Pay to Pray

What I've Been Thinking About Lately #96

Thailand’s monks would make killer startup founders.

I recently went on a group tour to visit different Buddhist temples and look at sun-beaten statues of their gods. Some had elephant trunks for noses, others had 10 arms, but each one was hundreds of feet tall.

In front of every statue was a donation box. The monks stressed the importance of giving to each one because the gods had different powers. Give to this one for good sex. Give to that one to lose weight.

The gods must really know their target market because those boxes were full of cash from all over the world. The West sells you drugs to help you look and fuck better but the monks sell divine intervention. Same base desires, just different solutions.

If the gods were unworthy of your hard-earned dollars, you could always buy goods from the monk run trinket shops outside the temples. Here you could find things such as weed grinders that say “I Phucking Love Thailand” and penis shaped bottle openers. Their product choice likely informed by demand rather than Buddhist principles.

In the van on our way back, a young European on the tour says to me that he was uncomfortable with so many monks prompting him for money. “Aren’t these supposed to be holy places?” he said, suggesting that the sacred way to ask for money is passing a felt-lined wicker basket up and down pews.

Faith may be free but church is a business. I respond that they have to make money somehow. The monk’s directness comes from a deep understanding of their customers. They know they’ll never see us again, that we have more money than the locals, and that we feel guilty for how fortunate we are to not be them. The slow, no-pressure approach his hometown church uses is just a method for a different kind of customer. One better suited for people you’ll keep seeing on Sundays.

I continue sharing my analysis on the business model of temple tourism, using jargon like “diversifying revenue” and “customer churn”. His eyes glaze over and I can feel his desire to exit our conversation in favor of silence among exhausted strangers.

I turn and press my forehead to the moist van window and think about my day. I didn’t know what to expect from the monks, but I left convinced they’re hardcore, living the principles so many entrepreneurs only talk about. They’d never use the fancy words I did to describe their business, but they live them better than I ever have.