Fresh flowers on our Buddha Shelf

Just about every house in Thailand will have a "Buddha Shelf", a personal shrine where prayers can be said, a mini temple in your own front room. Everyone's shrine is different, featuring images that are important personally. Our Buddha shelf does not actually have a Buddha image on it - the central figure is a statue of King Rama V (King Chulalongkorn).



December 5th was the 80th Birthday of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, an ideal day to clean our Buddha shelf, change the flowers and say a prayer. Some people change the flowers weekly, we tend to be a little less diligent. The old flowers were not looking great this time ...

 

King Rama V needs pink roses, which were his favourite flowers. You'll find flower shops all over Phuket, indeed all over Thailand... all selling flowers for Buddha..roses and garlands just for the thousands, maybe millions of Buddha shelves all over the country.

 

With the shelf clean, fresh flowers in place and a fresh glass of water, next step is to light the candles and incense and say a prayer.

 

The Buddha shelf is an important part of the home. Some houses have a shelf collection and many different Buddha images or statues of Kings. We do try to look after ours and it always looks great with new flowers and after a spring clean. The room looks brighter and fresher...