After I bought my
motorcycle, I had a lot of bad luck. I was stopped by the policemen
and fined quite a few times. I also lent my motorbike to other people
and they crashed it! So, I decided I should go and visit my local temple
to ask a monk to bless my bike.
After waiting for the monk
to come back from his alms round, I followed him up to his kuti
with some flowers, incense sticks, a candle and gold leaves. I gave
them to him and then he took a pen out and started to write something
on all three gold leaves. After he finished writing, he gave them to
me and led me down to my bike.
He used some white powder
and water to put some marks on the front of my bike. He made a triangle
shaped pattern. I heard him say something as well while he was doing
it. It wasn’t Thai. I think it was Pali though I didn’t
understand any of the words. After he had finished he put the gold leaves
on the bike above and on either side of the white marks. He also put
a jasmine garland around the left handle.
He walked around my bike
one time and blessed it with holy water. Then, he turned to me and blessed
me by splashing some water over my body. He said to me that he had warned
me about those accidents already. He said that the next time when he
or elders say something, don’t ignore them, listen and then do
it. I replied "Yes, I will." and gave him a polite wai.
He said it was nearly done
but there was something else he needed to do. I asked him what was it?
And suddenly the monk hit my head pretty hard with the thing he used
to bless my bike. He said now it’s done and walked back up to
his kuti. I think the reason he hit me on my head is to keep away bad
luck plus he maybe wanted to tease me!
I went back to my grandmum’s
house to eat some snacks before I went back home. I went to stand in
front of my bike and looked straight at it. I couldn’t stop myself
from laughing at it. I went in the house and came out with a cloth.
I was about to wash the white marks and gold leaves off when I heard
my grandmum tell me to stop. She said if I washed them off, some bad
luck might come back to me and my bike. I listened to her and went inside
to put the cloth back. After the blessing, I feel a lot safer every
time I ride on my bike.
After I wrote this story
for the Bangkok Post, I received a lot of letters from people asking
if it worked. Well, to tell you the truth, one week later I crashed
into the back of a pick-up truck! Maybe the bad luck is all with me
after all.
