Tak bat and merit making with your Thai family

Someone in your Thai family is up before the birds, rice cooker already steaming, and you’ve been told to “come and give to the monks”. If you’ve never done it, it can feel like walking into a ceremony halfway through. It’s simpler than it looks, and nobody expects you to know the chants. Here’s what merit making is, how tak bat works step by step, and how families make merit on the days that matter.

What is merit making (tham bun)?

Tham bun means making merit. In Buddhist teaching, merit is the result of good deeds that cleanse the mind, and the three classic ways to make it are giving, keeping the precepts and meditation, as Bhikkhu Khantipalo’s Lay Buddhist Practice lays out. In everyday Thai life, the Thailand Foundation lists the common forms as giving alms to monks, making offerings at temples, releasing animals and community service.

The giving that families do most is food. Monks eat only between dawn and noon, and the food comes from what people give. So the morning offering, tak bat, is the heart of a lot of family merit making.

How does tak bat work, step by step?

Bhikkhu Khantipalo describes the alms round as starting around six in the morning, once there’s enough light for the monks, who walk barefoot, to see the ground. Here’s what that looks like from your side of the bowl.

1. Get the food ready. Rice is the base. Khantipalo describes everything from a spoonful of plain rice to curries in small plastic bags and sweets wrapped in banana leaves. Your family will probably have it sorted already; your job may just be carrying the tray.
2. Shoes off? Follow your family. Many people take their shoes off and sit on the ground to give, as a sign of respect, but customs vary.
3. Be lower than the monk. Givers squat or kneel and raise their hands in a wai before offering. Some hold the food up to the forehead for a moment and make a silent wish.
4. Place the food in the bowl. The monk opens his bowl and you place the food in, gently. Don’t touch the monk or his robe.
5. No small talk. The monk stands in silence, doesn’t ask for anything and doesn’t thank you. That’s not coldness: the giving is the point.
6. The blessing. If the monks chant a blessing, keep your hands in a wai until they finish.

Women and monks. A monk’s discipline says he must not touch a woman, so women place food in the bowl without touching him. For other offerings, a woman places the item on a cloth the monk holds out. Our Thai temple etiquette guide explains the rule, plus what to wear and how to bow.

What should you give the monks?

Rice and whatever the household is cooking is the classic answer. There’s also a health angle: monks eat what they’re given. In 2022 Wat Chonlaprathan promoted a “4 add, 2 reduce” formula from a Thai monks’ health project backed by the Thai Health Promotion Foundation: add brown rice, vegetables, fish and low-fat milk; cut the sugar; and never offer cigarettes. It’s a nice thing to suggest if Yai’s alms tray is mostly sweets.

What is the water pouring afterwards?

This is gruat naam. While the senior monk chants the blessing, you pour clean water slowly, in a continuous stream, from a small vessel into a bowl or glass. The Royal Thai Army Chaplain Division’s guide says to name the person you’re dedicating the merit to clearly, often a relative who has died, and to finish before the second monk takes over the chant. Then the water goes onto the ground outdoors, away from the house, never into a spittoon or anywhere dirty.

After the big alms-giving at the end of Buddhist Lent, tak bat thewo, Thai PBS describes people chanting for loving-kindness and pouring water to share the merit with relatives and those who have died. For the dates of the holy days, see Buddhist holy days in Thailand 2027.

When do Thai families make merit?

Birthdays. Birthday merit making is a custom of its own. For a bigger one with monks invited home, the Chaplain Division’s guide says it’s customary to invite one more monk than the age of the person celebrating.

For someone who has died. Families make merit for the person at 7, 50 and 100 days after a death. The Thai funeral etiquette guide covers those days.

Ordinations and holy days. A son’s ordination is one of the biggest merit-making days a family has; see a Thai ordination in the family.

Regional days. Some communities have their own. The Mon communities of central Thailand, for example, offer honey to monks once a year in tak bat nam phueng, according to the Thailand Foundation.

If you’re helping prepare, this is the most useful line in the kitchen:

มีอะไรให้ช่วยไหม

mii a-rai hai chuai mai

มีอะไรให้ช่วยไหมครับ

mii a-rai hai chuai mai khrap

มีอะไรให้ช่วยไหมคะ

mii a-rai hai chuai mai kha

Who is speaking?

ครับ said by a manค่ะ said by a woman

Draft: waiting for a native speaker’s review.

What is a sangkhathan set?

Sangkhathan is an offering to the community of monks as a whole rather than to one monk you pick. You’ll see ready-made yellow buckets of supplies sold for it, but those are just one convenient form. Thai Wikipedia notes that some sets were padded with cheap filler, and that anything genuinely useful to the temple counts: practical supplies chosen with the monks’ needs in mind are the spirit of it. Money is usually not handed to a monk directly; the Chaplain Division’s guide recommends a written offering slip instead of cash.

Can you make merit from abroad?

Yes. Writing about Songkran abroad, the Thailand Foundation describes Thai temples such as Wat Thai in Los Angeles and Wat Thai Washington, D.C. as community hubs where people go to make merit, and Thai communities abroad gathering to offer food to monks. Call ahead and ask how and when they do it.

If the family is making merit in Thailand, for a birthday or for someone who has died, ask whether you can join. You could offer to chip in towards the food, and a video call during the chanting can mean a lot. Sort the details in the family LINE group.

How do you bring kids along?

Kids are part of it, and always have been: Khantipalo describes children calling out that the monk has come. Give them one job, like handing over a bag of rice or holding the water vessel with you. Explain beforehand that it’s a quiet time, so the silence doesn’t feel like a telling-off. If they get it slightly wrong, nobody minds.

Not sure about shoes, at the alms round or at the temple? Practise asking:

ต้องถอดรองเท้าไหม

torng thort rorng thao mai

ต้องถอดรองเท้าไหมครับ

torng thort rorng thao mai khrap

ต้องถอดรองเท้าไหมคะ

torng thort rorng thao mai kha

Who is speaking?

ครับ said by a manค่ะ said by a woman

Draft: waiting for a native speaker’s review.

Customs vary

Every family and region does merit making a bit differently: whether you stand, crouch or kneel, what’s cooked, whether there’s water pouring, how many monks come, and whether shoes come off. What we couldn’t confirm from an official source is a single “correct” set of foods, or a rule on shoes at the alms round, so ask the elders. What your family does wins.

Practise for the big family days

Reply Thai’s “Big family days” lessons let you rehearse the lines for merit-making mornings, temple visits and family gatherings, so you can offer to help and follow along.

Reply Thai for iPhoneComing soon

More words like tham bun and tak bat are in the glossary.

Thai words on this page are a draft until a native speaker has reviewed them.