14


Ajahn Chah
Gives a Teaching

AT OVALTINE TIME, before bindabat, my red cup rematerialized onto its shelf. I waved it at Tan Casipo, who had helped me search for it. He was delighted.

“Perhaps one of those old Thai pakhaos took it,” said the helpful monk. “I know they took some other things to the women’s quarters. They just left yesterday to go back to Wat Pah Pong.”

“Probably it just rematerialized,” I said. “That’s a good teaching for me. If an object dematerializes, just forget about it. It will spontaneously re-appear in its own sweet time. Fussing about it just sets up kammic formations of goneness which prevent it from coming back.”

The applied physics drop-out tilted his head at me. He would have raised an eyebrow if he had one. “You’ll probably find three or four of them popping up all over the place now,” he said.

Ruk tells me he will fast this Buddhamas dawn. He says the Ajahn will replace him today on our bindabat route. This will be my first alms round with the senior monk, the first time for me to have direct contact with him alone, and a good opportunity to learn something about the man I call my teacher.

“Are you still thinking of leaving?” he asks after the two of us clear the paddy dykes and begin walking along the road.

“I’m not thinking of staying, Ajahn.”

The morning holds a slight drizzle and mist. We have forgotten our umbrellas.

“I suppose I don’t have to tell you I’m kind of disappointed in your and Jim’s performances here.”

“I hope not. We both learned much from Pah Nanachat. A surprising amount in such little time.”

“To really learn anything, one has to stay at least six months. Otherwise it’s all on the surface. It won’t last.”

“Can one learn much in six months?”

“Not much.”

“How much time to learn much?”

“These days I feel I’m finally beginning to learn.”

“That’s a long time. Tell me, Ajahn, why did you come to Thailand to meditate anyway?”

“Actually, I didn’t come here to meditate. I was on my way to Japan, just passing through. I wanted to join a Zen monastery. But when I came to Wat Pah Pong, I had to surrender those plans. That’s how my whole life has been ever since: renounce and surrender. In Japan I would probably have been permitted to play my guitar. I still miss it sometimes. Every day self arises and must be renounced. That’s the only way to freedom from becoming. One must give up all personal desires.”

“How does that help you cease becoming?”

“Sense pleasures lead to craving. Craving leads to grasping. Grasping leads to becoming.”

“And then?”

“Becoming leads to birth. Birth leads to decay, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair,” he recites.

“So you cut the chain at desires?”

“You realize desires are just ignorance. Ignorance is the first link in the chain of dependent causes. This binds you to the cycle of rebirth. The only way to break free is to renounce.”

“Tell me, Ajahn, did you come here from Australia in order to escape the suffering of rebirth?”

“Even the desire to escape suffering must be renounced. I didn’t ask to be Ajahn, you know. I don’t particularly like the job. But when one becomes a senior monk, tasks and responsibilities come with it. This too is renunciation for me.”

“So you end up spending all your time entertaining Thai tourists and briefing farang guests when you could be meditating. It doesn’t sound very satisfying.”

“Even the desire to meditate must be renounced. Just follow the rules. That is the key to letting go of self. I say it again and again. All you need do is follow the rules.”

The teacher concentrates on the wet path at his feet as we walk. I study his face. He is a man bent on suffocation of the self.

“Ajahn, were you here when Pah Nanachat was formed?”

“Of course. I had just been ordained as a monk in Wat Pah Pong.”

“Can you tell me the story?”

He gives a smile. “Just over ten years ago, a few of us Western monks came into the forest area near Bung Wai. There used to be an old cremation ground near where our wat is now. Thai people are afraid of ghosts, so monks find these places best for a meditation retreat. It was quiet and deserted. We lived in umbrella tents. When farang monks started coming around the village on bindabat, there was a lot of excitement. The people guessed we were from Ajahn Chah’s famous monastery. They came into the jungle and started building wooden kuties for us. They entreated us to stay. It would bring great good fortune to Bung Wai, they said. The monks went back to Ajahn Chah to ask his permission. Then Wat Pah Nanachat was formed as a branch of Wat Pah Pong. It was to be an international forest monastery for training foreign monks. They would eventually be able to set up branches in their home countries. That was the idea. Ajahn Sumedo was our first Ajahn. He was a great inspiration to me. Now he is in England, and Ajahn Chah . . . There is nobody who can inspire the monks in the same way.”

“You see that as a problem here?” I ask carefully.

“Definitely. Without an embodiment of the ideal, the monks soon get slack. They need an example, someone who can teach them real wisdom. Without that, discipline degenerates from within. It’s hard to enforce it from the outside. Soon evening meditation stops, as it did here before I arrived. In some branch monasteries they don’t even do morning meditation any more. The monks sleep in until alms round. Once the monks get lazy and sloppy, they start to question the value of what they are doing. Next they disrobe. Many monasteries which were once full have only a few monks left. Caretaker monks, even in plenty of Ajahn Chah’s wats. Once discipline goes, everything breaks down. That was Ajahn Chah’s specialty, discipline. He knew just how to push the monks so they could develop their internal strength. Sometimes he kept us sitting for six hours at a single dasana. It was torture. To give you an idea of his style, I’ll tell you a story. A long time ago the squirrels in Pah Pong used to be chased by the village dogs. That was one reason why Ajahn Chah finally agreed to plans to build a large wall around the monastery, so there wouldn’t be animals running around all the time. A while after the wall was up, everybody noticed the squirrels were getting lazy. There were no dogs around and they knew the monks wouldn’t do them any harm. They just made half-hearted attempts to hop out of the way. Do you know what Ajahn Chah did? He told us to leave the gates open and let the dogs back in! Even the squirrels in our wat had to stay on their toes. That was his style.”

Tan Wee waits for us at the village gate. The Ajahn steps up to the lead. We fall into place behind him. Our heads bow in humility. He knows our route perfectly, but leads with deliberate slowness. Emerging from the far side of our round, he tells me he would like to return to the practice of reciting the Vinaya aloud while receiving alms. I offer to carry his bowl, heavy with rice, balancing his and my own, one strap across each shoulder, on the walk back between the rice paddies. The drizzle does not stop. Our robes are damp and the pathway through the fields is slick and full of crabs. Eager to resume the open conversation between us, I ask the teacher for his opinion on the causes of things breaking down among monks in Thailand.

“For the last two hundred years people have been saying everything is breaking down, the monks are getting slack and the tradition is degenerating. I suppose they’ve been saying it from the beginning.”

“You mean everybody thinks it was better in the good old days?”

“Yes. That may just be the flaw of a limited perspective.”

“So you think things aren’t really getting worse?”

“I think they are definitely getting worse. The monks are becoming too comfortable. There’s too much affluence in this country nowadays. The lay people spoil the monks rotten. These days it’s common to see a monk carrying money, keeping tape machines, even music cassettes. Not here though.”

“In Bangkok I’ve even seen some monks with television,” I add.

“Also there is a lot of government pressure for the sangha to be involved in social welfare programmes.”

“Do you think that’s bad?”

“It’s not a monk’s job. Some of it is very political. In border areas near Laos and Vietnam the government has the monks teaching villagers to beware of communist groups and obey the king. Whether or not there is a need for this kind of work, it shouldn’t be the task of those devoted to the Dhamma.”

“Does this cause the Dhamma to decline? What do you think will happen to Thai Buddhism if the monks become propagandists and welfare workers?”

“It’s hard to say. Dhamma is in decline. We need more spiritual teachers like Ajahn Chah.”

“Are there others?”

“A few. Nobody quite like him.”

The Ajahn’s expression is weary as he plods beside me. Suddenly he looks like a very old man. Perhaps the night vigil was a strain on him. I remember his ulcer. From the way he has been speaking to me I know he is painfully aware he is not the kind of example his teacher was. Yet there is such an obligation for him to be one. He sees a great need. Alongside renunciation he must endure the burden of frustration and possibly a sense of failure. Certainly no one can accuse him of complacency.

“There are some orders these days which are determined to go back to the old ways. Some monks still prefer to tudong in a forest rather than live in a comfortable wat. Just a few good examples and the tradition will continue.” His eyes hold to the ground as he walks. He avoids puddles.

“Is going back to the old ways enough of a response? Maybe the monks who are willing to be socially active are the ones who will preserve Buddhism. A lot of young Thais don’t seem to find their faith relevant to the world they’re going to live in. Between the American and the Vietnamese forms of materialism, I’ll bet people need to know the relevance of the Dhamma more than ever, just to keep a little sanity and serenity in their lives.

