At the canal entrance to most large Bangkok temples, and at the approach roads to smaller provincial wats throughout the country, you will find them: vendors with plastic bags or small tanks, selling fish for release. The fish are alive. The transaction is simple. The intention behind it has several centuries of Thai Buddhist practice behind it.
Participating in a merit-making fish release (ploy pla tham bun) is one of the more accessible ways for a foreign visitor to engage genuinely with Thai Buddhist practice — not as a tourist attraction but as an act of intention, carried out in a context that has real meaning for the community around you. Getting it right requires some preparation. This guide provides it.
Understanding What You Are Participating In
Before the logistics, the context. A merit-making fish release is an act of tham bun — making merit, accumulating positive kamma by performing a good deed. The specific good deed is granting life: purchasing fish that would otherwise remain confined until they die or are sold to food markets, and releasing them into a body of water where they have the possibility of living.
The kamma generated by this act benefits the person performing it, and in the Buddhist understanding, can also be dedicated to the benefit of others — deceased family members, people going through difficulty, all sentient beings. Many Thai merit-releasers perform the act with specific dedicatory intention: releasing for the health of a sick family member, for the repose of an ancestor, for the wellbeing of the world.
A non-Buddhist who participates with genuine goodwill — truly wishing the fish well, truly hoping that the act benefits someone beyond themselves — is participating meaningfully, in the opinion of most Thai monks and lay practitioners. Buddhism is not typically a tradition that requires credentialling before good acts.
The Vendor: What to Expect and What to Choose
The fish vendors outside Thai temples are small-scale traders who have, in many cases, a decades-long relationship with the temple and its merit-making traffic. They are not adversarial operators; they understand that their business depends on the health of the merit-release practice.
The vendor's typical stock includes several options at different price points. Your job as a conscientious buyer is to select native species and avoid invasive ones.
Buy these:
- Pla duk (ปลาดุก) — Walking catfish (Clarias batrachus or Clarias macrocephalus). Greyish-brown, with barbels, often sold in small bundles. Native to Thailand. A good choice.
- Pla chon (ปลาช่อน) — Snakehead (Channa striata). Sold small — 10-15cm fingerlings typically. Native predator, ecologically appropriate. A good choice.
- Pla lai (ปลาไหล) — Freshwater eel. Sold in small bundles in water bags. Native and appropriate for most Thai temple ponds.
- Pla tapien (ปลาตะเพียน) — Common barb / native carp-family fish. The small silver fish sold in bags at most vendors. Generally native and appropriate.
Avoid these:
- Pla nil (ปลานิล) — Nile tilapia. Often sold as fingerlings. Highly invasive in Thai waters, documented to damage native fish populations. If you cannot identify the species, ask the vendor "pla nil mai?" (is this tilapia?) — the honest ones will tell you.
- Pla hang daeng / pla kong (ปลาหางแดง / ปลาคัง) — Suckermouth armoured catfish. The flat-headed, armoured, bottom-hugging fish of South American origin now invasive throughout Thai waterways. Sometimes sold for release. Do not buy.
- Red-eared slider turtles (Trachemys scripta elegans). Sometimes sold in bags alongside fish. Invasive and harmful to native soft-shell turtle populations. Do not release.
If you cannot identify whether a species is invasive, the safest approach is to buy the walking catfish (pla duk) — it is widely available, unmistakably native, inexpensive, and appropriate for virtually any Thai temple pond.
Ecological Note
The ecological complications of merit-release fishing are real and documented. Choosing native species is the most meaningful environmental choice you can make within the tradition. Some temples now post species guidance near their pond entry points — follow it.
The Release: Step by Step
Step 1 — Purchase: Select your fish from the vendor. A meaningful release does not require large quantities. Two or three bags of walking catfish or a bundle of eels is sufficient. Pay the vendor. Carry the bags carefully — the fish need the water to stay oxygenated.
Step 2 — Find the release point: Most temples with a pond or canal access have a designated area where merit releases happen. It is usually near the water's edge, often indicated by worn paving and the presence of other people doing the same thing. Some temples have small pavilions or steps leading to the water specifically for this purpose.
Step 3 — Prepare your intention: Before releasing, take a moment to form your intention clearly. This does not need to be in Pali or Thai. In your own mind and language, wish the fish well — "May these fish live safely and without harm" — and if you wish to dedicate merit to anyone specific, hold that intention clearly. This is the act of mind that gives the release its meaning in the Buddhist framework.
Step 4 — Release: Open the bag gently at the water's edge and allow the fish to swim out. Do not throw or pour forcefully — the fish are already stressed from transport, and rough handling can disorient them or cause injury. Lower the bag into the water, open it below the surface, and let the fish find their own way out. Hold the bag under water until they have all left.
Step 5 — Donation: Place a small donation in any donation box at or near the pond. 20-50 baht is appropriate. If there is a monk present who offered a blessing, a donation directed to him personally is respectful — place it on a tray or surface near him rather than handing it directly (in Thai custom, laypeople do not hand objects directly to monks, and women do not touch monks or their robes).
Photography: Reading the Room
Photography at merit-release areas is generally acceptable at busy urban temples where tourist presence is normal. Use judgment:
At major Bangkok temples (Wat Pho, Wat Arun, Wat Saket), photography of the fish release is unremarked. Photograph the water, the fish, your hands releasing — documentary photography of the act itself is fine.
At smaller provincial temples with fewer tourists, be more observant. If no one else is photographing, default to not doing so, or to taking only discreet photographs that do not involve photographing other worshippers' faces without consent.
If a monk is present and conducting a blessing, put your phone away unless you see other people photographing freely and the monk appears comfortable with it. Some monks do not object to being photographed; some prefer privacy during religious acts.
Never take photographs that interrupt or call attention to yourself during another person's merit-making act. The respectful principle is that you are participating in something meaningful, not documenting it for social media — even if you do later post about the experience.
What You Will Find at the Pond
Thai temple ponds with long histories of merit release contain fish that have lived there for years — sometimes decades. Large common carp, large walking catfish, eels of substantial size, and occasionally introduced ornamental species that someone's well-intentioned but ecologically problematic release left behind.
The fish in these ponds are accustomed to people and largely unafraid of the water's edge. Some will approach immediately when they sense footsteps near the pond, having learned to associate human presence with incoming food or fish. Watching a large, old fish — visibly older than most of the humans around the pond — approach the surface as you release a small fish nearby is an unusual experience. Something has lived here, undisturbed, through decades of the city changing around it.
That is the result of the practice. Not the kamma accounting, not the Pali prayer — the concrete, visible result: a body of water where large, old animals live safely because many people over many years decided their safety mattered. Whatever your view of the metaphysics, the outcome is not nothing.
