Buddhism

because there were many celebrations, including three marriage ceremonies, in the village as well as the Christmas festival in Mae Sariang in the same month and the whole country still mourned over the king’s death. Nevertheless, the head priest of Mae Sariang Church was invited to perform a Mass and in this auspicious occasion, a mother demanded baptism to her one-year-old daughter.

Thai government) has a big influence on the village since 1990 and Buddhism are separated from animism by cutting-off spirit ritual.¹²⁶ I had a chance to interview a Buddhist monk, who has been visiting La Up village regularly since he was a graduate student monk of Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University (Chiang Mai Campus) until now being a Thammacharik missionary, on the occasion that I accompanied the mae chee (Buddhist female practitioners) and the monk with the fellow villagers from Pa Pae village to La Up village in December 2016, for the clothing donation which the monk received from his Chinese network in Singapore. Among non-Christian La Up villagers who are about 50% of the total villagers, he estimated that 25% are Buddhists, 15% are animist-Buddhists, and 10% are animists.¹²⁷ Whom he meant by animists are the villagers who do not come to the temple to join Buddhist activities, meanwhile, Buddhists ceased to propitiate spirits except for the village spirit and professed to be a phuthotmamka.¹²⁸

According to Kunstadter (1983: 147), some of Pa Pae villagers respectfully engaged in the missions of Khru Ba Sri Wichai and Khru Ba Kao (the most popular charismatic monks in northern Thailand and his principal disciple) in the 1970s and the 1980s, the occasions in which they also received the charms and brought back some knowledge about religion to practice in the village. An animist-Buddhist elderly man said the villagers went to help build a temple in Bo Luang Sub-district of Hot District. “Most Pa Pae villagers considered themselves to be Buddhists” ……, yet he adds “they knew they were not really Buddhists (and in elsewhere ‘were truly affiliated’)” (Kunstadter, 1983:

147) due to the fact that neither a Buddhist temple nor Buddhist practices were seen in the village. Pa Pae villagers have been necessarily upholding the animal sacrifices for the spirits in their family and communal rituals in order to live a Laveue life in the entity of the village; however, as Kunstadter observes, the villagers were inclined to become Buddhists as northern Thais in their migration to lowlands. Thus, Kunstadter suggests from the case

126 Lua was absent from the table of Thammacharik missionary stations in tribal villages during 1965-1970 adapted by Keyes (1971: 563). He further explains that “[t]he [Thammacharik] program is uniform despite the fact that such groups as the T‘in (and other Mon-Khmer groups such as the Lua’ and Khamu which have not yet been missionized) have had long contacts with Tai-speaking lowlanders (i.e., the Yuan) while other groups such as the Meo and Yao have been amongst Tai-speaking Buddhists for only a short time” (1971:

565).

127 Chavivun (2012: 82) refers to the survey report of “Lua” ethnic in Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai, Mae Hong Son, and Nan provinces (Chavivun et al., 2007 and 2008) that the 55% of La Up villagers were animist and Buddhists while other 45% were Christian. The division of religions in the household unit was accounted by Pharkhrupraphakornphisit (2002, cited in Chavivun, 2012: 82-83) that there were 88 animist-Buddhist households [53%], 15 Buddhist households [9%], and 61 Christian households [more precisely Protestant, 37%].

128 The state of being phuthotmamaka is obtained through the profession ceremony to accept the Lord Buddha, who is the founder of Buddhism and Buddhism to one’s own life. In Thailand, the Buddhist profession ceremony is officially held for junior-high students in public schools.

of Pa Pae villagers that “ethnicity (and thus religion) should be appropriate to social and geographical location” (Kunstadter, 1983: 147).

The spread of Buddhism into Pa Pae village are informed by the villagers that a Buddha statue distributed by the chief district officer of Mae Sariang in the 1980s, which was an official promotion of Buddhism by the Thai government, used to be placed under the pavilion roof at the present non-formal education building area. The practical monk from central Thailand is said to be the first Buddhist monk who had stayed in the village and had encouraged the villagers to follow the Buddhist precepts. He also gained support for Buddhist activities from non-villager officials who worked at the village school and the village health center. He had stayed at Pa Pae village for two rain retreats.

Until the beginning of the 1990s, a monk from Chiang Rai Province who initiated the construction of the monastery residence in the village introduced the livableness of Pa Pae village to a mae chee (Buddhist female practitioners) who then worked as a nurse in Bangkok. They managed to raise donations from the adherents as far as Bangkok through the annual Buddhist festival occasions such as the annual lent-end-robe presenting ceremony (Kathina) and the forest-robe presenting ceremony (Phapa) to build the multi-purpose hall building and monk’s dwelling huts. The mae chee said that there was no Buddha statue and only a few households were “Buddhists” at her early visit. I assume from her words that these Buddhist households probably are the previous monk’s followers and moreover the villagers who used to join the activities of the charismatic monks outside the village.

