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Changing Life by the Ordination Merit
Graduated from Engineering, but almost went to Hell
Edited from the Inner Dream Kindergarten program broadcasting on DMC
I pay the highest respect to the Most Venerable Luang Phaw Dhammajayo,
My name is Phra Phornchai Kaemasayo and I am 38 years old. I became ordained at the 10 thousands monks ordination program in the year 2010 (Buddhist Lent Version) at Wat Kerd in Phattalung province. My mother passed away ever since I studied in 7th grade, which caused me to live alone with my dad. I graduated bachelor’s degree from engineering faculty from Mahanakorn University of Technology, majoring in telecommunications engineering. After I graduated, I went to work top leading companies in Thailand. The company that I worked for supports a telephone network signal service such as AIA, DTAC and TRUE. My work status climbed up quickly, and the company finally let me become the network administrator of a project with a total cost of up to 1,000 million Baht in Vietnam and Cambodia.
The more my work progressed, the closer I became toward going to hell. This was because I became the so-called leader in entertaining the customers so that both the work and approval of the project is going smoothly. I took them to the night entertainment places to dance, drink alcohol, sing karaoke, and we usually ended up at massage parlors. Sometimes, after entertaining ourselves at night pubs, we also ended up using prostitution’s service. For the prostitution’s service, we can select as many beautiful ladies that we want. If we get bored with the prostitute that we already used before, then we can change to use a new one. I lived this type of life for four to five years, because I received projects that sometimes lasted three months, sometimes six months. This required me to travel by plane from Thailand to neighboring countries.
After finishing all the projects, my company requested me to return back to work in the office located in Thailand. To be honest, I am not used office work. Rather, I’m used to working on the sites. Because of this reason, I become very bored and decide to quit my job and returned back to my home in Phattalung province. After I returned home, I sometimes worked as the manager of a chicken farm, sometimes worked at repairing electronic equipments. But in the end, I ended up working at cutting the rubber in my father’s rubber tree plantations. However, I do not know how to cut the rubber open properly and felt useless. After many unsuccessful attempts, a thought came up that if I become ordain as a monk, this merit will help me improve my life. After deciding, I went to tell my family and relatives that I will be ordain as a monks at the temple that kept my mother’s bones. However, my sister knew that there is a free ordination program that opens at Wat Phra Dhammakaya, so she encouraged me to ordain there. At that moment, I can recalled many news that had portrayed Wat Phra Dhammakaya from a negative paradigm from my memory and didn’t want to be ordain there. However, my family and relatives insisted, so in the end I agreed to become ordained at Wat Phra Dhammakaya.
After joining the ordination program in the first day, Pra ajarn has told me that I’m not allowed to smoke, so I decided to quit smoking on that very day. Moreover, after the ordination programs had started, Pra ajarn asked us, “Why are we born?” and he answered, “To accumulate merit.” After I heard his words, I was a bit surprised and shocked. However his words went to the bottom of my heart, because ever since I was born, I felt like I haven’t accumulated any merit at all before the ordination. In addition to my inability to recall any merit accumulation I had done before the ordination, I could only recalled all the sins I have done from breaking the five precepts. Moreover, after I has become ordained, I continued to remain in monkhood because I felt that this ordination program has bring many beneficial things to my life and don’t want it to end. Knowing my reason for not quitting, pra ajarn has sent me further improve my meditation skills by sending me to the meditation retreat in Khao Kaew Sadet. After I came here, I felt very lucky, because Pra ajarn has picked up a crystal ball approximately three centimeters in diameter for me to touch and feel. Surprisingly, after the touch, I was able to clearly picture the crystal ball inside the middle of my tummy.
At around 10-15 minutes in my meditation, a crystal ball about three centimeters in diameter appeared shining brightly in the middle of my tummy. When I imagine the crystal ball enlarging, the crystal began to expand until the size of a tennis ball. The size of the crystal ball can be reduce or enlarge depending on my feelings. The more I look into the crystal ball; I began to feel more relax, comfortable, and happy. I felt as if I could smile the whole entire day. Nowadays, my old anti-feelings against Wat Phra Dhammakaya began to disappear. This is because if Wat Phra Dhammakaya is not good, it would not improve my life this drastically. After my experience at Wat Phra Dhammakaya, I finally realize the truth that Luang Phaw has dedicated his life toward working and even when ill, Luang Phaw still fight for spreading Buddhism teachings worldwide. Today, I am very amaze and believe in Luang Paw. Moreover, I feel like very thankful that Luang Paw has bring me to the correct path by organizing the ordination program so that I am able to improve my life this drastically. From now on, I will do everything for Wat Phra Dhammakaya and Luang Phaw including explaining to non-believers so that they achieve a better understanding of our temple. I would like to follow Luang Phaw in merit accumulation in this life and lives after departing from this world.
In conclusion, I would also like to tell Dhammadayada that just entered that “We are the luckiest that we have a chance to join this ordination program. Therefore, I would like everyone to use their time wisely for merit-making so you can all improve for yourself and for your parents. Your improvement in merit-making will serve your parents for their unconditional love that they have given to you.
I pay the highest respect to the Most Venerable Luang Phaw Dhammajayo
Phra Phornchai Kaemasayo
Translated by Pichayapa Suenghataiphorn
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