In regards to my previous post, the following is the original e-mail I sent home from Thailand in 2002 detailing my adventure to Chinnaworn's village. I've left it as it is. Sorry for the brutal grammar, but I remember I wrote this in one sitting at an internet cafe, filled with excitement and some unbridled idealism. Enjoy. It's a bit long, so come back when you have time.----
Hello Friends:
For those who are interested, I would like to tell you about the most memorable story that I’ve had on this trip so far. It’s one I’ll never forget:
I’m now in Chang Mai, the 2nd largest city in Thailand. It’s the ancient capital, home to many festivals in the winter and summer. There are over 110 temples (wats) within the old city, surrounded by a square moat and bolstered by red-bricked fortress walls. The few five-star hotels and air-conditioned malls that have popped up around the fringe are the largest buildings in the area. In the distance, you can see two sets of high mountains, usually shrouded by early morning fog, then mid-afternoon smog. Chang Mai is a blast to the senses: air pollution, buzzing scooters, fish markets, and flower markets, with scant opportunities to cross the road in between.
I’ve planned to stay in Chiang Mai for 6 days, allowing for enough time to process my Laos Visa. Chiang Mai is the last outpost of westernized comfort and infrastructure for many travelers who go onto Laos or Burma. To pass the time, I’ve spent the days visiting the ornate temples that offer peace and shade, or doing battle with t-shirt and tea-lamp hawkers in the famous night market.
On my third day, I decided to visit Wat Chang Man, one of the oldest temples in Chang Mai. It houses the 2500 year-old carved crystal Buddha that has a long history of being passed between the ancient Thai and Burmese warlords (it’s a long interesting story). Inside the main hall, I admired the paintings upon the ceiling, depicting the life of the Buddha from his transition from prince-hood to Buddha-hood. A monk, who had been meditating nearby, stood up, smiled, and asked me if I knew what the paintings meant. He led me through each panel, holding his arms around his saffron robe as he talked. When he finished explaining, we sat down on the floor and introduced ourselves.
His name is Chinnaworn Jarin. At age 36, he has been a monk since he was ordained at age 24, after leaving an unpromising job in a popular hotel. His face is youthful and full of light, though he is extremely thin and his every movement is like a swaying blade of grass. He is from Meh Toh, a small village 100KM into the mountains. There he spends most of his days living alone, growing vegetables, visiting for the villagers, meditating, and walking. Before ordination, toiled as a hotel worker. He decided to become a monk and to avoid “the life of a rockstar.”
As a student of Thai and Zen Buddhism, I was naturally curious about his life. After our long conversation he asked: “would you like to come with me and see it for yourself?” He explained that we’d take a minibus outside the city limits and hitchhike the rest of the way. It wasn’t comfortable, he said, but it was peaceful and “you can see real Thai life.” We could see his family, meet his villagers, and visit a hidden cave-monastery, home to hermits and ascetics.
I agreed. He drew a crude map, indicating where we could go, and wrote down instructions to meet the next day at his “family” restaurant.
The next morning, I arrived at 7:45am, and was greeted by an elderly couple that prepared a vegetarian menu for mainly Thai customers. After mentioning that I was a Chinnaworn’s friend, they smiled. They led me to a wide garden area with large shade trees, sat me at a table in the morning sun, and poured me a cup of Oolong tea. The low hanging branches hushed the madness of the city. Birds sang up in the trees. Chinnaworn arrived shortly after and say at another table to my right (monks must eat at a separately). The family brought us breakfast: a bowl of sweet noodle-tofu soup, freshly cut fruit, and Thai muffins. We ate in silence. Chinnaworn gave up eating meat 4 years ago, believing that meat makes people aggressive. When we finished eating the family brought us two-packed lunches to take with us on our journey into the mountains. There was rice, spicy tofu, and fresh fruit, each wrapped in individual plastic bags. They wouldn’t accept my money. They said they were glad that I was going with Chinnaworn, and they just wanted me to enjoy my trip.
We flagged down a mini-bus and it slowly twisted its way up the mountain, passing steep valleys dotted with greenhouses and, multi-tiered fields of rice. We passed by a park where I could see tourists ride elephants strapped with wicker saddles. The grey beasts followed the same muddied path, prodded by stick wielding Thai. Once a staple of Thailand’s transportation, Elephants are now just exotic taxis for foreigners.