According to the mae chee, she did not act against animistic beliefs and practices which have been the moral support of the villagers and she has never heard or required of any spirit cutting-off ritual in the village. In her opinion, the moral support is similar to that of Buddhism. With the aim to increase the villager’s faith, she made an effort to prove the non-existence of spirits to the eyewitness villagers by performing her prayers while sitting under a tree in the forest near the entrance of the monastery residence which the villagers were scared to approach. Prior to this mae chee, my host mother told me that there was another mae chee who had stayed in the village. The previous mae chee always joined the villagers, helped cooking in the ceremonies, and also taught the village housewives to cook northern Thai food. In a different manner, the present mae chee who has experience in working at the hospital supports and improves the villagers’ hygienic conditions and practices, especially after she got breast cancer. Furthermore, she introduced other lowland

Thai traditions to the villagers. For example, “Loy Krathong”¹²⁹, which is a festival to float (loy) a small decorated container basically made of banana trunk and leaves (krathong) as an offering to the river goddess and ask for forgiveness in exploiting water. The

animist-Buddhist villagers have been annually performing Loy Krathong to the village stream.

Apart from the construction of the monastery residence, the monk and mae chee also initiated the summer novice mass ordination project which had continued for fifteen years before the break during the absence of the mae chee and the monk from the village.

The mae chee had been away to a temple in northeastern Thailand and Bangkok for her cancer treatments while the monk moved to a temple in Sop Moei district after more than ten rain retreats in Pa Pae village.

After she recovered from her cancer with the cancer surgery along with her meditation, she regained her self-esteem and has returned to Pa Pae village in these recent years. The mae chee told me that Pa Pae village is a familiar place which she can call the place of Sappaya (สัปปายะ). At that moment I had no idea about this Buddhist Pali word until I found the word on the online Buddhist dictionary which provides both the Thai meaning and English translation of the word as follows.¹³⁰ Sappaya 7 is “[seven] suitable things;

things favorable to mental development”. The seven elements of Sappaya are a suitable abode, suitable resort, suitable speech, suitable person, suitable food, suitable climate, and suitable posture. She said to me that this time she comes back with a strong inspiration and wants to regain the villagers’ faith based on her own near-death experience. She printed several photos of her big breast cancer to show and teach the villagers about mindfulness meditation and self-awareness.

Another important monk is a Central Thai who raised fund for the main monastery hall construction.¹³¹ This grand hall is made of teakwood with a combined architecture of Thai, Myanmar, and Chinese. It has become part of the village slogan as well as the sub-district slogan to promote tourism. Therefore, the space of the monastery residence which people generally call “wat” (temple) has been utilized not only for Buddhist and official events but also as one of the sightseeings on the village tour program supported by the homestay group.

129 It is ambiguous whether Loy Krathong is intrinsically Buddhist practice. However, regarding Swearer (2010: 50), “Loi Krathong represents a festival that defies identification as ‘Buddhist’”.

130 Source: http://84000.org/tipitaka/dic/ (accessed on 25 April 2017)

131 According to his biography on the website of Phasornkaew temple (http://www.phasornkaew.org/), where he is the present abbot, he has already led the twenty-five constructions of the meditation places, monastery halls, multi-purpose halls, and stupas in different provinces including Mae Hong Son, Chanthaburi, Kanchanaburi, Ubon Ratchathani, and Phetchabun.

The current situation of merit making that I observed has changed from Kunstadter’s observation that “[t]hey [Pa Pae villagers] considered the continuous alms-giving of Buddhism to be too expensive for them, and living in Pa Pae, they knew they were not Northern Thais” (1983: 147). The animist-Buddhist villagers daily gave alms to the monks who came to stay in the monastery residence during the Buddhist Lent. In 2016, there were about six monks who were all from other provinces. The monks walked, sometimes led by a village boy who hit a gong to tell the villagers that the monks were coming, in a line around the village to receive alms from the villagers every morning at seven o’clock, except for the Buddhist Sabbath days (wan phra) when the villagers went to give alms at the monastery’s multi-purpose hall. On the important Buddhist day, such as the End of Buddhist Lent, Laveue of Pa Pae village, as well as Sgaw Karen of nearby villages who were animist-Buddhists, came to give alms at the monastery residence.

Christians also made some sweets and distributed to their relatives on this occasion. A Catholic friend of my host sister came to provide sweets that her Sgaw Karen mother made to my host family and she recalled that in her childhood when she gave the adults the sweets, she was rewarded with some small “merit money” which she then spent it on snacks.

An animist-Buddhist elder made an interesting point about religious practices in the contemporary context of Pa Pae village that making offerings to the spirits are cheaper because they can find things in their own community, whereas they spend more money if they organize Buddhist rituals such as a “life-extension or life enhancement” ritual (applied Swearer’s term (2010: 62), sueb chata in Thai language)¹³² from Buddhist monks in Mae Sariang. Therefore, in my opinion, the villagers can afford to pay for a ritual and they will give food to the monks in the village as a supplementary way to fulfill their obligation towards the ancestor spirits.

Monastery residence, unlike the temple, is not given the land by the royal command (or visungkasima in Pali), for constructing the monastery hall. Without this bestowal, the monastery residence is out of power for monk meetings such as ordination (or Vinaya pitaka in Pali). Thus, none of the villagers have ever stayed in the monastery residence although some of them ordained at lowland temples.

132 Sueb chata is a Buddhist ritual performed by Buddhist monks. It is held in different occasions, including town anniversary, house warming ceremony, individual’s life crisis and bad fortune, to strengthen the souls (khwan) of the dwelling place and the inhabitants. The monks chant to bless to the laymen who are connected to the Buddha statues and the offering sets through white cotton yarns on their heads.