Thai Monk Receives Food Offerings From People Through Delivery App, Gives Blessings Via FaceTime

Digital donations in Thailand


Images adapted from: Khaosodenglish

In the digital age, technology has been changing almost every aspect of our lives in the name of comfort. And now, this digital wave is also tweaking a Thai-Buddhist traditions, such as the act of offering food to monks.    

Also read:

https://thesmartlocal.com/thailand/online-offering-thailand/

Image credit: Khaosodenglish

On Sunday, Monk Itthiyawat in Trang shared his first-hand experience on Facebook after some folks had ordered him food on Foodpanda as an offering. Once finished, the delivery person had to Facetime the client so the monk could give them a blessing.  

Image credit: Khaosodenglish

Normally, the way of doing this is to wake up early in the morning and wait outside our houses with food. Then, monks from the nearest temple will come and collect the food before giving a blessing in return. 


Netizens weren’t really surprised


The post has since been shared for over 7,000 times. In the comments section, many Thai netizens revealed that they’ve been doing this for a long time now.

Source

Translation: My friends have been doing this for me. They even did a group Facetime.

Source

Translation: When you want to make merit but don’t really have time.

Source

Translation: [Tagging a friend] See?! It’s not only us. LOL


It’s not wrong to do so


After the post went viral, Monk Itthiyawat revealed to Sanook that many people flooded his inbox, asking him if this is appropriate or not.  

He replied that this method was not wrong as people have different conditions in life. And if they have a “charitable intent” to begin with, then they’ll be blessed. Even the delivery man will be blessed too – that’s really nice.

However, Monk Itthiyawat still encourages people to come to temples if they can, because monks, like many other people, want to interact with fellow humans too. 

Thanks to this story, we now know what to do next time we want to make good merit by offering monks food when we don’t really have time.

https://thesmartlocal.com/thailand/bbt-holy-offerings/


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Eddie Jirayu: