A freighter lifted her anchor and sounded her whistle, as a sampan loaded with sleepy-eyed hookers pulled away. A river-taxi scuttled along close to the banks. An elderly woman sat by the quayside, drinking rice whiskey and watching an oil tanker pass. Gulls and white terns swooped and dove from the sky, scooping up fish brought to the surface by the vessel’s wake. A lone water monitor lizard basked in the morning sunlight. His mouth slightly opens, waiting patiently. His body still like stone. Something about lizards unnerved him.
Joe disembarked the boat and walked through the turnstile, paid, and sat on a motorcycle-taxi. Along a road winding through sudden jungle, birds and butterflies, trees and vines. The road twisted uphill towards a clearing. A half-built Buddhist temple meditated in the near distance. A noodle cart parked on a stretch of wasteland. A few dogs roamed around scratching and sniffing in the morning sun. They barked as Joe approached, then the dogs collapsed back down on the ground panting. Joe paid the motorbike-taxi driver and continued on foot up the temple path.
He walked up the narrow stone pathway. It opened into a courtyard where a simple wooden monastery sat. A new wing to the monastery was being built on the site; workers sat around smoking cigarettes and chatting with the monks. The sounds of a wood-saw and a television set wafted from somewhere inside. Two boys sat under the shade of a parched banana palm, lazily playing chequers with bottle tops on a handmade chessboard.
It wasn’t a money game.
Joe found a novice monk and asked him where to find the abbot. He pointed toward the shape of a figure meditating on a raised platform inside the temple. “There is the Abbot. You may see him now.”
“Thanks,” Joe said to the monk. The monk looked at him with the whisper of a smile.
As he approached, Joe noticed that the old holy man was not alone. Around him a group of novice monks and laymen meditated in the lotus position, hands resting on their legs, mouths slightly open. He sat at the back of the class and tried to tune in to the calm. It was useless. Joe’s mind was restless, flighty, like a caged falcon. He sat cross-legged with his eyes closed. The sound of a prayer bell and all eyes, including Joe’s, opened. The abbot spoke in deep guttural tones of Pali. On instruction, the novices and the laymen dispersed and Joe walked slowly up to the abbot and knelt before him. The abbot sat cross-legged. Monks shaved their heads every full moon. He had a heavily lined, weathered face. Heavily lidded brown eyes, his body tattooed with sacred images. Khmer puzzles, complex mazes, astrological images drawn with dark oily ink, dragons, tigers; the tiger scratch, tribal insurance against evil.
Joe sat cross-legged. He placed his hands on the floor in front of him three times. The abbot smiled and then looked down at Joe.
“What are you running away from, my son?” he said pointing at Joe with one ancient claw. One beady eye followed his movements the way a lizard’s eye follows a fly. The other eye sat lazily.
“What do you mean?”
“Escapology. All of you foreigners are running away from something. Always. You do not know how to keep still. Why do you not stay still?” The abbot smiled wearily. His voice changed pitch intermittently like wind through an ancient forest.
“I feel the need to move,” Joe told the holy man.
“Yes. Normally from yourself, but you will never escape yourself,” he smiled with great effort, “will you?”
“No.”
“Because you are here,” the old man opened both his hands; elbows at right angles, palms raised skywards in front of him. “And this is the only place you will ever be.” His one eye looked at Joe tiredly. “Do you understand?”
“I understand this is where I am. I am present, Father. The inner-man is sometimes flighty.”
“There is no inner or outer-man. There is only one. But why are you here?” He folded his arms.
“I’m afraid that when I tell you, you might laugh, Father.”
“Are you a clown?” The abbot asked as he examined Joe’s face with his one good eye.
“No.”
“Then you’re worse than a clown.” He beamed.
“Why?”
“A clown is happy when he makes people laugh, and you are disturbed by laughter. That is worse than a clown, much worse. Very bad.”
