Blog: Buddhism

After our disappointing second day in Bangkok, we flew to Chiang Mai and resumed having a wonderful time. We checked in to our extremely cute hotel, Yaangcome Village, then headed up the mountain to the temple of Wat Prathat Doi Suthep.

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The main religion of Southeast Asia is Theravada Buddhism. I have had some experience with Zen Buddhism, at least as it is practiced in the United States, but that much more closely resembles Western religions than the Thai Buddhism.

For example, Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship together at set times and in communities. The congregation is a major feature of the religious experience, and for many people is the primary draw, a social gathering with familiar faces. Not so in Thai Buddhist temples, where prayer is an individual activity. According to our tour guide, a person or a family may visit eight to ten temples on a Sunday, staying for only a few minutes each time. Each temple centers around a particular Buddha statue, each of which has its own distinctive draw—one may be especially large, another very old, or made of emerald, or in a reclining pose. Instead of visiting the same temple each week as in a congregation-based religion, Thai Buddhists will try to visit as many as possible of the hundreds of temples in their city.

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