Mental Enema

Last weekend, my buddy, Stewart, decided to check out of life and enter a monastery for 9 days.  There are many reasons to become a monk and Stewart has several:

- Both his dad and his wife's dad are very ill and any kind of luck is needed

- His wife's family has no sons, and because women can not become monks, Stewart has taken on this duty to bring honor and good fortune to her family

- Stewart has a son on the way, so now is probably a good time to make a clean break from some deeply ingrained vices

- You can never have too many Karma credits in your favor

- 9 days free vacation - even if it means waking up at 2am every morning, only eating one meal a day, and sitting indian style for hours at a time, it's often better than work.  As they say - a bad day at the temple is better than a good day at work.

All the reasons above are good and honorable, and I'm quite happy for Stewart and his family.  For me, I was mostly interested in the freak factor of a white guy becoming a monk in Thailand with the highlight being that I got to watch his head and eyebrows shaved.

So, let's begin.  Here's Stewart moments before he takes the first steps towards monkhood. 

Part of the ceremony is asking your elders for forgiveness.  Here's Stewart giving a heartfelt apology for all of his past trasgessions.

He, also, washes their feet.  This is his wife's mother.

The moment we've all been waiting for...

Before we get to the razor, everyone at the ceremony gets to take a little snip.  Here's my old boss, Joe T, who is also Stewart's uncle.

Here I am

The hair is collected in a palm frawn and used to make wigs for chemo patients - just kidding.

Finally, his wife, Peach, took some final snips before the razor came out.

Stewart wasn't too worried about his hair being shaved, but the eyebrows - you can never be sure how they will come back - if they come back at all.

Once the hair and eyebrows were gone, everyone took a turn rinsing his shiny, new scalp.

After the head shave, Stewart donned some white robes and the merit-making ceremony began.

Up until now, everything had taken place at Stewart's home.  Then, in the afternoon we moved to a temple tucked away in the Kao Yai hills, where he would spend his time as a monk.

One last phone call - he's probably ordering a pizza.

By this point, I had pretty much decided that I would never become a monk - even if it meant an all expense paid, 9-day vacation.

At the mountain temple, the last part of the ceremony began with a parade around the main temple hall.

Where we walked around the temple 3 times counter-clockwise.

Once inside the temple, Stewart took the final transitional steps from a normal civilian to a man of the orange cloth.

Here he is in his white robe.

After some chanting and a lot of kneeling and prostrating, Stewart was given his saffron robe and officially, became a monk.

Once the ceremony was completed, everyone sat and took pictures.  Then, Stewart was carted off to begin his sentence.