Fund raising money to continue a Sala construction

A small Wat (Buddhist temple) in the village where I will build my house has started a sala construction few years ago and it's only 50% finished so far. It is going to be an open pavilion with no wall which would be used by villagers for various community purposes. The abbot had asked me and my wife for help.  From the beginning, I knew I could not fulfill his wish to complete the project, nevertheless I thought we could raise some money to keep the construction work continued.

So I have come up with a small fund raising among my close friends, colleagues and former students, and their relatives.  So far I have received donation of around 120K Baht. The abbot still needs 10x as much to finish his project.  We still have 2 weeks to go before the scheduled money handling to him in a 'forest-cloth placing ceremony' or 'Thod Phapa' ทอดผ้าป่า ceremony as we Thai call it. But I think that's about all we could help the abbot. I am not a businessman but a former academic, and academic people are not rich. My Ph.D. advisor once told me, as I vividly recalled, 'being an academic, you don't expect yourself to get rich'. I also recall my small disappointment upon hearing that 25 years ago.

In a Buddhist custom, when I told of a merit-making task like this to someone, I meant to share good news for them to be pleased with me and explicitly say "good job or well done, and I am pleased to hear that". In Pali, we have the words "Sathu, & Anumodhami", which meant so.  So if you are pleased reading this blog entry, please recite the Pali phrase as well, so that your mind can record a deep happiness in its eternal stream.

Picture of the sala is shown below. It is in Lamphun province.