After an hour, Chinnaworn tapped on the side of the truck, and driver slowed at an empty rural intersection. We hopped out and waved goodbye. He said, that since we were early, he wanted to visit his family in a village called Mae Sap, a journey 20KM north. Without a nearby bus stop or village, we attempted to hitch. Picture it: a 5’4 monk in a saffron robe, and a 6’ Canadian on the side of dirt-mountain road waving at trucks. Without luck, we started to walk. The road passed over the ridge of a long mountain range. One each side there were valleys. Chinnaworn would suddenly stop and wait in the shade of tree. He carried a book in his hand and read silently. When no cars came, we continued. My feet ached. Forty-five minutes later, we entered a small village and went into his family’s compound or simple wood-plank homes shaded by banana trees.
His mother was thin, short, and frail. There were two of his nieces in the main kitchen, who stared at me from behind their mother. Chinnaworn handed over our packed lunches, and his mother told us she we could prepare a hot meal. We sat on the floor of the kitchen in the shade, we all helped break apart massive grapefruits into pieces. Using a long bamboo pole, he knocked a papaya out of nearby tree and carefully sliced the pink flesh it into pieces and removed the black seeds. His mother brought in boiled spinach, a large bowl of sticky rice, and steaming tubs of mushroom soup. I was fully almost immediately. Chinnaworn ate quickly but carefully, dipping clumps of rice into the bowls and swallowing quickly. Because monks are forbidden to eat after midday, he was in a race against time to nourish his skinny body.
Being tired from the journey and huge feast, we needed rest. I took up a straw mat and slept for an hour, staring out into the garlic fields. He went to another hut and slept.
After waking we left and began our journey towards Wat Meh Toh. As we walked, I asked him why he decided to become a monk. He said that when he was working in the hotel he was making a lot of money and busy all the time. His parents wanted him to get married and have children, farm the land, or better, work in the city. At 24, he realized that’s not what he wanted to do. “I did not want to live a Movie Star life and then just die,” he said. “It was not going to make me happy. So I told my parents I didn’t want to get married, and said I wanted to be a monk. They said, ok, if that makes you happy…. Be a monk.” His intentions were “to just help people. Monks are for people. Just to help and make their lives better. That’s what I wanted.”
No cars or trucks passed for one hour. We passed by farms, and up over the ridge of mountains again. We spoke very little, just listening to the sound of our own footsteps.
Finally, a lone pickup truck stopped for us and we hitched for another 45-minute journey over the dusty gravel road. The driver stopped we got out at the foot of a dirt road leading from the main highway through the forest. The truck roared away, and we began walking, again. The road led up a hill and from the top we could look down into another shallow valley. Through the trees I could hear the sounds of people, animals, and scooters zooming in the distance. Walking down down the hill, we passed through the gates of village. School children saw me in the distance and ran for a closer look. Old men stared at me from the shadows of their homes.
“How many foreigners come here,” I asked. “Not many, not many,” he laughed. From what I could see, Meh Toh was mainly a farming community, tucked along a river that feeds the fields through a system of simple irrigation canals. Chickens and pigs ran along the roads.
We walked through the main square and climbed up the opposite hill and approached Wat Meh Toh, his temple. It is not a palace like those in Bangkok that are fitted with ornate tiles and filled with golden Buddha statues. Here, there are two main buildings made of wood. One holding the gong and Buddha statue for praying, the other held a teaching area and kitchen below. For the last six years Chinnaworn has lived here, raising at dawn, eating, tending to his vegetables, and meditating in a hut deep in the forest. When he goes into retreat here he does not talk for up to two weeks. It is peaceful place: a plot cut out of the forest with dozens of banana trees and a vegetable garden. There are tanks of water for collecting rainwater, and a series of pipes that he engineered to irrigate the crops.
The sun was beginning to set and I could see the full moon rising in the east. I was lucky, for the full moon day is a special day for Buddhists: the villagers come to the temple to offer food in the morning and enjoy a simple ceremony. When the sun finally slid over the mountain, we walked through the main road and bought two loaves of bread from a shop. We took the loaves of bread and continued slowly into the village. He said he wanted to visit a few of the villagers and friends-- to make sure everything was as he left. Chinnaworn is the only monk in Meh Toh, therefore he feels responsible for the villagers.
Our first stop was to a family home, where the mother had recently undergone surgery on her arm. It was a small wooden home on stilts, lit by a single bulb containing two beds, veiled with mosquito nets. Unfortunately, I had no idea what they said. I only heard the word “Canada.” I gave two loaves of bread to the mother and two pencils to the children and we left into the cool night. The next visit was into fenced in compound of 8 homes on stilts. Under each home, cows, chickens, hogs, dogs, and cats all wandered freely. The families gathered around small fires. I could feel their stares. We approached one group of people and squatted on small wooden benches. I again handed over another loaf of bread. Here entire families live under one roof—from infants to great grandparents. They work in the fields on the other side of the fence. Again they chatted; I understood nothing. I could only smile when they stared or asked me if I was married.
