Heads freshly shaven, they kneel in rows, palms together, sitting on their heels. Some wobble, some shift their weight. None quit. A hundred fifty robes, monks in front, novices behind, no one over twenty-five except the elderly abbot leading the chant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is Makha Puja<\/em>, the festival of the full moon of the third lunar month, commemorating the Buddha\u2019s articulation of his basic teachings to twelve hundred followers. They chant in Pali, the language of early Buddhism. Nobody in the small group of worshipers at the rear of the temple can understand it. It\u2019s a language of insiders, like Latin in the Christian church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Carolyn\nand I are in the temple of Wat Sirikanchanaram this evening at the invitation\nof Niran and Sunee, our hosts for a month of volunteering in Kanchanaburi, Thailand\nas conversational English teachers. The Wat is a monastery on Khao Phurang, a\nmountain just outside of town. I scan the crowd of monks at the front looking\nfor Chaloempon, a Pali teacher at the monastery school I have met while\nteaching here. I can’t find him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One\nmorning in the school office, Chaloempon had allowed that he would like\n“to talk.” He had no specific subject in mind, it turned out. He\nsimply wanted to engage in the act of conversing. Well, that\u2019s conversational\nEnglish teaching, I realized. Novices hung around, watching their teacher have\ninstruction. We played our way through a stack of English flash cards. The\nstudents drifted in and out of the office, watching another monk surf the web,\nlistening to Britney Spears playing through the computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow\nold is the temple?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAbout\ntwenty-five years.\u201d The abbot wanted a mountain retreat community and this is\nit, he explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\nchecked the temple\u2019s orientation with my compass the other day,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chaloempon’s\nbrow furrowed briefly. I produced my compass from a shirt pocket and opened it\nso we could watch the needle swing its way north.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe\ntemple is aligned east to west. The Buddha image is in the western end,\u201d I\nsaid. \u201cChristian churches traditionally have the altar in the eastern end.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n His\nface relaxed. \u201cIt is because Buddhism came to Thailand from the west.\u201d West, in\nthis case, meaning India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Did\nI want to walk around the grounds of the Wat while we talked?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes,\nthat would be fine.\u201d We paused at the door for me to put my shoes back on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\nis a beautiful place,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes,\npeaceful, away from the city. How you like Kanchanaburi?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\nlike it. Our host family is very gracious. The size of the city is like where I\nlive in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhere\nyou live in United States?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn\nWisconsin, in the north, near Canada. Now we have much snow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAh,\nsnow. I have seen snow in pictures. Very beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\nhave two seasons in Thailand,\u201d he volunteered. \u201cHot and hotter. It will be\nhotter later.\u201d He smiled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s\nninety-five Fahrenheit today in the grove of pho<\/em> trees and it\u2019s only Spring. Wonder what happens later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou\nlike to see the temple?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOK.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\nentered below upturned eaves, brass bells tinkling along the roof in the\nbreeze. Chaloempon opened a shutter made of coarse dark wood carved in patterns\nof leaves and flowers. Light spread across the floor, reflecting off polished\nstone. Birds called outside in unfamiliar voices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chaloempon\nsmiled as if he were at home. I guess he was. He stood quietly, waiting for\nquestions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nmen in the pictures beneath the Buddha image?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe\nhead abbot of Thailand, king of the monks. The other is the abbot of this\nmonastery.\u201d (Thailand has an actual king, so it seemed apt).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nBuddha image was seated on a white stone platform level with our faces. Its\ngold was fresh and lively. I had no more questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\nshould respect the Buddha,\u201d he asserted. I nodded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chaloempon\nknelt, motioning me to do the same, stretching his arms toward the image. His\nprofessorial glasses were rimmed in black plastic. I stretched my arms west,\nkneeling next to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis\ndoes not interfere with your religion?\u201d He was solicitous, checking in before\ngoing ahead. Even in the cool of the temple, it was hot. The notebook in my\nshirt pocket stuck to my chest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\nhas a Lutheran boy got to lose by showing respect for his host culture? I\nthought it over. In the back of my mind a warning rang out, something about\nbowing down to graven images. Then I remembered a statue of Christ looming over\nthe front of the church where I grew up. Christian churches had plenty of\nreligious statues, not just of Jesus but of other people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cRespecting\u201d\nseemed the way to go, immersing myself in the culture. I liked Buddhism\u2019s\nphilosophy, but had thought of the experience more theoretically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\nwas here to learn. He was trying to teach. That Biblical prohibition against\nworshipping “graven images” in the King James translation of 1611 was\nreally an Old Testament thing, I decided. We were in the New Testament now. It\nwas 2002. Go for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo,\u201d\nI replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chaloempon\ntaught me the three bows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One.