“Make the message relevant?” says the Ajahn without looking up. “Like the Salvation Army did at the turn of the century, taking old drinking songs and a brass band and turning them into Christian hymns? The sangha should spice up Dhamma with a little samsara, do you think?”

We reach the tiger gates of the wat. The Ajahn does not use Ruk’s short cut. He carries on over the sharp gravel road. I keep up with him, unwilling to let go of the question.

“The Salvation Army revived the message of Christian charity by dedicating themselves to the poor,” I say. “They were revolutionaries because they knew it wasn’t church scriptures that contained the message. It was the un-nameable Spirit. But that’s what Buddhism has done in every culture it entered. It took local myths and values, remoulding the symbolic meanings of their images. It used whatever was familiar to common people to teach them Dhamma—which has no form itself. When times changed for the Sally Anne, they became trapped in their own set of rules. Now they seem like one of the most old-fashioned denominations of the church.”

“That’s the way it always is,” says the teacher absently as we arrive at the sala door. He steps into the footbath and lets Nimalo wash his feet. He looks very tired. The walk has exhausted him, but he continues. “People don’t realize that conditions change. What was once a message becomes a dead ritual. People become so attached to words and ideas.”

Meow, waiting with a towel, dries the senior monk’s feet. I give the extra bowl to Nimalo, who carries it into the sala. The Ajahn takes one step into the hall and gazes at the Buddha images, still glowing like silver fire after their recent burnishing. He turns around and comes back out to me. I’m still splashing my toes in the footbath. He stares down at them with his pale blue eyes.

“That’s why I’m glad that I’m part of a tradition that is timeless, and a Dhamma that is unchanging.” He turns again and disappears into the temple.

“Forever and ever. Amen,” I whisper under my breath. I step out of the footbath and hold one dripping foot up to Meow, who still stands with the towel in his hands. He flashes me his Cheshire cat grin and runs inside after the head monk.

Impermanent are all conditioned things.

Unsatisfactory are all conditioned things.

Not-self are all conditioned things.

This is the Dhamma taught by the Buddha.

The morning Herbie left for China, I smuggled an orange out of the sala and gave it to him for good luck. Then he was gone. Percy had decided to remain a while longer. He still uses the spindly broom and is asking me questions about the ordination ritual for a pakhao. Nimalo has moved to a kuti deeper in the jungle so he will not be disturbed. Mr. Chicago has not returned from Bangkok. Dukita’s scholarship to the States may be delayed for a year because she did not bother to apply to a college until summertime. Tan Casipo is helping her sort out the forms. Ruk and Sun Tin have filled the wood bins to the roof of the robe-dyeing shed. The wat is fully stocked for the rains retreat, and they have no more work to do. Yenaviro worries that his bowl sticks are again too small. He may have to start a third set. Frequently the Ajahn’s seat is empty during morning chanting. The teacher takes medicine and grows pale. Tan Bodhipalo lets us sit through morning meditation until dawn in silence. No one ever notices little Tan Wee. Occasionally I hear recorded music. It comes from the jungle near the kuti of the Cheshire cat. Mum has announced that before she leaves she will hire a van to take a group of us on a picnic to the Laos border. Four of the monks want to go. The time of pansa is coming. Heat and humidity permeate the jungle air. Monsoons fall daily, flooding the compound. Mosquitoes breed. They swarm over us at coffee time. It has become unbearable. Slowly the season rolls by.

The king cobra greets me as I walk down his path one morning. He looks at me lazily, not bothering to arch his black hood. I squat less than two metres away, watching him smell me with his tongue. I am glad to be in his presence again. He has more compassion than us all. He could rise and kill, but he chooses to let me work out my kamma for myself. I wish I had his peace. Slowly the long muscular body surges across the trail, gliding like a flowing stream. I wait until the tail is swallowed up in jungle, then raise my hands high up to my forehead in a respectful wai.

