The basic practice that we do is Theravadin Buddhism. Many people do not actually practice the religion they are born into. There are plenty of Christians here in Germany, in Europe, who don't really follow what is written in the Teachings of Christ. So there are heaps of Thai people who may not actually follow what the Buddha taught. One interesting thing though in Thailand, which is very special and which Judaism or Christian Societies can't do or simply don't do, and that is anyone in Thailand, any man or woman, can become a monk or nun for any amount of time. Three days, three months, three years, thirty years, forty years, any of them can join the nun or the monkhood. That is special. Imagine you feel like you want to be a priest, a Roman Catholic priest for a week? Just imagine, right? But in Thailand, they can do it. Now what that does is it allows people to touch on that world. And when they touch on it and go back to their family and friends, they have still some of that world in there. And that gives that society a whole different feel.
Very early on Rosemary and I were sitting in a railway station and an average Thai person happened to notice that we were meditating. They came up to us wanting to talk. The average Thai person has more understanding of Dhamma than most Westerners who call themselves Buddhists. That is a pretty big claim, isn't it? But it is true. Because they grew up with it, they are taught meditation in school, they are taught Buddhism in school, their names sometimes are actually Pali words. We met a little girl whose name was Metta, that is the word for Compassion/Lovingkindness. It is not uncommon, there are heaps of Thai people with Pali nicknames, and when you look at their full names, some of their full names are combinations of Pali words.
The level of generosity that the Thai people have, on average, it is far greater than Westerners, too. They are just so supportive of the practice and helping people in the Dhamma. They don't have big organizations around the world, doing generosity. The Christian world has quite a lot of that, Thais don't have that, but the Thais have heaps of generosity within the spiritual world, helping people that way. So it is interesting, when we look at Thais in general they are just ordinary people, they have their videos, they have their cell phones in their pocket, they want to have fun and whatever just like average people. You look at them from the outside and they look like everyone else around the planet looks. But when you start talking to them about the Dhamma they shift, even the young kids who sells the bungalows on the beach on our island, if you start talking to them about the Dhamma, they can do it. Because they have been a monk for three months, or their father was, or their aunt was, or their sister was, all this sort of different world that they live in.
The monks in Theravadin Buddhism go out every morning to get alms food. They actually walk down the street into everybody's neighborhood. The kids see the monks every morning if they want to, the adults; the men and women see the monks every morning if they want to. They can stop and chat with them a little bit, they don't want to stop that long when they do that, but they can. People can come up to the monasteries, they are open all the time. I remember one time when I was having an extreme amount of Dukkha in Australia and I went to a church to go in just to sit. The doors were locked. They open Sunday mornings, they open Saturday afternoons, but during the week, no, doors are locked, you can't go in. Most Thai temples in Thailand, are open, open all the time. It's a totally different world.
So what we are doing is Theravadin Buddhism, it is the same thing that Thais will aspire to, whether they actually practice, that may be different, but it is the same type of practice.