Buddha, Brahma, and spirits

Randy told us this as we travelled around, and was kind enough to write it up. I found it helpful in understanding the Thais.


The Thai spiritual worldview is an interesting mixture of several traditions that most Thais would just understand as Thai buddhism.


Buddhism was brought to Thailand 700 AD by Sri Lankan Buddhist missionaries and it was accepted as a whole and laid over the spirit worship that people already practiced here.  Thai people believe that there are resident spirits that live everywhere and

people put spirit houses in their yard and leave offerings there to ask for protection and blessing from the resident spirit.  This actually goes directly against Buddha's teaching that told people that they shouldn't worship the spirit or they would just be slaves to them.


Buddhism basic tenant is to free yourself from desire as it is the root of suffering and to accept that life is suffering and thus you will be freed from it by accepting it. The basic Buddhist laws are:

  1. To refrain from taking life (non-violence towards sentient life forms).
  2. To refrain from taking that which is not given (not committing theft).
  3. To refrain from sensual (including sexual) misconduct.
  4. To refrain from lying (speaking truth always).
  5. To refrain from intoxicants which lead to loss of mindfulness (specifically, drugs and alcohol).


These provide moral laws for the Thai people to adhere to. If you become a Buddhist monk you are suppose to follow 227 laws.  But since Buddhism really doesn't say much about trying to protect yourself from suffering then you can't really ask for prayers for safety, health,  etc. from Buddha so Thai people look to the spirits for this.


They also can't really ask Buddha to be rich as he taught to free yourself from desire/cravings. This is where Thai people have Brahmin shrines in their shops asking for wealth and good luck from these for their businesses.  This is a direct import from India, which has had a big impact on the culture of many of the SE Asian countries.


So this is a nutshell of how the Thai people deal with different needs in their lives.  Often the lines between the different ones are blurred.  sometimes people ask Buddhist monks what lucky number they should buy for the lottery.


Randy pointed how this worldview makes presenting the gospel challenging. Their is no real concept of sin. You can earn “merit” which cancels out the bad things you have done. In attempt to present the gospel in terms that the Thais will better understand, a Thai Covenant theologian is using using the word Dharma in place of Logos (usually translated the Word) in John 1. Dharma is the closest you will come to a concept of God in Buddhism (Buddha himself said he was just a man but followed the Dharma--"the truth"). The use of the word Dharma instead of Logos can be used as a starting point to show people that Jesus' coming to earth, the life he lead, and his teaching demonstrate what it means to really follow the Dharma or Truth.

© Charles Eklund 2012