Thailand: Good Luck for You. - Pondering about luck.

Already after coming back home from Thailand I started asking myself about the reason why I heard the wishes of luck from the Thais so often. “Koot luck for you” was what a tuk-tuk driver, street vendors, a temple guardian, a monk and hotel receptionists wished me.
So “How come?”, I thought, if in Buddhism there is no such notion as luck but rather karma. In Buddhism, everything follows the cause-effect principle. Striving to possess makes a person suffer, so one has to overcome their egocentric wishes by controlling mind and body. Doing good helps to build up positive karma and and brings about positive effect. On the other hand, a good luck charm is often misinterpreted since, as I see it, one keeps one as a sign of a promise to oneself that he or she will follow the right path of living.
My idea was confirmed when I read this, “Buddhism teaches that the one, who is deeply learned and skilled, well-trained using well-spoken words with his father and mother, cherishes his wife and child and leads an honest, humble and simple life should be no less than “good luck”. This gets us to the conclusion that, apparently in the Asian tradition luck is rather interpreted as good karma created by motivated action, rather than simple chance. As someone said, “luck is when opportunity knocks and you answer”.

I suddenly realized that whenever they wish you luck they are rather wishing you to choose the right path of living.

Thailand: Good Luck for You. - Day 1 (Bangkok - continued)

The first temple we came across is the famous Wat Pho. Luckily, it was quite a late hour, so it wasn’t so invaded by tourists. I don’t remember seeing typical Thai temples in pictures and got absolutely enchanted by the immense quantity of elaborated ornaments carefully clad in ceramic tiles, shining pointed roofs and armies of Buddhas of all sizes, including the giant Reclining Buddha.

Inside the temple there was a wall next to the exit was lined with small metal bowls on stands. A woman with her two little sons passed me by and they all started dropping little coins into the bowls as the temple filled with pleasant clinking sound…

We stretched out on the grass in a park, watching children fly kites, and chewed up our mangos, to regain forces. We were so bombarded by new experiences and emotions that, apparently, our organisms forgot we were supposed to have jet lag!

Already at night we came across the famous Khao San Road, which in fact didn’t have much to see besides ‘ fellow travellers’, shops, bars and Thai women selling wooden croaking frogs. Speaking about shops, it is amazing how many tailor shops exist in Thailand. But wait a minute: does it really seem like that a T-shirt-and-shorts tourist, leisurely strolling along Khao San Road chewing at the straw of his soft/strong drink around midnight, really needs a suit???

By some lucky chance we came across Soi Ram Buttri (‘soi’ practically means a small road, a kind of an appendix of a bigger ‘thanon’ (road)) and landed at an absolutely great, cozily lit place called Sawasdee House, which that moment on became our favorite chill-out spot in town.

This great day was crowned with an extreme bumpy ride on Bangkok’s most (in)famous means of transport – a colorful tuk-tuk (better hop on at night, if you don’t want to see in practice why so many drivers and pedestrians wear masks!).