There is only one thing left to be done. Ruk agrees to be my companion and on the appointed day we begin the three-hour walk to visit Wat Pah Pong, where I will bow three times before Ajahn Chah, the monk whose books and reputation led me to Pah Nanachat. Ruk comes not only as my guide, because I don’t know the way, nor just because his company along the twelve-kilometre walk will be a joy. He is the one disciple of the master who seems to reflect some of the holiness I would expect to find in the great teacher. Ruk’s words and stories about Ajahn Chah are full of gentle devotion. I fear my own aversion could rear up suddenly like a viper if I go alone. I don’t want that. I am not visiting to pass judgment, only to pay my respects, as a pupil to a master. I wonder if the Ajahn has a teaching left for me.

Ruk leads me through Bung Wai village and across a set of railway lines. We walk down along a maze of country trails. The sky is clear, except for a few dark clouds boiling on the horizon. The breeze is fair. It keeps us from wilting under the hot afternoon sun. Ruk is true to his name. His conversation fills us both with laughter. He tells me stories about the villages we pass, about the strange and colourful crops in the fields, about Thai monks he has known and about the history of our destination, Wat Pah Pong.

“Ajahn Chah was born in a village near where the wat is now. His family still lives there. For fifteen years he wandered through the countryside. Most of the time he spent in deep jungle, meditating. One day, he came back to this area and went to stay in the old cremation grounds to practise.”

“Old cremation grounds seem like a popular spot for monks,” I add.

“They are really popular. Most villagers are afraid of the ghosts, so they are good for solitude.”

“Every monastery should enlist the aid of peepahs.”

“Word soon got around that the famous forest monk had returned. The villagers asked him if they could build a monastery for him and the small group of disciples who followed him. Ajahn Chah didn’t object, so they built Pah Pong around him. By the time he had his stroke, he had forty branch monasteries all over Thailand.”

“They say there’s over sixty now.”

Before we can begin a discussion on the merit of monastery building, we reach a three-metre high concrete wall at the end of our trail.

“It looks like a prison,” I say to Ruk as we pass through a large iron door. Ruk tells me it’s the back entrance to the grounds of Pah Pong. Inside, a two-metre high cement wall runs along the right side of a dirt road. It continues straight ahead for a kilometre, out of sight. On the left, a barbed-wire fence protects dense forest. It feels eerie.

“I doubt if Ajahn Chah would have designed it this way himself,” says Ruk as we begin to walk alongside the inner wall.

After half a kilometre we come to a wooden ladder leaning against the wall. I follow Ruk up it and down another one on the other side. A dog-proof entrance to the main grounds. The trees are thinner here. As we approach an open grassy area ahead, I notice dozens of wooden kuties raised on stilts. Unlike the ones at Pah Nanachat, there is no attempt to isolate the huts from one another. It looks like a monastic suburb. A few Thais in ochre robes watch us as we pass. Ruk leads me to the sala. From the outside, the temple looks like a curling rink with a corrugated tin roof. Inside, it can easily accommodate five hundred worshippers. The floor is covered with old patches of linoleum of different colours and patterns. Incense burns before the giant brass Buddhas on the altar. Human skeletons encased in glass stand in each front corner. A double suicide?

A monk arrives who recognizes Ruk. They speak together in Thai for a few minutes. Ruk carries with him a pile of visa renewal forms sent by our Ajahn to the senior monk at Pah Pong. They will be sent to Bangkok for processing. Pah Pong handles all the paperwork for Pah Nanachat’s farang monks. The Thai tells Ruk that the elder is at Ajahn Chah’s bungalow. The master himself will receive visitors only between five and six p.m., when he is taken out in his wheelchair.