A moment of silence shadowed the temple. “I’m sorry, my son, I sensed you were familiar with dharma. I have perhaps been too playful with you. I’m an old man and I must get my fun where I can. Now, tell me. What is it that bothers you?”
“A ghost, Father. Dreams. A dream ghost is what is bothering me.”
The abbot smiled playfully, “Yes. Why not? It’s my opinion that this city is full of demons. It’ll take a disaster or a miracle to see them. That is all. Minds and eyes can close at will. For some, they will never open.”
“Thai people believe in these things, Father. Ghosts?”
“Yes, of course, absolutely, and why shouldn’t they? I daresay people from your country also believe that death is not the end. In Thailand before the storm shook the earth, we had Animism and Brahmanism. They are still with us now. We fear demons and make offerings to these spirits, we worship magic trees. Ghosts and demons hide in every house, tree, and person. These are ancient, unshakeable beliefs. And what is a belief? A belief is simply a feeling held on to for a period of time. If many people hold onto the same feeling, the same belief, for a period of time, it becomes a religion. But you must know all this already.” The abbot relaxed and his hands shakily navigated the perilous journey to a tobacco tin sitting on the raised platform. He rolled a cigarette, lit it and looked at Joe. “Your belief system will tell you that I am crazy. Your belief system has told you not to listen to one story from a crazy old man. Instead, you must listen to the collective belief system, the religion that bombs cities and does so in order to restore peace. A peace that is clothed in money. Money that is worthless in a world of peace. Isn’t that so?”
“Father, I am not here to discuss politics. My concerns are spiritual. I have these dreams. I do not wish to have these dreams anymore. Can you help me? Can I make an offering to the temple?”
“Why would you make such an offering?” The old man said drawing on his rolled cigarette. He puffed out the smoke. His one good eye followed the path of an invisible ghost floating across his shrine before passing through the bronze Buddha.
“To remove the demon.”
“Oh, I see. You see the Buddhist watt as a goodness bank, you put a little money in and then good things happen? The American dream?”
“But this is how Thai people…”
“Stop!” The abbot’s hand crashed down to the ground. His face tightened. “Mindfulness sees through such futile gifts. Karma sees through such hollow offerings…” The Abbot looked at Joe for what seemed like several minutes, and then he spoke: “Demons owe a spiritual debt to the previous life. Repaying spiritual debts for one’s evil deeds. We cannot exorcise them by offering gifts.”
“Explain.”
“Life is not a story. Life does not have a beginning, middle, and an end. Life is not peopled with characters who are good and bad, it is simply preparing for a diversion. We make our own odds in this life, this casino, this roulette table, this game. Remain moral and receive a loaded dice. A bad deed is borrowing bad money. You can only pay it back with a good deed. This is the law of karma.”
“Why is he haunting me?”
The abbot shook his head. “He is bringing you a message. You are in a position to help someone, somehow?”
“Help?”
“Yes. He is suffering the law of karma. He has found a road, a path through you. There is a checkpoint. The dead must pay. Everyone must pay. Pay for their crimes. Receive merit for their truth. If you can understand the message, and sympathize, maybe you can tender the tokens; reward him with what coins he needs to pass through. There are many coins, mostly worthless. Dead currency fluctu
ates with misspent living, but where he shall go after that, we cannot tell. Maybe he will go up to the heaven realms or go down to the ovens below. The paths are perilous whichever way we go,” the abbot hesitated, “there is no guarantee he will krueng sawan…” he smiled.
“A story. Two Monks. They both die on same day. The bus overturned on the highway.”
“Where were they going?”
“What?”
“The monks,” Joe said, “where were they going?”
“Have you been listening to me? Destination is unimportant. There is no destination. Only now. Now listen to my story. The first monk, he is lucky. Gets reborn in the spirit realms and enjoys a happy life of pleasure and travel. But he gets bored and tries to find his friend. He searches the lands of the living and the lands of the dead. Finally, he finds his friend. His friend? Born as a worm feeding on a pile of dung in a pig farm. He tries to make his friend follow him back to the spirit realm, ‘No I’m very happy here, leave me alone,’ his friend replied.
