Sons of Isan Taking: Taking Refuge in a Thai temple Ch. 1-2 Excerpt
1
Wai: Traditional Thai greeting
Wat: Temple
Kuti: Pali word for a monk’s cell
A heavy tropical rain has begun to fall outside my cell and giggling flashes of orange robes hurry by my open door. A platoon of ants drink from my lukewarm cup of instant coffee, and mosquitoes attack my exposed feet where they feast on an area badly chafed by my sandals. I contemplate scratching the area, but it's already not healing very well. I decide instead to scratch around the area; the blood and filth blend into a flinty brown. I light a cigarette.
As evening begins to fall, the rain clouds burn off and reveal a giant Asian sun quivering midway on the horizon. Outside in the cambered light of the village, I hear the faint sound of water buffaloes shuffling along the outer wall of the temple, their hooves resounding like woodblocks on the steaming pavement.
Sprawled out, hot and in a stupor on the tile floor, I’m interrupted by a timid knocking at my door. There, in the darkness, stands Phra Suwatt, the abbot’s secretary who has been in effect my welcome wagon monk since I arrived. He's twenty-three and has lived in this temple since he was a boy. He is tall and thin, so thin that his robes fail to define even the slightest physical feature. He's the only monk I've spoken to since my arrival the night before, while the other monks, as though fearful or painfully shy, keep their distance. Walking through the grounds, they gracefully flee to nearby buildings at my approach. Huddled in small groups, they peer and smile from the darkened doorways and teak framed windows.
Phra Suwatt enters my porch. As he does so, his face erupts into a warm smile, “Luang Por wants to welcome you, Ajarn Bill. He very happy you here at Wat Pramuenrat. Monk all happy today to see you. We want you stay long time. Please take a rest.”
I thank him with a deep wai and before I can invite him in, he quickly departs. On my porch I notice he's left his sandals, but has already disappeared into the shadows; the looming, yet embracing shadows that only a Buddhist temple could cast.
Forty-eight hours ago I was in the States drinking coffee. I wish I had savored it more deeply because the majority of coffee here is instant. It seems trivial, doesn't it? It’s not that I didn't do my research; on the contrary, I did plenty. This is the kind of place, however, that no amount of research can prepare you for.
Inside my cell, or kuti, I begin to unload my pack. In it are most of my possessions:
Four pair of pants
Six shirts
Seven socks (not pairs, seven socks)
Six pairs of underwear (I bought these soon after I arrived in Bangkok. They are very small despite the Medium tag. Never under any circumstances wear tight underwear in the tropics).
Three ties
A belt
Toiletries (including anti-malaria pills I never got around to taking)
A framed photographs of my son at the age of fifteen.
A camp stove (that I didn’t need)
A headlamp
Assorted unframed pictures of my family
Books: John Coltrane’s biography, Ascension; a sailing dictionary; and Thomas Merton’s, Seeds of Contemplation)
A few jazz CDs
A Nikon and an additional lens
Two pads of paper and two pens
Then there are things I haven't unpacked. Heavy, awkward, and odd-shaped, they are rational and irrational thoughts, beliefs and experiences. I tucked and crammed whatever I could of these into small, black nooks and crannies within myself.
Purging my life of my material possessions before I left home was more difficult than I was initially prepared for, but it was gradually freeing. The more that went out the door to charity trucks or to the curb, the easier it became. I recall the sound of my footsteps in the empty house, echoing off bare walls and hardwood floors. The last moment there was complete in spite of the emptiness. The bargain hunters gone, I strolled through empty rooms among bits of twisted newspaper and trails of dust hoping for a feeling, or a message, that I had made the right decision. I'd to like to think that maybe a few particles of me still dance and drift in a beam of light on those hardwoods.
Locking the door for the last time, I wandered down the driveway and along the tree lined streets. There was just the hint of fall in the air as I strolled through the fractured shadows of oaks. Fall in the Midwest is a beautiful thing to experience. I wonder when I’ll see the next.
2
Phra: A title similar to Reverend
Ajarn: Thai word for teacher; title for addressing a teacher
Luang Por: When addressing an older esteemed monk as grandfather
Farang: Foreigner or westerner
As a convert to Buddhism, especially a western convert, I aim to approach it with a modern perspective. Because I wasn't raised Buddhist, or in a Buddhist country, my perception is tinged with romanticism. In the United States, my meditation was soft and quiet in clean halls and on cushions with other Westerners. None of it prepared me for this. First Lessons learned:
Thai Buddhism is many things, but it is not romantic or very soft.
Monks are people too.
Monks can't wear a watch, but they can carry a cell phone.
Some monks engage with society where they pursue degrees or work with communities, while many others remain very disconnected from society.
The view that many western Buddhists share, which sees Buddhism as a caretaker of nature, does not necessarily exist here.
When I was a child living in the Midwest, there was a carnival that came to my town every summer. It was your typical Midwestern fair with all the usual games of skill and cotter pin rides. They had a ride called the Rocco Plane. It was modeled after a Ferris wheel but scarier. I would go to the fair every day and watch as people got stuffed into the red, egg-shaped capsules before they were sent spinning and screaming skyward. I feared this ride so much that I waited until the last day of the fair to go on it. Being here in this far away temple feels just like sitting in that spinning Rocco Plane. I'm afraid but willing.
I'm having a hard time adjusting. The heat and the mosquitoes are unbearable. I still haven't been able to sleep for more than a few hours a night and often find myself chain smoking naked in front of the fan until sleep catches me.
I'm sure malaria originated in my bathroom. For a country with lingering malaria problems, they have an awful lot of standing water. I have a slimy trashcan full of it in my bathroom. I scoop it out with a yellow plastic bowl and after a brief eruption of irritated mosquitoes, pour it over my head or flush the squat toilet. I try not to imagine the epic orgies that take place upon the filmy surface.
Mornings in the temple are not always gentle and full of little tinkling Asian sounds. During my first morning, I thought the Burmese army was attacking before realizing an enormous bell was pounding away seemingly right outside my window. The intensity of this moment was soon punctuated by dens of howling temple dogs. It happens that the curious building I had seen the previous day was the temple bell tower with its bell house cleverly obscured by a low canopy of trees scarcely twenty meters from my cell.
If the bell fails to stir you, the nearly feral packs of dogs certainly will. There are dogs everywhere; inside the temple and in small packs that roam the streets. To my knowledge, there is no official animal control and euthanasia is not an option because Thailand is a Buddhist country. From what I understand, the local temples have become a sort of unofficial humane society.
There are twenty-five to thirty dogs at Wat Pramuenrat. Depending on a number of factors, such as the mating season and severe malnutrition, this number fluctuates. These are not necessarily domesticated animals. They reside in a sort of feral purgatory between domesticity and wild fury. There are daily battles over food and territory that can become absolutely violent, and it isn't unusual to see dogs with festering wounds. Most of the dogs aren't a real danger to humans, but there are a few I stay clear of. They are a real nuisance. They bark and quarrel at all hours of the night, dig up gardens in search of cool soil, and scare the Jesus out of the village children.
Of the many dogs that roam my area of the temple, one in particular took an immediate interest in me. She is a little yellow dog with a perpetually frightened expression. She loyally follows me wherever I go and sleeps directly in front of my cell at night. She also has a peculiar habit of bringing me a single leaf, which she randomly snatches from the ground and drops at my feet. Like the rest, she's acutely malnourished to such a degree that she's a walking anatomy lesson. I feed her and the other members of her pack whatever I can scrounge from the lunch trays. They seem to prefer fish. Since it has a lot of oils and proteins, I figure it's the best thing for them.
Wide awake from the bell episode and having recovered at least three of my five senses, I pulled on my jeans and ventured out to explore my new surroundings. All things considered, it was a beautiful morning. The sun was shining and it was only 100 degrees outside. Creaking open my door, I spied Phra Suwatt making his way to my cell. “Did you have a good sleep?” he asked.
“Well,” I said, “it takes time to adjust to a new place. I did have a problem with the mosquitoes.”
“Yes, (unapologetically) we found big nest in your room when cleaning. Please follow me to see Luang Por, and then eat food.”
Taking me gently by the arm, which Thai males will often do, Phra Suwatt led me off to see Abbot Sunthorn, who is referred to as Luang Por, or venerable father. Betel nut is still popular among some elderly in Thailand, and Abbot Sunthorn, judging by his oxide grin, was obviously an avid chewer. Our abbot, who has been a monk for over forty years, is precisely what one would imagine an elderly abbot to be. His dark eyes peer out from a deeply lined and kind face, and while he easily erupts into laughter, he can be equally serious. He also has a particular fascination with President Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
As we entered his quarters, he was preparing a red clay plug that he unceremoniously stuffed into his mouth as I bowed three times in respect. Satisfied, he turned to Phra Suwatt and immediately began speaking rapidly through his blackened smile, intermittently laughing, spitting, and pointing in my direction while Phra Suwatt sat and listened stoically.
