Thailand (Mission Network News) — A palpable heaviness hits you when get off the plane in Thailand. A friend once told me that it’s much like the lead vest the dentist covers you with when he takes x-rays of your teeth.
At first you really feel the weight of it, but after a few minutes you forget it’s there. But when the dentist takes it off, you breathe more deeply and with more ease without that extra weight. Stepping into Thailand is like putting on a vest of spiritual oppression. You see it on the street and feel it in the air.
To be Thai is to be Buddhist. For them it seems impossible to separate one from the other. However, the religion they practice is more of a “folk Buddhism”–Buddhism mixed with Hinduism, ancestor worship, spirit worship, and animism. The most obvious evidence of their folk Buddhist practices is the spirit house.
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