Within Lao village life shaped by cultural Theravāda Buddhism and animistic currents, monks and shamans (mor phi) move in parallel yet distinct religious spheres. Monks stand as representatives of orthodox Buddhism, responsible for merit-making rituals, Pali chanting, and the transmission of ethical teachings. They preside over ordinations, funerals, temple festivals, and other life-cycle and calendar-based ceremonies, offering moral guidance and instruction in the Dhamma. Their work is oriented toward karmic purification, future lives, and the broader soteriological horizon of the Buddhist path. In this way, monks anchor the community in the formal structures of Buddhist doctrine and practice.

Shamans, by contrast, inhabit the more fluid and unpredictable realm of spirits and unseen forces. As mor phi, they are called upon when illness, misfortune, or conflict is interpreted as arising from displeased spirits or disturbed spiritual conditions. Their rituals focus on communication with local and ancestral spirits, exorcism and appeasement, and the protection of homes and communities. Through divination and other diagnostic practices, they identify spiritual causes of suffering and perform healing through direct engagement with the spirit world. In this capacity, they function as intermediaries between human beings and the many kinds of phi that populate the local cosmology.

The relationship between monks and shamans is not typically experienced as antagonistic but as complementary. Villagers may invite monks to generate merit and recite blessings, while also turning to a mor phi when a problem is perceived to have a specifically spirit-related origin. For serious illness or major undertakings, both domains may be engaged: Buddhist chanting and offerings to address karmic and moral dimensions, alongside shamanic rites to negotiate with local spirits. The mor phi thereby fills a space that formal Buddhist ritual does not fully occupy, attending to immediate, this-worldly concerns that are framed in terms of spirit agency.

This dual religious landscape reveals a subtle division of labor in the spiritual life of Lao villages. Monks tend to the long arc of ethical cultivation and liberation, while shamans respond to the pressing contingencies of health, fortune, and protection. Rather than a simple layering of Buddhism over older beliefs, the two roles together form an integrated religious ecology, in which different kinds of specialists address different layers of reality.