Saksit and Other Thai Conundrums
This is part of our Window on Southeast Asia series.
After my wife and I were married we moved into her parent's house, as was the custom. Men normally move into their wife's house after marriage and the whole family lives under one roof. A few months after our marriage came my brother-in-law Ae's marriage. Like all Thai Buddhist men, he had to become a monk for at least two weeks before marrying.
The extended family arrived early in the morning. By 9:00 am Ae's head was shaved and he was wearing a white robe, all ready for the trip to the temple. We brought a basket in with small cones made from banana leaves and filled with incense, flowers, candles, and money for the monks of the temple. Most temples have a special hall for ordination, but as it was a small village temple we used the main prayer hall. The monks all filed in, in order of status and after they were seated the ceremony started. It began with the monks chanting in Pali. Everyone wai'ed (the Thai gesture of greeting with palms pressed together) as they did.
Temple Hall before the Ordination
Some things about the ceremony didn't seem to make sense to me. I looked around and knew darn well that no one had a clue what they were chanting: it was in Pali. The Buddha preached in Pali because he didn't believe in sacred languages and wanted everyone to understand his teachings. Now people were listening to his great teachings being chanted and not understanding a word because they regarded Pali as a sacred language. What annoyed me even more was seeing Thai people wearing amulets with the Buddha's image for power, money, and so forth rather than anything having remotely to do with the Buddha's teachings. As I thought about this I began to feel guilty for becoming a Puritan in a religion that I don't even belong to in a country that isn't mine.
After the chanting Ae's parents presented his gold robe to him. He left for another room where he changed into the gold robe. When he returned, there was a long succession of bowing and waiing to each of the monks, in order of status of course, followed by Ae chanting the precepts of a monk in Pali. I took some photographs but after awhile found myself getting increasingly annoyed, wondering what any of this had to do with the teachings of the Buddha. The Buddha had no interest in status and only saw it as an impediment to enlightenment. And for pity's sake what do amulets of the Buddha, worn for protection as well as money, status, and even sexual virility, things the Buddha really didn't care about, have to do with Buddhism?
The Ordination Ceremony
One word I'd heard over and over in Thailand seemed to play a major role in this conundrum. The word was "Saksit." When I asked Thai people why everyone on a bus wai'ed and bowed their head as it passed a shrine on the road to Chiang Mai, I was told "Saksit." The same answer came when I asked why Thai people worshiped at shrines to Hindu gods despite not being Hindu, why their kings were expected (not allowed, expected) to have as many wives as possible, or why they wore images of the Buddha. Yet when I asked them what saksit was, the only answer I could seem to get was "natural power," "supernatural power," or, most often, "I can't explain." What baffled me the most was that Buddha images were thought to exude saksit despite the fact that the Buddha never taught anything about it.
Another conundrum concerned kingship. Kings throughout Buddhist Southeast Asia are believed to be near-perfect Buddhists. They have lived many devout lives and done good deeds, which is why they were born to be kings. Yet they were expected to have many wives and concubines, in fact as many as possible. The more they had, the more they were held in awe by their subjects. (This is no longer the case in Thailand, though in Cambodia former King Sianouk was famous, not infamous, for his many affairs.) In Laos I asked several people what they thought of their last king, who was overthrown by the communists. Many said that he seemed weak, and one reason for that was that he only had one wife. When I asked why that was a problem, they said that it showed a lack of saksit (which is the same word in Lao). So a good king is a perfect Buddhist AND has many wives and concubines?
An interesting clue to all this came from a Burmese story. The story tells of Prince Narapatisithu of the first Burmese empire. He was the younger brother to the king. One day, some foresters found a beautiful young girl who had emerged from a bamboo stem. The Burmese believe in semi-human creatures that would probably be called "nymphs" in ancient Greece. They are not born but emerge from lotus flowers, bamboo stems, or from fruits. Normally, they are unspeakably beautiful, but this one had a disfigured earlobe that detracted from her beauty. The king was uninterested in her because of this, but Narapatisithu fell in love with her so the king allowed them to marry. One day, a royal surgeon was able to fix her earlobe and the next time the king saw her, he was amazed by her beauty and filled with jealousy.