After a few moments, Phra Suwatt tried his best to translate. “Ajarn Bill, Luang Por says he wants you to stay forever and he can choose a good Thai wife for you.” I wasn’t exactly sure how to respond, so I simply asked Phra Suwatt to tell him how grateful I was for him letting me stay here. Luang Por responded by grunting something like, “Yeah, yeah,” and then handed me a bunch of bananas. This was my cue that the meeting was over.
As we departed into the quickly invading heat of the morning, Phra Suwatt turned to me and said, “Luang Por says you look too tired so you should eat rice and take a rest. He also says he is happy you are here, but he worries about you wanting to leave. Foreigners never stay and maybe eating and sleeping will be difficult.”
Entering the main eating area, which is situated outside under a covered walkway near the bell tower, I finally got a good look at all the faces that had been trying so hard not to meet me. Seated at two long rows of tables were all of the twenty-seven ordained and eight novice monks of Wat Pramuenrat. Phra Suwatt made a casual introduction in Thai, and then in English, to the now cornered monks who looked on fearfully. What he said amounted to, “Okay, okay, this is Ajarn Bill. He came here to learn about the Buddha. Talk with him.” Nodding, I then proceeded to make a general ass out of myself by attempting to wai each and every one of them when one greeting would have been sufficient. There were great smiles and a few random, “Hello, how are you?” greetings. Most of the monks, though, looked on bashfully and were reluctant to do little more than smile nervously or playfully jab one another in the ribs.
The laity is not permitted to eat with with the monks and must wait until the monks have finished before they can partake in the leftovers (which are always plentiful). Finishing their meal, Phra Suwatt and the other monks left me in the care of three elderly Thai ladies. They hovered around me hemming and hawing as I sampled the various bowls of blazing Isan curries and cold fish. A few monks continued to stare at me from afar, trying to look busy whenever I happened to look up. A few who were unseen yelled, “How are you do!” followed by bursts of distant laughter. I think I understand that Thai people are sometimes shy when it comes to foreigners, so I must remember to tread softly and smile often. I couldn't eat much of the food that morning, but my spirits were nourished.
Walking back to my cell to rest after breakfast, I saw three young novices milling about my doorway. Their robes, too big for their bodies, were bunched and knotted around their waists. They held curious-looking bamboo poles attached to what appeared to be tattered monks’ robes. As I approached, one of them began frantically yelling what must have been a warning that the foreigner, or falang, was approaching. In a blur of orange robes, the three of them exploded off my porch in a flurry of screams and laughter. Fleeing en masse, one ran to an adjacent building. The other two simply dropped their mops and ran with arms and legs flailing, one losing a yellow plastic sandal in flight. Once inside, I noticed they had cleaned my floor.
My cell is the essence of simplicity. It is located in the back corner along a wall of the temple, and like the other buildings, is constructed entirely of concrete. It doesn't have running water, but it does have an attached bathroom, which must be entered from outside. Architecturally, my cell follows the ubiquitous temple theme with a sloping triangular roof.
Inside the plain interior, which measures roughly 15 x 20 feet, is a central mat where I have pillows for seating and a low table for writing. This mat also sometimes serves as my bed. There is also a massive antique bed made entirely of teak. As required by monastic code, it is no more than four inches above the ground and does not have a mattress. The only real amenity, other than a pot for boiling water, is an ancient red refrigerator that is a remnant from when Abbot Sunthorn occupied the cell some years ago.
Next to my cell is a small plot, or side yard. Fenced-in by the temple wall, it's one of the few private spaces in the temple. It is a kind of trash dump, but I'm transforming this area into a garden space. I spent a good week digging up garbage, shards of glass, moldy robes, and not surprisingly, a dog skeleton. I spend a lot of my time here in the mornings pondering design ideas and listening to the sounds coming over the wall of the awakening village.
With the novices sufficiently scared off, I kicked off my sandals and trod carefully over my still freshly mopped floor, which now gave off the distinct odor of wet dog. Sitting on my mat, I peeled an orange and while lying on my back, I watched the ghostly cobwebs swaying gracefully from the ceiling. Overtaken by sheer exhaustion and lulled by the gentle hum of my fan, I slept.
