A Buddhist Full Moon Service

Just to keep you on your toes about the details of our lives, welcome to a bonus post (it’s shorter I promise) from the thus far ghostwriterly Pil.

Another of the illuminating and heartwarming community experiences from our time at Mae Mut Garden was the full moon service at the local temple, Wat Wimuttikaram. As we may or may not have mentioned at some earlier time (I am illiterate), there are a lot of wats everywhere we’ve been in Thailand so far. If they were not large walled estates containing several buildings, you’d basically be tripping over them. They are fascinating, beautiful places with many doors, and we’ll have more to say about them in future posts. The point, for now, is that Wimuttikaram is the wat nearest to the house of Marco, Nok, and Her Imperial Highness Serena.

The first we heard of the service was the day before, when Nok invited us. That night, after the Ruler of All had fallen asleep, Steppil + Nok assembled small plastic bags containing smaller packets of rice, noodles, and instant coffee. These bags, Nok explained in a low voice so as not to wake the Serena-monster, are gifts that serve a double purpose. They are a contribution toward our own nourishment in future reincarnations—but in this lifetime, they are also presented as a gift to the hungry poor of the village.

Every family also offers flowers, which are added to communal decorative platters and somehow look like hour-long arrangements, despite being the work of minutes. The pink ones on the right were ours.

We rose at six and went with Marco, Nok, Serena, Pii Hom, Molly, and Bruno to the wat. A few friendly neighbors were bustling about outside. We left our offerings on tables overflowing with similar baskets of gifts just outside the front door, on what you might call the front porch of the wat, and found seats inside.
 
The place was packed. One monk sat facing us, wearing his yellow robe with one shoulder exposed. Everyone sat in rows on the floor facing the front with their feet respectfully pointed away from Buddha. The floor space of the wat was fairly close to the size of the Karen church, but the ceiling was much higher, with detailed, brightly colored paintings of mythological scenes along the walls near the ceiling.

One man who was not the monk spoke for a long time in Thai into a microphone. Then for some time the group recited ritual phrases together apparently from memory; I saw no prayer books. A little later still, the monk in the yellow robe raised ceremonial fan (this one glittery pink with a gold picture of Buddha) to cover his face. He led everyone in musical chants, some of which had a sort of call-and-response component. At one point, many people sitting in the crowd opened up small bottles that they had brought—elaborately engraved silver bottles, reused water battles, even old whiskey pints—and in unison slowly, slowly poured a stream of water into bowls beside them on the floor. This, Nok explained, was another offering like those we had left outside. Everyone nearby did their part to occupy the very curious and very mobile Serenazilla, including some women I had never seen before and who in fact may not have known the family at all.

Only as the service came to a close did I realize that all this time the crowd had been divided into the men, who were sitting at the front, and what appeared to be a much larger group of women, who sat behind them. Even Molly, who had gone forward with Marco and Bruno, had managed to sit with them at the front row of the women, or the back row of the men, depending how you looked at it. Pil, clueless, had sat with the ladies.

Don't tell.