For a long time I have wanted to ordain and I might be able to do it in 2-3 years from now. I read that as a westerner one can ordain in the Ven. Ajahn Chah tradition in Thailand. He went to great extends to create a monastery where especially westerners, non-thai speakers could ordain and learn the Dhamma. My question is what kind of Meditation practice is being taught?

Which are the best Thai amulets that can help to get my love back, and also help in my life, jobs, and career?

How did the character Montho from Ramayana make it into the name of the Thai letter ฑ (tho montho) of the Thai alphabet. Where is the relationship and in what year was this connection established?

I bow to you with hopes of happiness, peace, safety and health for you. And I come with a dire need for help! I am a practicing buddhist and I regularly visit a thai temple for chanting but I know no thai and they don't have their chanting written in roman alphabet and with translation so I can understand and chant. I have recorded the whole chanting and provide a link to the recording here. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gxmUWA7XxR7OjhOZYXbPA6MxZvsP84kR/view?usp=sharing Could anyone please provide me or refer me to the chanting written in thai with roman alphabet letters ***and*** an english translation? If you provide me with links then could you please point out the exact parts of the texts that correspond to this chanting? This would be of great help to me because I can finally understand what we're saying and feel a greater connection to the teachings and to my fellow Sangha-members. Full of gratitude I bow.

Dhamma greetings to you, Considering the possible advantages and disadvantages of where one is being ordained, I wish to have your understanding on whether it'd be more conducive to ordain in Asia or in Europe ? Thank you for reading me, May you be well, With metta.

So I've been a Buddhist since around 2007, but I've never been to a temple. I don't think I've ever actually met another Buddhist. I just go by what I read in Bodhi's translations and Thanissaro's lectures and practice on my own. A few months ago, I started working in Raleigh, NC, and my drive home now goes right by [this Dhammayut temple](http://www.buddharaleightemple.org) ([map](https://goo.gl/maps/UkvYp)) . It's only something like 8 minutes out of my way. I had called their number a few years ago and asked if--I forget what I said specifically--something like do you have any services? (I may have said "Sunday services." Ack.) The response was something like: > Aah.. uh, no... Sort of like a [Consuela "no.. no.."](http://youtu.be/FshkO8HqQ10) . It didn't seem that the person spoke English very well, although I think he understood my question. At the time I had figured that a Thai temple is probably just not very interested in westerners. (I've noticed typical western converts to Buddhism don't tend to wholeheartedly buy into one tradition or another, they might read books on Zen, listen to lectures by the Dalai Lama and also watch videos by Ajahn Brahm. They often totally disregard the idea of rebirth. I can see how some of this might be off-putting to conservative Theravadins.) So I figured their interest is just in attending to the Thai community there, and/or they may have few or no people that speak English well enough to teach in that language. Since then I've sort of alternated back and forth between this view and thinking maybe I ought to pursue it further. Now that I'm so close to the temple, I'm thinking more about trying to attend. **So my question is does anyone here have first-hand experience with Thai temples in the United States and how those tend to handle westerners wanting to attend?** I'm really only interested in practice. I'm only interested in devotion-based actions (e.g. veneration of Buddha statues, kathina ceremonies) insofar as they inspire practice, because I can imagine a scenario where the only thing being done is offering of incense, giving robes and alms to monks and maybe listening to Pali chanting, with little or no meditation or English-language talks. If that's the case, it might not be worth it. (Although this is a Dhammayut temple, so I would tend to think they would certainly be doing meditation there?) **I'm specifically interested in anyone who's Thai and attends Thai temples in the United States, especially a Dhammayut temple like this one, and could give me some insight as to how they operate, what practices they do and how useful it would be to someone who's interested primarily in practice, less in ritual..**

Im doing mahasi style meditaiton with labeling - is it possible to do thai-chi and this type of noting ? should it be just "moving moving moving" non stop ? also to save me some time - when people usually do thai chi what are they thinking about exactly (if they are good practitioners of thai chi) ? cause i tried to find out online and couldnt why i practice thai chi ? manly as a positive way to pass the time and but also i really want to get some cool out of the norm experiences to help strength my believe in not "normal" scientific stuff i wanted to gain cool out of the ordinary experiences in meditation to increase my faith and by that my will to meditate more - but i hope maybe thai chi can do it more easily - cause my vipassana practice is just boring no cool nimmitias just good old worries doubts and expectations etc

I gather from reading around that the rising/falling pitches that appear in Pali chanting by Thais is due to the tones in the Thai language . But when I see English-language chanting by monks from a Thai tradition, they still have rising/falling tones. See excerpt from the Abhayagiri Chanting Book , with the tones marked: It doesn't seem to match the equivalent Pali. Is there a system that they're using, such as shoehorning the Thai tone rules into English syllables? Or are they just making it up entirely?