Quarter Year

I didn’t say a word to anyone for the day, a reminder of my aborted 10-day retreat in 2008. At the time I didn’t understand the point of meditation, but they also did a shitty job of explaining it – here, though, the monks did an excellent job explaining, in careful English, the foundations of Buddhism and how it’s separate from the traditions of Thai Buddhism. For example, women never touch monks. But that has little to do with core Buddhist beliefs and more to do with culture. (The fusion of spirituality and culture is at the center of many religious problems, in my opinion).

After a day of silence we split into discussion groups, each group with a monk, and let the questions fly. I unloaded my doubts on the young man from Laos:

“I know we’re not supposed to enjoy the food – that it should only be for nourishment – but I don’t see the harm in enjoying something as it’s presented to you if you can avoid attachment.” I remembered admiring Claude for savoring a poem by the fire, and the monk didn’t answer directly.

“There’s a guy in my hometown who murdered four policemen. What would Buddhism say a society should do with him? He’s a risk to kill again.” I didn’t mention that guy was already shot, but the monk avoided the question again.

“Would a good dog be reborn as a human?”

I think others in the group weren’t really interested in what I was asking because the subject was often changed to the monks’ daily life.

Monks live in temples and follow five main rules, etc. Here’s the interesting part: apparently there are monks who find the temples too rigid (or something) and take to the countryside. They’re called Forest Monks. My eyes lit up.

“There are Forest Monks? Where?” They wander! They’re nomadic! They walk (alone) across borders – Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Burma – as they wish, popping in to villages to receive alms. Giving alms is a daily tradition here, a lovely beat in the rhythm of life. Every morning around sunrise monks wander around (towns, cities, villages, wherever) with their bowls out. Local laypeople come out onto the street with their donations – usually rice, but sometimes milk bottles or other foods – and set them into the bowls. The monks will stop and say a prayer over the donor.

So I asked where do these Forest Monks sleep? Do they take refuge in people’s homes or in local temples?

“They sleep in Monk Tents,” he revealed.

WHAT? “There are Monk Tents?!” I think everyone in the group could tell that I desperately wanted one even though I’m not supposed to WANT anything, definitely not at a meditation retreat. But to me this was bigger than WANT, this was like realizing that we are all, in fact, one pulsating energy field, but especially me and the Monk Tent. I had to have one.

“You can find them at Monk Stores. There’s a company that has a Monk Factory and makes Monk Accessories for the Monk Stores. It’s a really good business.” This was all blowing my mind. Monk Tents! We had to get one.

The next day, after saying goodbye to the monks and goodbye to Mathew (who’s now safely back in Seattle) we went on an excursion to find a Monk Tent. We went to the Wat and convinced them that, no, we don’t want regular tents, we do actually want a Monk Tent even though we’re not monks. They pointed us to one store. No Monk Tents. After a few missteps and misunderstandings, we finally discovered a store where they had Monk Tents! BUT… it wasn’t how I imagined it. The Monk Tent is two items: a traditional orange Monk Umbrella (for rain and sun) and an orange mosquito net. The umbrella is stuck into the ground, then the mosquito net is draped over it and the monk meditates or sleeps underneath. It’s actually a smart solution to the problem of sleeping unprotected: it’s lightweight, compact and the umbrella has several uses. But seeing how simple it was, we couldn’t justify buying one when it would be so easy to make… alas, we have no Monk Tent… yet.

The alms-giving, to me, is one of the most beautiful, thoughtful practices I’ve seen in all my time traveling. There are a lot of people who come out to give at sunrise. The monks don’t eat to enjoy, as I earlier complained, they eat to nourish their bodies so they can continue to pursue peace and the end of suffering. The people who donate food don’t do so out of pity, but reverence for the monk’s pursuit. This is so different than alms-giving in the West. In the West we often help out of pity, which strips people of pride. Either that, or a person asking for food (who may, in fact, be working for peace) is looked upon as parasitical. Certainly no reverence for the needy in Western cultures. In a lot of ways, Buddhist practices sometimes flip our Western culture on its head. Another way is that Buddhism invites its practitioners to think critically about the nature of the universe (vs. the advice we got at the Catholic convent last year to stop questioning things)… and another example is that Buddha is not a god, he was an actual person who gained understanding about 2500 years ago. And so on.

At the beginning of the whole thing, a lecturer said to us, “You know what -isms came before Buddhism in Thailand? Animism and Hinduism.” He gave an example of each, how they endure. “Then came Buddhism. You know what the latest -isms are? Consumerism, materialism. People extract their meaning from money and objects.” I’d never heard it so simply explained. It’s the latest in a string of religions. I thought about how last week we splurged on jeans, underwear, art, lots of food, and how completely disengaged that pace is from the rhythm of life at the temple.

I’m occasionally challenged to name places that would be “better” to live in than America. Politics, wealth, health care, weather, food, culture, lifestyle… there are a lot of variables. The variable I saw at the meditation retreat is something I’ve never even thought about as a part of a country’s make-up: peace – with oneself, with others and with nature. That’s the core of Buddhism and Buddhism has a powerful influence on Thai life.

So – early tomorrow we’re heading to Myanmar for about 10 days. We’ll be mostly out of touch, but you might as well visit the blog a few times just to drive up the stats.