It is too early to go, so we stroll through the vast grounds of the wat. We pass a new bell tower six storeys tall, built in an ancient baroque style. Carved deities, demons and gargoyles stare down at us. Near a glade, large rock totems jut up from the carefully trimmed grass. Ruins from the cremation site. Further on is a small green hill which slopes gently upward to the new bot. Ruk tells me the hill is man-made, a huge underground water tank, kept full as a reserve for the dry season. The bot is modern, completed less than two years ago. Its smooth white lines soar upwards gracefully like an abstract sculpture. We climb the white stone steps. It awes me that such a building could be created in Thailand. The ceiling is composed of white arches. The walls are semi-open, made up of large relief mosaics depicting scenes from the life of Ajahn Chah. In one, a king cobra peacefully crosses his path; in another, two tigers observe him with respect as he sits in deep contemplation; in a third, villagers build a forest kuti for him while he blesses them; in the fourth, the master sits alone in samadhi. The front of the bot has about an eight-metre high statue in grey metal of a standing Buddha, both arms raised at right angles from the elbows. It’s an unusual posture for a Buddha. Beneath the idol and slightly in front of it on the floor is a life-sized statue of a monk. The iron figure sits crosslegged in Thai meditation posture, right leg resting on top of the left. The toes of the right foot arch casually upwards. He is a relaxed-looking old man, perhaps a little tired. His lips turn down slightly at the corners, yet the expression is not dour. Somehow it seems like a smile. The artist gave the piece a rough texture, creating a harmonious contrast with the sleek modern lines of the bot. We kneel and bow three times to the Buddha and three times to the statue of Ajahn Chah.

Leaving the bot, we walk back past the sala and down a long road to the front gate of the wat. Pah Pong’s boundaries are wide, more than two kilometres from end to end. The place seems strangely empty, ghost-like. Ruk tells me there were over sixty Thai and farang monks in Pah Pong when he came four years ago. Now there are fewer than ten, although more will return for pansa. The walk to the gate takes us through another tall forest. Painted signs written in Thai are nailed to trees next to the road. Ruk explains that they are sayings from the Dhamma. One-liner dasanas for visitors.

“Some monks think even the trees should have a teaching for us here,” says Ruk. It is difficult to tell if he speaks with irony.

Wooden signs are tacked to trees

For those who cannot read.

We pass through the inner gate. In front of us is a building under construction. The foundation is complete. Wooden beams have been erected over it. To one side is a hill of bamboo which will be used as scaffolding. Beyond, there is an outer gate with an iron door next to it. Through the gate I see a small and rickety shack. I know it’s a noodle shop. I have been here before, the night I searched so long in the dark and rain for the place which was now my home.

“What are they building?” I asked Ruk. “When I last saw it, it was just a big hole.”

“It’s a museum.”

“A museum? I thought you said the monastery was built when the master got here. It’s not so old. A museum—Ruk, you mean a mausoleum. It’s for Ajahn Chah, isn’t it? The main attraction will be his ashes. Or will they goldplate him and set him on display? The teacher isn’t even dead and already they are setting up the market to make money from his relics.” Anger flares inside. I don’t want it to strike out at my gentle friend. “Tell me, am I wrong to think such negative things? What do you think? Are they just keeping his body breathing for the sake of the merit industry?” I feel as cynical as Jim.

“His disciples love him very much,” says the monk in a soft voice. “You can’t expect them to let him die. Some days I think he has very clear eyes. See for yourself.”

We walk along the outside of the wall to a corner. Around it to the right, about four hundred metres away, is a bungalow. Three or four clusters of monks sit at various places on the green lawn surrounding it. Several cars and a few vans are parked in a nearby lot. Moving slowly around the perimeter of the building is a small figure in an orange-ochre robe, slumped in a wheelchair. A second figure pushes the chair around a cement strip which encircles the house. A third, also in a monk’s robe, carries a long-handled fan which he waves over the one in the chair.

We leave our sandals near the front gate of the bungalow, pass through and follow the walkway to the rear of the building. An attendant novice motions us to sit on the grass. We wait for the wheelchair to come around to us. The threesome rounds the corner at a slow speed. I follow Ruk’s example and kneel as the slumped figure in the chair approaches. We press our palms together in a respectful wai. The novice pushing the chair halts in front of us. We bow three times, touching our foreheads to the grass.

Ajahn Chah’s eyes are closed, his head fallen to the side. It leans against the back of the wheelchair. The lower jaw is slack. The mouth hangs open at an unnatural angle, forming a triangle from which a pale tongue protrudes. White spittle covers the corners of the lips. The attendant keeps a cloth ready which he uses to wipe away the drool from the master’s chin. The old hands are folded one on top of the other. They are mottled and pale for a Thai. The right one twitches occasionally like a dying fish. This is the only movement other than the gentle heaving of the great and collapsing chest buried beneath the robes. I hear him groan, a faint rumble from within the sunken frame.

