Instead of setting off fireworks and toasting the new year, many Pattaya locals took a trip to the temple to pray for prosperity in 2015.
Around 9:30 p.m. Dec. 31, temples were humming with the chants and prayers of Buddhists who engaged in lengthy mass prayers that ran through midnight.
It is believed that praying on New Year’s Eve into the new year increase the odds of their wishes coming true. It encourages people to practice meditation. And the more they practice, the more they will have wisdom to deal with problems they encounter.
At 11.59pm, monks chanted at Baan Sukhawadee.
Mass prayer meditation was held at Naklua Sutthipawan Forest Temple, Nong Yai Temple, Chong Lom Naklua Temple, Suttawas Temple, and Baan Sukhawadee.
To bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new one, Buddhists set their mind in goodness and rid themselves of vice, greed, anger and lust so that they can start to do good deeds from the very first second of the new year.
Monks and lay people say their prayers at the Chong Lom Naklua Temple.
In Pattaya, so many people attended the mass prayer that each temple didn’t have enough space for them to pray inside the temple halls.
At Suttawas Temple, Phra Kru Wijit Thammasarn, the abbot of the temple and the ecclesiastical district governor of Banglamung, led monks and more than 300 lay people to pray in over 10 various prayers, namely Phutthakoon, Thammakoon, and Sangkakoon until the ceremony ended at 12:30 a.m.
So many people attended the Mass Prayer at Nong Yai Temple that the temple hall space was not enough to fit them all in; many people had to sit and pray outside the hall.
People pray at the Naklua Sutthipawan Forest Temple to welcome the New Year with clear minds and goodness.
Many people, both Thais and foreigners, attended the mass prayer for blessing at Suttawas Temple.
