The Impermanence of Suffering
I went to see the Big Buddha today, a 15m-high golden statue that sits at the top of the island. It's not as impressive as Bangkok's Reclining Buddha but it's still beautiful. I had gone because one of Dad's friends had said that he placed a tile there for Dad and I wanted to see it. I had imagined a wall of remembrance or of prayer, where all the tiles were placed, engraved in some way, and you could read the messages. The reality was a little different.
At the base of the statue they are building (or rebuilding: I couldn't tell which) a temple and there is a stand full of bricks and tiles which can be bought, written on with Tesco Lotus (I kid you not, they're everywhere) blue markers and put on a table as a contribution. The table contained only today's bricks and tiles; in a heap behind the wall of one of the shrines was a tumbling mass of yesterday's and all those previous. Through the dust I could just make out a date at the end of August. I wasn't going to see Dad's.
So I dedicated three of my own to him. One from me addressed to Mr Bill as he was known here, one from my sister and her family, and one from me and my partner addressed to Dad, since that's who he was to me. As I was writing the messages, one of the monks asked me where I was from and then proceeded to practise his English on me. He had a little book called How To Speak English and he showed it to me in the hope that I could help since I knew the language. Unfortunately, though I could read the English, I wasn't very good at reading the Thai...! He noticed that I had written on three bricks and asked me why: I tried to explain that my Dad died three years ago, that he loved Thailand and the way of life and that Buddhism was the closest he ever got to religion. When he asked how he died I tried to explain his sadness but the monk looked perplexed. An older monk who was sitting beside me and had so far said very little, looked at me, smiled and said very quietly 'all suffering is impermanent'. I realise that this is the most well-known of all Buddhist statements but, for a moment, on a sunny peninsula in Thailand I felt relieved. And the fact that my bricks would soon join the immense, falling pile, not achieving any exulted status whatsoever, no longer mattered. In fact, it made perfect sense.
At the base of the statue they are building (or rebuilding: I couldn't tell which) a temple and there is a stand full of bricks and tiles which can be bought, written on with Tesco Lotus (I kid you not, they're everywhere) blue markers and put on a table as a contribution. The table contained only today's bricks and tiles; in a heap behind the wall of one of the shrines was a tumbling mass of yesterday's and all those previous. Through the dust I could just make out a date at the end of August. I wasn't going to see Dad's.
So I dedicated three of my own to him. One from me addressed to Mr Bill as he was known here, one from my sister and her family, and one from me and my partner addressed to Dad, since that's who he was to me. As I was writing the messages, one of the monks asked me where I was from and then proceeded to practise his English on me. He had a little book called How To Speak English and he showed it to me in the hope that I could help since I knew the language. Unfortunately, though I could read the English, I wasn't very good at reading the Thai...! He noticed that I had written on three bricks and asked me why: I tried to explain that my Dad died three years ago, that he loved Thailand and the way of life and that Buddhism was the closest he ever got to religion. When he asked how he died I tried to explain his sadness but the monk looked perplexed. An older monk who was sitting beside me and had so far said very little, looked at me, smiled and said very quietly 'all suffering is impermanent'. I realise that this is the most well-known of all Buddhist statements but, for a moment, on a sunny peninsula in Thailand I felt relieved. And the fact that my bricks would soon join the immense, falling pile, not achieving any exulted status whatsoever, no longer mattered. In fact, it made perfect sense.
posted by Louise at 8:17 AM
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