Having given us our audience, the Ajahn is swung around again to face the path. The novice slowly nudges him forward. I watch the young Thai’s wide lips smile blissfully. He gazes tenderly at his helpless charge, the famous teacher. How much merit will he earn for his karuna towards the great monk? The novice is one of those Thais whose sex and age are undeterminable. He could be anywhere from sixteen to fifty. His features are soft and effeminate, a characteristic common among monks, accentuated by their shaven heads. He has pudgy cheeks and a fat neck which bulges at the back. As he steers past us I notice his thick ankles and his flat feet which make no sound as he walks. He reminds me of a young mother fawning over her new-born baby in a pram. The novice with the fan is skinny and tall. He wears glasses and an earnest expression. His lips are pressed together in concentration on his humble task. Actually, the late afternoon air is a little cool, now that the clouds have come up to blot out the sun. He has to fan very slowly or else the Ajahn will catch cold.

The attendant who seated us returns with a plastic sitting mat. He speaks a few words with Ruk in Thai, then brings a plastic tray holding two glasses and a bottle of drinking water. Ruk thanks him while I pour for the two of us. My throat and body are dry. It has been a long walk. We have to return to Pah Nanachat tonight. I drink, surprised by the chill. The water has been refrigerated. The Ajahn comes around to us again. His left eye is partially open. The right opens as well as he approaches. I think they are blue, but they can’t be. He is a Thai. I have just spent too long in a wat full of nordic farang. His gaze seems to fix on me for a moment. Then it flickers to Ruk. I watch intently for some sign of recognition by the master of the monk he named “Laughter.” There is none. The eyes begin to wander aimlessly. The twitching right hand has fallen still. He does not even moan. This is a body, I think, a living corpse. The personality—whether ego or inner spirit, whatever it is that gives life—is gone.

It was only illusion to begin with.

Is this freedom from suffering? Certainly there is the chill of emptiness in those wandering eyes. He is detached. A stroke is as effective as samadhi-suicide for that. Does the Ajahn also serve as our example? Is he preserved for our edification? Perhaps now he has become the embodiment of the monks’ ideal. Jim would criticize his complacency. Wheeled around all day, fed through a tube, dressed and bathed by devotees, he doesn’t contribute anything concrete to society. . . . They will not let him die.

A new group of Thai bhikkhus comes and joins us on the grass. Ruk tells me they are on tudong from the far south. They have come all this way to meet the holy monk. They wait patiently for him to make his next pass. The novice with the fat neck halts the chair to face the newcomers. After they bow, he begins to turn again to his round but a feeble groan comes from the body in the chair. The novice’s eyes widen with joy like a mother’s when her baby burbles. He moves the chair back in front of the visitors, letting his charge enjoy their company a minute more. The master’s right arm begins to twitch violently. It flops from his lap, dangling loosely beside the chair. The attendant carefully replaces it, tucking the errant limb securely under an orange lap blanket. The Ajahn’s focus seems poorer than on the previous round. The eyes wander independently of each other. The visiting monks seem pleased with the interview. They bow again. As the wheelchair swings back to face the path, they stand and return to their van.

Fourth time around, Ruk and I also kneel for our parting bows. These are the most sincere bows I will ever make wearing my pakhao robes. I learned much because of this man. His books showed me living wisdom in the Theravada tradition. His skill as a teacher resulted not only in Pah Nanachat, but in fifty-nine other centres dedicated to the Dhamma. His special ability to work with Westerners attracted enough of them for me to be able to experience life in a Thai monastery without having to learn a new and difficult language. He opened this all to me. He is my teacher and I owe much reverence to him. Even if nothing but a shell and symbol remains. With my final bow I pray that this is so, for his sake.

At the front of the bungalow, Ruk finds the senior monk. He asks me to wait on the lawn while they go through details of the visa forms. I stand by the cement pathway and watch the black clouds gathering in the direction of Bung Wai. A monsoon rain is coming our way with the night. Already it is past six. We will walk home in darkness. I feel the blades of grass with my bare feet. A bird flies by, swoops down the hill of the bungalow and over the trees of Pah Pong’s jungle. A jagged streak of lightning cuts the black horizon.

