Child-Like Musings

Although I have been in Thailand only a weeks it already feels like I've been gone a while. Realized that's because when absolutely everything is a new experience the days are full and the time seems to pass more slowly.

Perhaps that's why the days and months seem elongated when we're children. Each day is so full of learning and new-ness that each is long. Mind’s tendency it to gloss over the familiar. We see things as snapshots without really looking at the full picture; when we are in familiar surroundings we are not present with all of the experiences taking place in the here and now.

My first few weeks here in Thailand I often feel like a child, in a good way. I have to learn how to eat, how to dress, how to sit (when I was at Wat Nong Pah Pong). I’m full of questions and Ayya is a kind and patient teacher.

We walk along beautiful village roads and she explains to me what any local adult would know.  “This is a banana tree. See the big purple flower on the end of the stalk? You can eat that”. “This is a papaya tree, that one is beetle nut”. Walking one day I saw some animals, “No Geri, that’s cow. The ones over there are the water buffalo!”

On important bits of language she teaches me “suka” means toilet, “talaad” means market, “sui” means beautiful. On culture she explains, tuck your shirt out not in; it’s polite to sit this way not that way.

It’s interesting living this way, and peaceful, because I’m not straining against the experience of being an occasional child. Unlike in my former worldly life I don’t need to know everything, really I don’t need to know anything and it’s ok to just learn as each new situation arises.

Yesterday morning and this morning Ayya went on pindapata (almsround) with Ayya Dhammamitta here at Wat Bhikkhuni Patimokkh. Walking through fallow fields behind them in their saffron and maroon robes, the huge red sun just peaking above the horizon, there was a gentleness and grace in their movements.  They approached the villagers waiting to offer alms slowly, respectfully, with a softness to their energy.

After each offering was made the Ayyas offered a prayer and sometimes a small smile.  Then I, keeping a bit of respectful distance between myself and the Ayyas, would pass each person and look at each with genuine gratitude. Gratitude for starting their day AND mine with a tangible display of dana (generosity).  Gratitude for giving me food to fuel the body this day.

As I pass each person I offer a slight bow of my head and my own big smile; you all know how I smile these days, you can tell I mean it. Most often they smile brightly back at me and I think we all feel good in that early morning moment.

We approached a family waiting to offer alms this morning; a little boy and girl, mother and father, old grandmother. As we approached from one direction 2 monks approached them from the opposite direction. I saw a marked contrast in the monks manner as opposed to what I had observed with the Ayyas.

A fat monk in front and a small monk behind trundled up to the family briskly, with purpose in their step. They received the offerings barely looking at the family and then they kept walking without even offering them a prayer.  I sensed entitlement and expectation; what an opportunity lost it seems.

Let me pause here to underscore that I have tremendous respect for ALL monastics, monks and nuns. Don’t want to leave the impression through this and my other blog post (“What Must Change”) that I disrespect the monks here. I am just seeing an entrenched culture through western, feminist eyes and this is the lens that is recording these experiences.

Witnessing this I realized again why it is so vital to have the feminine integrated into Buddhist life and culture. Nuns bring sweetness and gentleness to their activities. Traits that, although all men need, many are not conditioned to be able to provide.