to fit with this, but I suppose it's the large number being used in such a common fashion as wall decoration.

 

I know it is all seems to be mumbo jumbo but there is a logic to it in Thai culture and while in Thailand it pays to be aware of it and try  to conform to it  even if not respecting it.

[owl sees all]

Just now, SunsetT said:

I told my Thai missus about Buddhas being popular as garden ornaments in the West and she it is sacrilegious in Thailand to place images of the Buddha on the ground. So it is an altitude thing. Similarly wall pictures of the King and of the Buddha must be higher on the wall in the home than any other images like family photos or art. Also the head being the highest point in the body and believed to house the highest chakra is regarded as sacred and it  is insulting to touch a Thai  head. The feet (walking in the dirt) are regarded as the lowest spiritually as well as literally  which is why it is insulting to point them at someone in Thailand or India. In my experience I think this is rarely a concern, as in 12 yrs I have never come across it being a consideration by any Thai.

The only reason for this Thai Buddha nonsense and other stuff in the above paragraph is that Thais are constantly saturated by the proporganda telling them what they must believe. Some break free and become free-thinkers whilst others cannot break away from the indoctrination they experience since they could first walk. This is no different from the muslims (mohammed going to heaven on a winged horse) and the ultra-christians of the US (teaching creationism in schools).

 

Science tells us how to think and religion what must be thought.

 

Do unto others as you would wish done to yourself. That is enough to get started and  it is enough to dump all this religous claptrap (from around the world) into the past alongside greek gods and flat-earth preachers.

 

Pehaps I expect too much. Faith before facts and belief without evidence.

[madusa]

On 9/26/2017 at 6:06 PM, canuckamuck said:

Making and worshiping Buddha images is actually disrespectful to Buddha's teaching but that hasn't stopped anyone.

Surprised me that you are the only person that I think who really understands buddhism. They should stop wearing Buddha's amulets. Buddha never said he could protect anyone when he was alive, who's idea was it that when Buddha died he became like a God or some kind of consciousness that is omnipresent hover around waiting to bless anyone that pleases him. So you survive a very bad accident then the monk who blessed your amulets must be that famous monk? Am I right?  This amulet is powerful I must say, everybody says so too, so it must be true. Let's go see that monk.

Buddha is so busy protecting so many Thais from traffic accidents yet Thailand has the world's second highest accident rate after Libya can someone help out please, Buddha can't cope anymore.

One day if a famous monk says he has a dream and in his dream Buddha said to him, please stop wearing those amulets but do change those driving school methods and have proper driving examinations, don't let your ego get out of hand when you behind the wheel, that may effect a change if seriously taken by the authority. Thais do believe in dream though (especially those numbers).

 

[madusa]

2 hours ago, Muzarella said:

Really may be dificult to live in a Buddhist country with negative views of Buddhism

When Buddhism is mistaken as a religion everything is screwed up. No? 

When Buddha was enlightened he was reluctant to teach anyone because he knew his thoughts and teaching would be misunderstood. Of course it would be misunderstood because he was thinking from a much higher intellectual level, and the average people wanted instant salvation without making any effort not much different from the Thais today. Just get hold of an amulet from a famous monk, never mind if the car is destroyed, just buy a new car everything will be fine that is the level of mentality.

[dunroaming]

Thailand practices Theravada Buddhism but their are different strands.  Most will have seen the Chinese laughing fat Buddha and the Japanese Buddha as well.  The Chinese tend to follow Tao Buddhism but in India it does tend to be Theravada. 

[saakura]

She is 34 and he is 78? This is not the last time he is going to be in the news if he is not very careful.

[madusa]

13 hours ago, smotherb said:

Yes, a Christ comes from where?

Christ came from Bethlehem of course he was born there remember? 3 wise men came to visit him, said to him, "There you are my pretty little boy, you going to give those established Judaism priests lots and lots of problems, those funky little rabbis so full of themselves and they will bribe the Romans to nail you to the tree because you keep saying you are the son of the true God when they have their true God residing in their synagogue."

[madusa]

6 hours ago, owl sees all said:

Is it not the sole of the foot that is insulting? Recall when that statue of Sadam Hussain was toppled and the people were hitting the statue with the soles of their shoes. "Have some of that you, you bad man." Whack, whack and another whack. Bet it hurt him!!

They were paid by the CIA to do the Whacking and the Zionists supported BBC will film them and show them to the world and said, "look how the iraqis hated Saddam" it's a whole load of bullshit americans are trying to show the world.

[Dumbastheycome]

On 9/26/2017 at 7:28 PM, cmsally said:

It was surprising to see that this made front page of a national newspaper (Thai language) today.

Actually almost half in the picture are Ganesh, how would that be disallowed seeing as its a Hindu deity.

Assume  that ignorance  is  the  origin  of   religion.

[MyFriend You]

14 hours ago, smotherb said:

Yes, a Christ comes from where?

New York City.............??

[LolaS]

good decision to remove those, if my neighbours had them, they would need to take them down.

[wakeupplease]

18 hours ago, Thechook said:

Actually Thailand doesn't own Buddha even tho they may think so.  There are temples and monks in places like Australia and they aren't there under licence from Thailand.

They own this type of Buddha, The bonking, lying thieving type that someone wrote about earlier in this thread, nice one tracker 1, just bought one of your Bivvy's very good.

[MyFriend You]

1 hour ago, saakura said:

She is 34 and he is 78? This is not the last time he is going to be in the news if he is not very careful.

First sentence of the article:  Nualchan Sonchanthuek, 34, said she and her American husband, Paul Blum, 68, 

[MyFriend You]

The post generated a lot of criticism of the couple and prompted district officials to visit the house. The officials instructed the couple to remove the Buddha images within two weeks.