Behind me, the wheelchair approaches along the path as the Ajahn rolls through his last few rounds. The novice frowns and motions that I should quickly kneel and wai before the teacher passes. Ajahn Chah’s eyes are open again. They seem to fix on me as he comes close. I read a look from them which cuts to my spine, pulls the muscles in my neck and stomach tight. My skin is suddenly cold. I hold that look, unable to determine whether or not what I see is really there. He passes, leaving me frozen like stone.

I have seen this look once before, in the eyes of an old woman in the examining room of a busy hospital. Her body was failing. Emphysema. Fluid choked her lungs and lack of oxygen was slowly suffocating her mind. Too slowly. She was gradually going insane. The doctor had prodded her naked body and shone a light at her. He wrote on a clipboard and disappeared. She could not speak. Her hand clutched at my shirt like a drowning woman. Her eyes came clear for a moment, pleading me to help. Not like this, not months longer. My eyes darted around the room. But they found nothing sharp. My grandmother’s horror possessed me too. In that instant we both realized how long it could take to die.

A crack of thunder releases me. I jerk myself around on the grass to face the black storm, wrenching the muscles in my back. A heavy rain will catch us this night. Good.

Ruk and I are tired as we begin the walk home. My body feels leeched of strength. There is ice in my spine. It stiffens my pace. The plastic sandals have worn blisters in the toes of both my feet. Where the path is sandy I walk barefoot. At dusk a viper surprises Ruk and makes me jump. We clutch at each other, as if to keep us from falling on top of the little snake. After that we use the flashlight. With it Ruk soon discovers a ten-centimetre-long black scorpion. It remains as still as a rock while we kneel to examine it. The dark squiggle of a centipede wriggles in front of me, then zigzags behind Ruk. Again and again lightning shatters the sky. Heavy drops soon fall out of the night.

“All we need now is a tiger,” I say to my companion.

“I think the plaster ones at the front gate will do,” he says with a laugh.

“Death seems available tonight. For some of us.”

Ruk doesn’t respond. He doesn’t connect death with the creatures he loves best, those with claws, teeth, fangs or stings.

“How many more monasteries do you think they will build before the Ajahn dies?” I continue, feeling my own venom flash.

“Few. He predicted before his stroke he would die in 1985.”

“Six more months. That’s too bad for you Ruk.”

“Why?” He sounds astonished.

“I thought you wanted to set up a branch monastery in Germany.”

“Monastery? Not for me. Five years in a wat will be enough. When my fifth pansa is through, I only want to tudong.”

“In Germany?”

“That’s right. I like the homeless life, just to wander from village to village. I would like to do that back home, in the Black Forest.”

“A Buddhist monk in the Black Forest? People will think you are pretty strange.”

“Sure they would. Who would know enough even to feed me? I can’t even ask for food. But I know I wouldn’t starve. If I have to, I will work for my bread. Cold doesn’t bother me, so most of the time I can sleep outdoors. I’ll do whatever comes to my hand.”

“You mean you’ll wander the market places, a potential for spontaneous goodness wherever you go?”

Ruk chuckles quietly at my words.

“Do you know what my ideal of a monk is?” I ask.

“No.”

“Laughter in the villages.”

I feel the beginning of warmth running down my spine, relaxing the muscles. A rush of joy floods through me. There is an example to carry on the master’s teachings! A hundred new questions leap to mind. Is Ruk enlightened? What has he grasped of Ajahn Chah’s wisdom? How is it that he sees clarity in the teacher’s eyes, when I see only living death?

I want to ask, but the words won’t come. I know what he’ll say: that the only answers to take with me are the ones I have found for myself. Ruk never tried to convince me of anything. Asking if he’s enlightened would make him laugh. And what would he care whether or not he fits my ideal of what a monk should be? Next thing you know, I’ll be building his mausoleum and gilding his corpse.

I let the questions rise and fall, then sweep them, unasked, into the jungle. Without the questions, the craving for answers soon disappears. The euphoria fades—but the warmth in my back remains. It’s an answer of sorts. I fall into place behind Ruk and his flashlight. Together we take up the steady walking rhythm of morning bindabat. I realize that tomorrow I’ll be leaving Pah Nanachat. Time to go.

And suddenly, there’s laughter in the rain. After so much searching for a teaching—in the texts, the practice, the Ajahn’s eyes—it makes me laugh to feel, just for the moment, what the Buddha never taught.