So he told the prince that there was a rebellion brewing far from the capitol and sent him to quell it. Narapatisithu, suspecting the worst, told his servant Maung Pyi to bring him any news if something should happen to his wife. While he was away, the king told the girl that Narapatisithu was dead and married her. Maung Pyi mounted his horse and rode to find Narapatisithu. Narapatisithu was so angry that he had his servant killed.
He then announced his intention to take the throne from his brother. On the way back to the capitol he stopped at a temple and offered a robe to the Buddha statue. As he did, the shoulder of the statue moved slightly to accept the offering. Everyone was stunned and took this to be a very good omen. Narapatisithu returned to the capitol and succeeded in taking the throne. He became a terrible tyrant and condemned many to execution for minor reasons. He ordered the execution of one of his ministers for no other reason than that he had failed to stop the king from marrying his wife.
The minister wrote a short but moving poem asking for his life and alluding to Buddhist beliefs of compassion and mercy. Narapatisithu was so touched by the poem that he saw the error of his ways and repented for the evil he had done. He called upon several Buddhist monks and told them about how he had seen the shoulder of the Buddha statue move. How could the Buddha have led him into such evil? They explained that the power granted to him by the virtuous act of offering the robe was neither good nor evil, it was his responsibility to figure out how to it.
That power, though bestowed upon him by a Buddha statue, was pretty much the same as saksit to the Thais. There are thieves who wear Buddhist amulets hoping to be protected from the police. None of them for a minute believe that the Buddha would sanction their acts of thievery, but wearing the amulet is not about the Buddha's teaching, it's about saksit. Saksit power is neither good nor evil in itself, the thieves chose to use it that way. If someone uses it for sinful purposes, he will pay the price in the future according to the law of karma.
In Southeast Asia someone has to be at the pinnacle of any kind of social order. In terms of moral goodness, the mother is at the top in the household, the king is at the top in society, and the Buddha is at the top pyramid. But the spirits who emit saksit power are also ranked in a hierarchy. There is no pyramid in Southeast Asia that has a flat top. Someone must be at the pinnacle and the same is true of the spirit world. As the Buddha was a great man but is now dead, he can't help but be seen as a spirit. The Buddha thus naturally exudes saksit. The Buddha is at the pinnacle of all hierarchies, thus if there is a hierarchy of saksit-exuding spirits the Buddha must be at the pinnacle of it. Let me reiterate that the Buddha did not teach this-it's the Southeast Asian spin on Buddhism.
A Buddha Footprint in Burma, Believed to Emit Saksit
But the Buddha did teach about karma (which was already the belief in his time)? Anyone using saksit power, be it from the Buddha or anything else, had better be prepared for the consequences. It is not the Buddha's fault is someone uses the saksit from an amulet for bad deeds. That's why kickboxing is taught in the Buddhist monasteries; it is not the monk's fault if someone uses their kickboxing skills for aggression rather than defense- the person will pay for such bad deeds.
So what about the realm of evil? What is at the pinnacle of evil? What is the Southeast Asian form of Satan? There is none. It is a true testament to the importance of hierarchy in Southeast Asia that the only institution that is egalitarian is the institution of evil. As I pointed out in my last article, ghosts and other evil beings live under no hierarchy. That's what makes them evil. By definition, there is no hierarchy to the realm of evil and thus no Satan. Nor is Hell an evil place. It's a pretty bad place to be, but not evil. Justice is done there and bad people pay for their bad deeds, which is how it must be. This world is not evil either, and it does not need to be redeemed. In Buddhism, Thai or otherwise, this world is not a corrupted place. Humans inflict suffering and sin upon themselves by attachment to the desire for power, money, and sensual pleasures. But all of these things are illusions; salvation is achieved when one sees these things for the illusions they are and gives up all desire for them.
When we left Ae, he was sitting by the prayer hall, now a monk. A few men who become monks feel a calling to remain monks their entire lives, living a life of meditation and adherence to the Buddha's teachings, which means struggling to end all desires. Most do not feel that calling so return to normal life and defer status as a lifelong monk to another life. Thais believe that a person must live many good lives, perform many good deeds, and fight off many desires before they reach the point at which they feel the calling to be a lifelong monk. For everyone else, the two-week period as a monk will hopefully teach them to be good people so they can get closer to becoming a lifelong monk and eventually escape the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth and the suffering that goes with it. For Ae, two weeks was plenty and soon enough he was celebrating his wedding day.