Day Trip In Thailand
Evenings are a blessed relief in Thailand; warm, but without the smothering heat of the day that gratefully surrenders to the night’s relative coolness. If I wasn’t in my solitary hut meditating in the evenings, I would be in the main hall at dusk chanting along with the other monks, or maybe sitting out in the jungle meditating (hoping to high heaven that a snake wouldn’t crawl in my lap, or that a rabid settlement dog take a bite out of me).
Day Trip In Thailand
At other times, we would find ourselves gathered under the abbot’s hut for a Dhamma talk. His hut is fancy, with a profusion of tropical plants and flowers on all sides. The hut itself is small, but because it is built in the middle of a large, ornate, elevated veranda supported by high, justify pillars, instead of the lowly four by four stilts that propped up our huts, the whole structure has an appearance of a massive building. The living quarters inside the hut are about the same size as ours; but because it is built on a large platform, the structure is large adequate for the whole society to sit beneath it.
The abbot is perched on a high seat, being fanned slowly with giant banana leaves by one or two senior monks, and except for fierce mosquitoes making ready to feast on us (and hopefully not carrying any bad strains of malaria), all is deadly quiet, as the monks continue to fan their abbot. The humidity is tangible; the still air heavily laden with moisture as a storm brews during this rainy season. Nobody speaks or moves after we all file in and find a seat on the concrete floor; it is perfectly silent, a distinguished silence with monks and nuns sitting peacefully, not development a sound.
Shaving my head is a twice a month ordeal, and with no mirror and protection razors with the safeties removed, it was an curious experience. After the trauma of shaving my own head and mopping up the blood, I meet in the main hall at midnight with the rest of the community. One of the monks volunteer to recite the two hundred and twenty seven rules in Pali (by memory), which takes about forty-five minutes reciting as fast as he can. Then we sit up all night meditating in the hall until daybreak when we go on our alms rounds. A few families from the villages always attend these all-night vigils, sitting up with us and waiting for the three a.m. Talk by one of the monks. The villagers would then go back to work in the fields the next day, not the least bit involved about the lack of sleep.
These full moon nights, where we would immerse ourselves in meditation, are one of my fondest memories of Thailand, as well as the serene mornings sitting together in the hall, the trips to the villages, and the days we gathered to dye our robes. My fellow monks nursed my body when it was ill, as well my spirits. They fed me honey and bananas for the dysentery, and they even convinced me to drink my own urine to cure my many other maladies. The solitary life of these monks and nuns leave few footprints on this earth, development tiny karma through their selfless actions and peaceful existence.
It’s unfortunate that few, face of Thailand, know about their efforts. Perhaps the capability that rang so true with these selfless meditators was that nobody was home. No “self” was inside. Their outward concentration was always directed toward others, toward peace, toward compassion, and they themselves no differently from anything arose in their consciousness. I admire them more than the wealthy and preeminent that I now find in America. My heart will always go out to them.
A Day in the Life of a Buddhist Forest Monk (Evening)
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