Thai Buddhist Monk’s visit The Thai Lounge

Thai Buddhist Monk’s visited The Thai Lounge in order bless the restaurant and wish the owners, staff and customers good wealth and fortune. The service was attended by a few customers and the staff of The Thai Lounge, it started at 10.30am the Monk’s advised us on our artifacts and objects of religious belief which resulted in several objects being stripped from our walls to give the restaurant balance (karma). The Monk had an object which swung around and pointed to anything without balance. Our Buddha had not been in the correct position and was facing other Buddha’s , so the nature power was not flowing so we have positioned all Buddha objects to face in the same direction, also fierce animals such as the Singha and Elephants were pointing inwards and were biting everyone inside, they have now been moved to the correct positions. After this the Monks made a blessing to each individual person on their forehead, then settled down to eat because they are not allowed to eat after 12pm each day.



Following this was a series of prayers where everyone was joined by a piece of string flowing through them and then we were asked to pour water through another prayer holding the glass together which was a prayer for family and friends that had passed away, then the Monk threw water over everyone present and over the seating to bless us and wish everyone good wealth and fortune. The Monk displayed a certain skill by asking people to touch parts of their body while he held your fingers that were clasped together and would tell you if you had any health problems.



The Monk’s also blessed the owners vehicle by writing a series of words across the windscreen and tying string and knots around part of the steering wheel, this is again for safety and good luck when driving.



Finally Scott Murray (owner) and Direk Tansiri (head waiter) took the Monk’s back to their temple and were asked to meditate along with them, repeating a series of words in thai and listening to the words of the Monk, Incredibly an hour passed which seemed a few minutes and left us feeling very relaxed, yet focused on our tasks ahead.



Altogether a very interesting and unique experience which shows a link between many religious ideals.



Anybody interested in attending another Buddhist service please contact the thai lounge on 0161 766 8822, who will be holding another one before the opening of their new restaurant The Buddha Lounge a Thai and Cantonese restaurant in Ramsbottom Bury in September brought to you by Mr Scott Murray and Kin Lau of The China Lounge.

---

Posted: Monday 11th August 2008
ID: 3497 - 180