Alms at Wat Pho

Alms at Wat Pho

A child drops coins in to the alm pots at Wat Pho in Bangkok. Photo by David Lansing.

As we were leaving the temple of the Reclining Buddha, Ketsara handed me a small tin can—like an empty tuna can—filled with Bhat coins.

“What’s this?” I asked her.

“For you,” she said. “To make offering.”

She pointed towards the back wall where dozens of metal pots were lined up. A little boy was going along, carefully dropping a coin into each pot. Others were doing the same.

“Put coin in each pot,” she said. “Think about it when you do.”

“What do I think about, Kuhn Ketsara?”

“Think of being generous. That is why there is more than one pot. This help you achieve dana parami. That is number one enlightenment.”

I asked her what parami was.

Parami mean perfection. The completeness of something. To become Buddha, you must have parami of ten perfections. This one number one. You ask me what are the other attributes of the Friday Buddha, Rumpueng. One is you don’t know as much about yourself as you think you do. That make it very hard to attain parami. Maybe this help.”

So I walked along the cool, dark wall of the temple, thinking hard on the parami of generosity and the giving of myself. I thought very hard indeed. And when I’d reached the last pot, I still had a number of coins in my little tin. I asked Ketsara what I should do with them.

“Put rest in last pot. Then make wish.”

I dropped in the coins. I made a wish. I didn’t tell Ketsara what it was. But I think from the look she gave me that she already knew.

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