We walked back to towards the temple. As we walked past the fields, the full moon climbed over us. The crickets and toads sang. We didn’t speak. And I was completely comfortable. It is rare when one can be in the presence of another and no feel the need to talk. It’s something about the West, where silence is taboo. Noise and chatter is, I think, an addiction, something to fear. However, not talking allowed me to hear and feel my surroundings. Try it sometime.
That night I slept under a pile of old blankets upon a straw mat in the temple. As the temperature dropped I could see my breath. Four residents kittens , curled up beside me, pinning the blankets around me like a tarp. One kitten curled up on my chest and purred all night. I couldn’t sleep. I thought I hear footsteps outside. Sometimes I thought I heard animals. The forest was alive. Dew began dripping outside and huge banana leaves crashed to the ground. Around 3am the full moon began shining though the spaces in between the boards, covering me in white lines. I wish you could have been there. I kept thinking: think is what I wanted to do. This is what I came to see in Thailand. I had found it and I was ecstatic. This is something that everyone needs to see.
The sun began to appear. I wrapped myself in blankets and boiled water and stood outside the temple, and waited for the sun to some over the mountain. Soon Chinnaworn woke (yes I woke before a monk!) and he wore a tan-coloured balaclava to keep warm. He watched the sun for a moment and then asked me to help him build a fire. I broke up wood and placed it in the pit while he readies himself for the day. Villagers soon arrived with bowls of food. They passed me, and entered into the temple and rang the gong. One small old man brought me a basket of peanuts and I cracked them open one by one the fire. Soon the fire was completely surrounded by people, all laughing and joking with Chinnaworn. We fried the peanuts, boiled peas, and warmed our hands. We repaired under the temple and laid out bowls of food upon the floor. There were eight of us in a circle each taking clumps of rice and dipping then into shared bowls. Some were spicy, others that you had to slurp and let spill. Chinnaworn, of course, ate at his own table, eating quietly.
After the villagers left, Chinnaworn said that we needed to get ready to return to Chiang Mai. He was attending a training conference.
With the cleaning done, we prepared for our. We walked back up through the forest, and towards the main highway and waited for a truck to stop. As we rode in the back of a delivery truck, he turned and asked if I wanted to see some caves.
I thought he was talking about the caves that appear in many of the tour brochures But I was wrong. Chinnaworn tapped on the window and the truck stopped. Only a sign in Thai at the foot of a dirt road marked our place. We followed the road, deep into a thick forest with tall sweeping trees. We came upon a small hut that housed four small Buddha statues. To the left was a huge cliff jetting up from the forest floor. Straight ahead was a brick path lined with flowering trees. Chinnaworn explained that it was a cave monastery: a place where monks spend weeks meditating away from the world. It was quiet, except for the noises in the forest. There was no one in sight. But there was a stick of incense burning before on the statues. Whoever was here, was not moving. The sun was shining hot. Up on the cliff I saw a glint of gold—a statue of Buddha. We climbed stairs, carved directly into the cliff. I saw 10 different caves, each with a door and steps leading in. We lit a handful of candles and entered into the darkness of the last cave, passing by 6-foot stalactites, piles of bat shit, and rocks smoothed by years of sitting monks. As we went further, it grew warmer. We climbed down an incline and entered into a hollow that was 60 feet high. It was like an underground cathedral. The candles were not bright enough to see the corners. The walls and hollows appeared and disappeared with every flicker of the flame. At the other side of the camber we stopped and he said, “This is as far as we go. The candles are getting low. Beyond here no one has gone. No one knows how far this cave goes. To China maybe.” It is here in the darkness that many of the most devout monks come to meditate, seeking solace and peace. Cut off from the world, they retreat inwards into themselves, into their own personal darkness.
Monks spend much of their time practicing meditation. It may seem strange to average person. I asked him how long he meditates every day. But he could not give me a specific amount of time. He said he is always meditating. When you eat, you meditate. When you walk, you meditate. Everything is meditation. Meditation meaning being mindful of everything you do. If you eat, he said, you must be aware that you are eating. Feel it; know it. When you walk. Know you are walking. If you’re mind wanders, you lose focus. Often you see people eating and reading, watching TV and ironing. This is not good for you. You need to be aware of the present moment, he said. By being in the present you have no doubts or misconceptions—misconceptions that lead to suffering.
The truck rumbled back towards the main highways. I was tired and weary and sun burnt like a lobster. My feet were swollen. The truck went up the side the mountain and turned north. We had not exchanged a word for an hour. To the west the sun was setting over the corrugated mountains, each fold a deeper shade of purple.
Chinnaworn tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the most distant mountain. “That is my hotel,” he said.