‘But how can you be happy, you are a worm living on a pile of dung in a pig farm!’ But it was useless, he wouldn’t move and his friend tried to pull him away from that pile of dung but he wouldn’t shift. In the end, his friend gave up and left him to it.”
“Okay, I understand. Bangkok is the pile of dung and I’m the worm.”
“Maybe. Maybe the world is the flicker in a tree frog’s eye. The last grain of rice in an otherwise empty sack left to rot in a farmer’s yard. Whatever it is, you are still holding on to it. To hold on is to possess. To possess is to be possessed. It is dangerous. The only advice ever worth listening to is: Let go.”
“You mean Monica?”
“I mean whatever it is that you are hanging on to. Let it go. Another story. Also true. A hot air balloon. Ropes hanging down. Picture it please. A village carnival. Many held onto to the ropes. An Islamic man, a Christian, a Buddhist, a man of Hindi faith. The balloon rose. The Buddhist let go early. He survived. Landed on the village green. Those that held on were carried high up into the sky. They looked down at the towns and the cities where they were born and where they grew up. They knew that to let go was to die and to hold on only prolonged death. They did not have the strength to let go. To hold on, displays an enormous sense of self. Self-will and self-belief. Dangerous concepts. Very dangerous. Let go. I cannot control the wind and neither can you. Let go. All simple things hold a special truth, and life is all about truth. Truth and suffering. The pursuit of truth, without desire, not holding on, is how we become enlightened. It is better to be a demon who knows he’s a demon, than to be a demon who thinks he’s an angel. It is better to let go.
“When a man or a woman deals in dirty money, money that has caused or is causing suffering, it makes sure the handler suffers. Now, you may not believe this, but I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Let go…”
FOURTEEN
A PRAYER bell rang.
“What about suicide?”
“What about it?”
“How do Buddhists view it?”
“For what it is: a dharma crime. The worst thing one can do. Holding on. If we are given the chance to exercise mindfulness, we should never waste it. Suicides are generally reborn into centipedes, maggots, worms. Don’t do it, my son. If you know somebody that wants to do it, either stop him or her, or walk away. Let go.”
“Is suicide not letting go?”
“No. It is holding on.”
“In my dreams, a ghost, two ghosts, a woman I admired, committed suicide.”
“Interesting, of course you would see these things, one ghost was trying to stop her, through you,” the abbot empathized, “the other ghost was her. This makes sense now. Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“I thought it sounded too crazy.”
“It does. Yet, so does everything I hear. No such thing as too crazy for a Buddhist monk in Bangkok. Most noble, sensitive people are haunted. Everybody has nightmares. Crazy is the line the ant steps to the bowl of sugar. His friends follow. Nightmares keep us sane.”
“And black magic?”
“Not my speciality. This is something the forest monks have a better understanding of. Some say the jungle monks are capable of reading into the future, and some say this is all nonsense. I once thought that this supposed secret knowledge was just old stories handed down by generations, rather than anything really magical.”
“Belief in magical powers?”
“Yes. But remember, any shaman worth his salt, has the ability to remove demons if he himself made the believer believe in those demons in the first place. He who put them in, shall take them out. That is to say, it’s not too difficult to sell magic to a body of people conditioned to buying magic. All religions are based on magical systems. Magic is life. How can we understand it with only science? The Christian Church has driven magicians into obscure covens where their work is considered evil. Paganism lost out to Christianity due to a sharp aggressive publicity campaign drawn up by the predecessors of the aggression we call modern western society. Buddhist’s are by nature, more permissive and some might say more progressive. Ancient animist beliefs are still practiced in our temples alongside the more mainstream teachings. Religion and commerce are much the same.”
