Tsunami Hit Coral Resort

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Case study

Dearest Venerable Luang Phaw

I was born in a rural family in Phang-Nga Province. I am the only and youngest son among five children in the family. During my childhood, my sisters and I hardly lived with our parents because they sent us to the school in Phuket province.

I knew Dhammakaya Temple about 10 years ago and I have been dedicating myself in pursuing perfection, for example: 24th Dhammadayada Ordination, 59th Phrarajbhavanavisudh Ordination, Novice ordination and Layman ordination. I’m also a merit leader, bus leader and help to install the DMC satellite disc. In addition, I have cast the personal Buddha images for everyone in my family and also invited all relatives and friends to pursue perfection together.

Currently, my uncle who owns a resort has an opportunity to accrue merit with the community. My father, sister and I work in this resort.

The resort is at Pakarang (Coral) Peninsula; Khaolak in Phang-Nga province. It is famous and known as “Coral Resort”. The resort has been often used by our community for meditation retreat. All the visitors that came here have been very impressed. My uncle strongly supported the meditation practice and kept the cost of each retreat at the minimum. He hoped that his parents who own the resort’s land will receive the merits of supporting the meditation retreat.

My father and I work closely with my uncle and we have a very trusting relationship.
My father originally worked in tin mine and was quite well-off. Later he was elected as a village leader and then he resigned. He was highly respected in the village. He drank liquor, smoked and gambled regularly. I have warned him many times, he always replied that he knew about it but can’t give up.

On 26th December 2004, Sunday morning, the day of the tsunami disaster, my father and four colleagues were working in the Coral Resort and they witnessed a strange phenomenon: the ocean water receded abruptly. They walked into the ocean about 100 meters from the coastline and then they saw a giant wave building up to 10 meters high and washed them away. The waves flooded the resort and swept away all the bungalows.

Those two-story houses were left with the walls only, the furniture, doors, windows and everything inside was swept away with the water. Most of the resort staff died. The sea wave flooded the land up to three kilometers from the beach. From the mountain, it seemed that all signs of civilization had disappeared.

After the wave was abated, my father disappeared while his four colleagues were safe. I searched for him for two days and found him holding tightly onto a coconut tree. It was the same place where I parked my car while looking for him, but I didn’t see him there initially. I think he probably died instantaneously on that day. He was then 56 years old.

On the fifth night after his death (30th December), we noticed a very strong corpse smell in our house. All of us knew that my father came to the house.

The resort where we worked was completely destroyed including my uncle’s sister’s hotel at the next door, which was just opened for two months and my uncle’s brother’s hotel that was about to open. That causes great suffering to my uncle’s family.

Normally, my uncle, the owner of the Coral Resort goes to work early in the morning. But that Sunday, he somehow decided not to go early and that saved his life. His sister who owned a hotel in Phuket province called and asked him to come and help because they have been hit severely by the tsunami. My uncle decided to check on his own resort first.

There was a hotel manager, a Singaporean who was just hired to manage the hotel for only 3 months. On that morning, he found a Buddha image in his office desk. It was very strange that he had never seen this Buddha image since the day he started work there. It was a good omen and so he picked it up and kept in his wallet. On that day, he had a headache and decided to take some pills and rest in a room on the second floor of the hotel. When he woke up, water gushed into his room. The water rose to the ceiling of the room until he almost could not breathe. He dived into water and escaped out of the building. He found a piece of wood and was able to hold on to it. He helped other staff to hold on to the same piece of wood.

Questions:

1. What kammic retributions caused my father to die in the tsunami where all his colleagues have survived?

2. How did he feel just after he died? Where and how is he now? Does he know that he is dead? Does he have any messages for us?

3. What was the smell on that night? Was it from my father? If it was, what did he want?

4. Why didn’t I find his corpse at the coconut tree where I parked the car initially?

5. What merit should I dedicate to him to improve his present condition?

6. What caused my uncle’s resorts to be completely destroyed and what merit should he do to prevent from suffering losses in the future?

7. What caused my uncle to escape from the tsunami although he should be there working at that time?

8. What merits helped the Singaporean manager to find a piece of wood and save his life?

9. What can I do to help those resort staff who died in the hotel? What past kamma caused them to die in this disaster?

10. What were the relationship among my family, uncle and me? Why were we supporting each other and felt very close in this life? How should I console my uncle about all his losses and encourage him?

11. Where did I come from before I was born? Why was I born in the countryside far away from the community? Have I pursued perfections with the community before? If yes, in which group?

Luang Phaw's Dream

I closed my eyes, dreamed and woke up with these answers.
When you tell anybody the story like a tale, it will make anyone know more about retribution (Law of Kamma)

1. Your father died because of his past killing kamma when he was a fisherman. At that time he caught lot of fishes and the kamma came to fruition and caused him to have short lifespan. His colleagues have survived because their killing kamma were very light.

2. When he just died he was startled as the water receded and he saw his corpse and he knew he was dead. At first, he was wandering around the beach and finally he went home.

3. The smell on that night was your father’s. He was sad and gloomy since he had not really accrued any wholesome merits except those merits as according to the tradition. He had habitual kamma of drinking, smoking, and gambling. He came home because he didn’t know where to go, what to do and unable to talk to anyone.

4. You were very stressed and worried, so you were searching far instead of looking near and hence didn’t notice him. When you came back to the car park you found him because he died at that spot and there was nothing concealing him.

5. You need to make every merit and dedicate to him. If you could ordain and focus your practice in the monastic observances more than your previous ordination, dedication of this merit to him will help to improve his present condition. The merit of your past ordination has helped to close the hell-realm for him. It will be better if you could keep your mind bright and pure in making the merit as advised.

6. Your uncle, the resort owner, had to face a great devastation because of his past life kamma that he provided the tax and money to fix the state highway for the army to fight in wars and also rejoiced in the victory of the wars.

In fact, he would have been killed in this catastrophe. He survived because of the past merits he made in Buddhism and the merits in supporting the meditation retreat in this lifetime, but that past kamma caused a great loss to his resort.

To rectify this kamma retribution, he need to accrue every merit regularly especially in those big merits and resolve that these merits will help to protect him from any disaster or danger.

7. The Singaporean hotel manager survived because he didn’t have any killing kamma and the merits he had made as a Buddhist in the past life protected him and let him found a piece of wood that saved his life.

8. Many staff was killed in this catastrophe because they all had killing kamma. You should make merits in Buddhism by giving, observing the precepts, meditating and etc, in particular the merit of Crystal Pillar and dedicated the merits to all of them, so their condition could be improved.

9. You and your family were relatives and were also Kalyanamitta to your uncle. You always invited others to accrue merits with the community. You have more merit in inviting others to make merit than making merits yourself.

You need to educate your uncle about the Law of Kamma and this will reduce his suffering. It’s normal that we all have to separate from our loved ones and treasure things. He has to get over with all his losses.

He should begin anew with enthusiasm and at the same time accrue all the merits. Don’t think that the merits didn’t help like some Buddhists who don’t have the right understanding about the Law of Kamma. Whatever were lost let it be, don’t be demoralised.

10. Before you were born, you came from an appropriate place and had pursued perfection with the community in the supporting group.

You were born on the countryside, far away from the community because sometimes when you were offended, irritated and get upset with the community, you thought of staying away from the community and didn’t want to involve with the community. So this caused you to lose the chance to make merits and born far away from the community.