Learning Thai

Occasionally we have representatives from various charities come down our street soliciting donations. Usually they are working with orphans in the rural parts of Thailand, and we've occasionally made small donations to them. Today, however, we had a more unusual request. Members of a corpse collection charity came to make their pitch. From what I could gather, they collect and (I assume) cremate the bodies that no one else claims or can afford to cremate. In his attempt to explain their purpose the man I talked to pulled out a notebook that had a number of pictures illustrating their work. There were pictures of dead bodies, pictures of people carrying the dead bodies away, and pictures of the coffins that they use to transport them. He explained that by donating money to help them I would be "tam boon" (making merit). What they are doing is very commendable from a Buddhist perspective because the rituals associated with death (especially cremation) are important to the future condition of the soul/karma of the deceased. After listening to his explanation (and seeing the startling pictures) I made a small donation and received the document shown above. To finalize my merit-making, the charity representative told me I should burn the paper. I think I'll just keep it as a souvenir.

-Tom