“Why believe?”
“Substitute the word buy for believe. There is a demand for old wisdom from the ancient generations. People will generally buy or believe something if they want to buy it or believe it and there’s nowhere else to go to believe it or buy it for a better price. The religious sale is the exchange of time and effort for perceived betterment or personal advancement over a period of time. To believe is to invest and to invest is to expect and respect reward. It is such exchanges that Gautama Buddha found uncomfortable.”
The abbot adjusted his habit and continued. “But you wanted to know about black Magic. These so-called witchdoctors are often the village drunk, or somebody else who can’t perform a more practical role in the small rural village communities where they operate. Everyone has a role to play in a small community, and if they haven’t got one, then one is created for them. The village holy man or witchdoctor is one of these auxiliary roles. One who is a lousy carpenter or a bad tradesman becomes the holy man. Sometimes they’re crazy, sometimes they’re dangerous, but usually they’re somewhere in between.”
“You said you ‘once thought?’ it was all nonsense. What happened to change your belief?”
“Yes, one of the tragedies of life is that the older one gets the more that seems possible within a body that is waning. The body is a rusty old vessel full of holes. We must leave it at the crossroads. But now I’m getting philosophical. I digress. Sorry, what is your name my son?”
“Joe.”
“Joe, I heard something recently that made me re-evaluate the black arts. In almost a century of walking up and down in this world, I never heard anything like it,” the abbot’s face tensed.
“What happened?”
“About a year ago, I was visited by the family of a woman who evoked a black magic spell. She had an extra-ordinary run of good fortune, which eventually drove her mad. She killed herself.”
“She killed herself because of good luck?”
“Yes, be careful what you wish for. She was a young woman, a teacher, her name was Mint, not too pretty you understand. What westerners might call plain. But of course, she wanted to be loved like all the other women. She visited a black magic witchdoctor somewhere in the city. I forget where, but I guess they move around. Home visits. He cooked up a spell and afterwards, she had a run of good luck with a number of men. They found her beautiful, but still she killed herself. Her family came to the temple to ask me why this had happened.”
“Sounds like the spell back-fired.”
“It did, she grew tired with how easy her life had gotten for her. Every victory was hollow. She didn’t ever earn any
thing. You know what it’s like to have never earned anything?”
“Yeah, I dropped out of higher education.”
“Good example. So there she was. Life was a breeze. If she wanted a Mercedes, it built itself around her. If she wanted gold, next thing you know, she got a bracelet around her wrist. It’s like the spell made her wishes come true. Others could foretell her desires and then they would make good her desires.”
“Still sounds like a good deal to me.”
“Yes, sounds good, right? Out of all the people that come to see me, the most miserable are those that have the most possessions. These possessions become their trappings and before long, their possessions own them. This is especially true with the children of wealthy parents. The disease of desire less affects the poor that make it rich through hard work. But how many of them do you see in Bangkok? You have noted our social system? I have lived in the west. I have observed the reverse. On the surface, Mint had everything, but, like I say, it drove her mad. So she tried to make people hate her to restore some kind of balance, but no matter how badly she treated people, they still loved her. You see her heart’s desire was not for people to hate her, it was her true desire for them to love her, so that is what happened.” The abbot frowned. “This is the part of the story where it gets difficult to understand.”
“What happened?”
“The human mind craves conflict. Resistance is natural. Every seed must break its shell. The Buddha taught us that life is suffering. Or to be more precise, life should be the desire not to suffer. But here’s the clincher, the desire not to suffer is suffering. Do you follow?”
“Hmmm.”
“Okay, try to keep up with me. So suffering and desire are both the same thing, what we call Durkah. Without Durkah we die, as we’ve had life taken away. The only man to ever break free from Durkah was the Buddha, when he reached Nirvana.”
“So what you are saying is that she killed herself because she had nothing left to live for?”
Red Night Zone - Bangkok City Page 5