 

So these "Officials" immediately went down to Somchai's Buddha Head Store and confiscated all buddhist images and took them to the Temple.  Right??  Right??  Naaaah!!! Not on your life. 

 

He had to have bought them from somewhere, so selling them is not illegal or disrespectful  but displaying them is??   Hmmmmm  somthing morally wrong with that............but TIT strikes again.

[Wake Up]

I have to laugh out loud when some people post how Thailand should do things and how stupid Thailand is etc..... like your opinion matters or is controlling or is viewed as smarter etc.... 55555

 

Of course expats should travel thousands of miles leaving their own culture to relocate to a different culture and be experts on all things Thailand. 55555

 

[Salerno]

15 hours ago, smotherb said:

Yes, a Christ comes from where?

Mary?

[Kieran00001]

4 hours ago, LionofMedaCM said:

This too fake rather than redicilous , Buddha him self is not a god ! too simply a good men and said" i'm not the god " also said do not build any image or statue after me, so the temple it self is illegal and doesn't represent buddhism so poitnless to ask peopel removing heads while you are building things doesn't belong to buddhism ,moreover  the American deserve what happen to him as he tried to adopt something not given to him ......anything with a middle men is unsure and most of unsure things are either fake or non- real

 

No one claims that Buddha is god, we worship all sorts of people who are also not God, the way a Buddhist worships is akin to the respect we show to our teacher or our King.  We stand up out of respect for someone entering a room, that does not mean we worship them as a god, the same with Buddha, we see certain gestures being made out of respect for Buddha that are confused by some as worshipping as a god.  

 

People light candles in temples or in front of statues of Buddha and this may appear to some as worship of God as they relate this to customs seen in other religions but in Buddhism the candle is lit not for Buddha but as a reminder of the light of knowledge.  Incense is lit as the smell is a reminder of the influence of virtue and flowers are laid down that will quickly wilt and fade as a reminder of impermanence.  I am not surprised that many confuse what takes place in temples and shrines as being worship of God as they are very similar customs to religions which do just that, but in Buddhism they are all done with the purpose to remind the follower of the Dhamma.

 

The belief is not that the statue is Buddha himself but is the jewel of Buddha, a representation of his physical manifestation that can be worshipped in front of as a means to focus on the Dhamma.

 

What was it that Buddha said about not building any image or statue after him, can you quote it?  Obviously not as there is no such quote, you just made that up!

 

Buddha told people to build temples, he also said that although the Dhamma is our teacher that images can be used to remind us of the good qualities of Buddha, so there is actually nothing "illegal" about temples having images of Buddha and they do actually represent Buddhism.

 

 

[Kieran00001]

6 minutes ago, Wake Up said:

I have to laugh out loud when some people post how Thailand should do things and how stupid Thailand is etc..... like your opinion matters or is controlling or is viewed as smarter etc.... 55555

 

Of course expats should travel thousands of miles leaving their own culture to relocate to a different culture and be experts on all things Thailand. 55555

 

 

This is not a Thai issue but a Buddhist one, and Buddhism is not exclusive to Thailand, there is no reason why a foreigner from far away should not have something to say about this, just a shame that what most of them on here have to say is a not based on any real knowledge but instead just cliched untruths and supposition presented as a means to bash all they fail to understand.

[bermannor]

May be 40 years ago, I bought in Kathmandu a small ping pong sized bronze Buddha head, probably broken off a statute. It had a nice place in my home. Ten years ago, I felt, it belongs in a temple, pagoda, wat, name it, so I sent it to friends, by the way devoted Thai Buddhists, and asked them, to donate it to a wat, what they did.

They have by no means been offended. Could it be that ultra Buddhists have created that storm?

And, by the way, the Buddha heads have not been sitting on spikes on the wall, so the question is, who is the idiot.

There might be another storm of orthodox Thai Buddhists seeing the picture with dozens of Buddha heads standing on the ground. In my opinion the Thai wife should have complained to her husband. Wonder that police did not complain.

[bermannor]

By the way, ebay.com has more than 5000 listings for a Buddha head. Quite a few from Thailand.

Would be a nice pastime for conservative Thai Buddhists and Thai internet controllers to do something against it.

[bermannor]

7 hours ago, LolaS said:

good decision to remove those, if my neighbours had them, they would need to take them down.

But you have no problems when the Buddhas (heads or full statutes) stand on the ground next to your feet?

Hypocrite!

[LannaGuy]

10 hours ago, madusa said:

Surprised me that you are the only person that I think who really understands buddhism. They should stop wearing Buddha's amulets. Buddha never said he could protect anyone when he was alive, who's idea was it that when Buddha died he became like a God or some kind of consciousness that is omnipresent hover around waiting to bless anyone that pleases him. So you survive a very bad accident then the monk who blessed your amulets must be that famous monk? Am I right?  This amulet is powerful I must say, everybody says so too, so it must be true. Let's go see that monk.

Buddha is so busy protecting so many Thais from traffic accidents yet Thailand has the world's second highest accident rate after Libya can someone help out please, Buddha can't cope anymore.

One day if a famous monk says he has a dream and in his dream Buddha said to him, please stop wearing those amulets but do change those driving school methods and have proper driving examinations, don't let your ego get out of hand when you behind the wheel, that may effect a change if seriously taken by the authority. Thais do believe in dream though (especially those numbers).

 

Please understand Thais are not Buddhist.

[Crash999]

On 9/27/2017 at 7:30 AM, jaiyen said:

So what is actually wrong ? The heads are placed high and aren't covered with anything. So what is the offense ?  It is not mentioned, only that Thai people say it is wrong cos someone told them it was. Thats there way of learning everything. "It must be so because someone told me it is"

What do you think would happen if someone moved to the Southern US and put heads of Jesus on spikes on their wall?