\n\u201cI respect the Buddha.\u201d He said it first in Thai (or was it Pali?), then in\nEnglish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second\nbow. \u201cI respect the Dhamma.\u201d (His language, repeated in mine). \u201cI respect the\nteachings,\u201d he explained as we came upright, still kneeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Third\nbow. \u201cI respect the Sangha. I respect\nthe community of monks and the people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chaloempon\nrose and walked over to close the window. It was dim and quiet again. The gold\nof the Buddha reflected light coming through the open doorway. We walked out\ninto the sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s\nhave a walk around the monastery grounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sure,\nwhy not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\npath up Khao Phurang is not that long, but in the sun it seemed longer. I\nnoticed a sign at the edge of the path, hand-painted blue letters on a white\nboard nailed to a pho<\/em> tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDo\nnot trouble the trouble,\u201d it said. \u201cIf you trouble the trouble, the trouble\nwill trouble you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\nwas no translation into Thai, nor for that matter into any other language. Interesting choice of word, though, \u201ctrouble.\u201d\nOne word, almost half the words on the sign. For a Lutheran of German descent like\nme, \u201ctrouble,\u201d the noun, is an invitation to add the appropriate form of the\nverb \u201cto fix.\u201d And as a verb, \u201ctrouble\u201d inevitably raises associations of \u201cguilt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\nregretted not asking Chaloempon the meaning then and there. What is the\n\u201ctrouble?\u201d Why is the sign at that place? Who put it there? Is it a Thai\nsaying? A Buddhist saying?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLet\nsleeping dogs lie\u201d might be a parallel, but there was no way to place this into\nthe monastic context. Maybe it was more along the lines of \u201cSufficient to the\nday is the evil thereof,\u201d or some other Biblical saying, translated into\nTheravada. Given our language barrier, I was happier to let the proverb settle\ninto my mind as an idiomatic Thai\/English reflection of something I already\nknew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\nguessed when we attended Makha Puja<\/em>\nthat we might be expected to do the three bows. Carolyn figured on skipping the\nbows. We aren’t Buddhist, she pointed out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n True,\nbut I was bothered by \u201crespect.\u201d It would seem respectful of our hosts\u2019\nreligion and culture to fully participate, but she was right. I was completely\nambivalent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\nare at least twenty-five bows in Makha\nPuja,<\/em> through which I sit upright. I become less and less comfortable, to\nsay nothing of my legs. After an hour, the chanting ends. Monks and novices\nline up to exit the south door of the temple. I glance at Niran next to me. He\nsmiles and makes a horizontal clockwise circle with his finger pointing\ndownward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe walk\naround temple three times. Not talk. No shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The\nnovices follow the monks processing around the building, trailed by a dozen or\nso of us lay people. We conclude our third roundabout but nobody\u2019s leaving. I\ncheck it out with Niran. He says we\u2019re half done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another\nhour of sitting and the chant ends. Novices follow the monks past us in a\ndouble line of saffron robes out the east door. Chaloempon is not in the group.\nTomorrow we leave Kanchanaburi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\nrecognize a fifteen-year-old novice from the M2’s, my first class. He smiles\nacknowledgement. I bow slightly, palms together below my chin. I\u2019m a lay person\ngreeting a monk, forty-five years his senior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Standing\non cool marble facing west, the only sound that of shuffling bare feet, I begin\nto understand, not think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regrets\ncan be let go. It is possible to learn not to trouble the trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rest is simply religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Heads freshly shaven, they kneel in rows, palms together, sitting on their heels. Some wobble, some shift their weight. None quit. A hundred fifty robes, monks in front, novices behind, no one over twenty-five except the elderly abbot leading the chant. It is Makha Puja, the festival of the full moon of the third lunar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-essays"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pahwNU-8C","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesbrueggemann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesbrueggemann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesbrueggemann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesbrueggemann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesbrueggemann.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=534"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesbrueggemann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":535,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesbrueggemann.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions\/535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesbrueggemann.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesbrueggemann.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jamesbrueggemann.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}