BUDDHISM IN SRI LANKA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA 157dwelling unite-the ordination ceremony through which a member of the
community, with the support of his relatives and friends, offers himself up to
become a monk to further his own pursuit of merit and to aid the community
in theirs.
The high value placed on the monks as a repository of merit can be best
understood by making a structural model of the Thai peasant's view of the
forces working on his or her life. On the first level are the empirical forces:
the peasant's position in society, the weather's influence over the success of the
crops, and the cycle of life itself-a process of birth, aging, illness, and death.
Because one is virtually powerless against these forces on the empirical level,
one must tap into the power of the invisible forces that have control over them.
The invisible forces begin with the spirits believed to inhabit the world,
among them the deities guarding particular locations such as one's house or
fields, wandering ghosts of the newly dead, ancestor spirits, fertility goddesses,
and others. According to animist beliefs, these spirits have the power to affect
the course of one's fortunes. They may work invisibly or else enter one's
dreams, take possession of members of one's family, or communicate with
spirit mediums to indicate their pleasure or displeasure with one's conduct. In
dealing with them, one may try to tap into their power by promising to per-
form a certain action if their help is forthcoming; one may appease their anger
with offerings or, failing that, try to control them through occult rituals, spells,
or talismans.
Invisible forces taught by Brahmanism make up the second layer. The
Brahmanical gods are generally viewed as a higher level of spirits, to be han-
dled with a higher level of offerings and rituals, but except on very important
occasions they are rarely. thought to be concerned with the affairs of peasants,
as they have more important business to attend to. The Brahmanical forces
that weigh most heavily on a peasant's mind are astrology and numerology.
The planets, which govern both systems, are conceived as gods more pre-
dictable and less capricious than the spirits, but at the same time less suscepti-
ble to offerings and rituals. Their beneficent influences may be tapped into by
the proper scheduling of events. Their malevolent influences can be counter-
acted only by means of good luck, which may be fostered by such things as
talismans, good-luck rituals, lucky numbers, and auspicious colors.
Buddhism adds another set of gods and spirits to the invisible world, and-
with the remnants of Tantrism--another element to the ritualists' repertoire.
Its most important contribution, however, is a layer of force overarching all
others: the principle of karma, the belief that one meets with events deter-
mined by the intentional quality of one's past and present thoughts, words,
and deeds. Even gods, according to Buddhist teachings, are subject to this law.
From the orthodox point of view, this law invalidates the influence of the
planets and lowers the status of the spirit world. However, from the syncretist
point of view, karma does not abrogate the lower levels of force; it simply pro-
vides another method for explaining and influencing them. For example, one's
social position, the success of one's crops, and the vicissitudes of life in general
can be attributed to one's accumulated good and bad karma. The extent to