[Frenchmen is a book written in 2015. It’s a story about desire, Buddhist theory and the ultimate results of death and rebirth.]

Frenchmen – Chapter 1

Frenchmen – Chapter 2

Frenchmen – Chapter 3

 

Chapter 4

Place of Stars

 

Fang, Thailand. Wat SriBoongRuang. This was my second choice.

Eight years ago I was traveling in Thailand and was in the small town of Chiang Dao (Place of Stars). After doing some research I had found this place listed as out of the way but accessible and very beautiful.

It was true on every account.

Once you leave the town of Chiang Dao proper, you head toward the Doi Luang Chiang Dao, the highest limestone mountain in Thailand. It rises straight up from the base. This dramatic backdrop is frequently shrouded in clouds, covered with old growth forest and mystical in its general appearance and air. The road to the mountain narrows and eventually forks and the road left dead ends at Wat Thum Pha Plong. From the small parking lot at the base you begin to climb the 500 plus stairs that lead you to the temple compound founded years ago by Luang Pu Sim, a now famous and long dead monk.

Mountain Steps

Climbing the stairs you are surrounded by massive trees and carefully landscaped paths. Every hundred feet or so there is a sign fixed to one of the trees advocating one to adhere to the dharma and stick to Buddhas path.

“There is nothing permanent in this world. ” says one. “There is nothing reliable to be found. Such is the wisdom that true Dharma practitioners acquire. When we are wise in this way, we let go. We release our attachment to our ‘self’. We see there is no real ‘me’ or ‘mine’ there are just natural elements like the earth, water, fire and wind.”

These signs are spelled out in Thai and English. They create a good reflective pause as one ascends the steep and seemingly endless stairs. The temple itself is tucked into a rather large cave that once served as Phra Ajahn Luang Pu Sim’s retreat from the world. Here he could meditate in the forest away from the distractions of society.

 

 

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A Forest Compound

 

 

These forest compounds are common but this one is especially stunning because of the setting, high on the mountainside. It was here, eight years ago, as I was starting to descend the steps from the main cave, that I noticed a monk sitting over under an open sala. When I looked at him he looked at me. Without a pause in our mutual recognition he asked, in Thai,

“Do you want to be a monk?”

It was odd because the question was direct, asked in Thai (how did he know I would understand him?). It was a question that I have often contemplated.

Did I want to be a monk?

I went and sat with him for over an hour and we talked about a wide range of things. His name was Phra Ajhan Sawan – His Holiness Teacher of Heaven. After getting an address I told him I would have to think about the initial question because, obviously, I was in no position to drop everything and ordain.

I took a photo of him sitting in the sala on a wooden platform while I sat at his feet and we chatted. This picture of him sitting, in lotus position with a broad smile, has been hanging in my house during the eight years since I last saw him.

Focus

When I had a block of time come up this year I decided that now was the time. Maybe not to become a monk, but to at least focus on Thai Theravada Buddhism in some depth. To at least understand the procedures that I would so often see when sticking my head into a Wat [temple compound].

I wanted to know why this country would follow this man, this Buddha, for centuries. Follow him even into the modern era and still give him the reverence of a god, though that’s one of the last things he seemed to have wanted from anyone.

I booked a ticket for three months. That should be enough time to try and figure out at least a few things, right?

I sent a letter to the Bangkok address I had from him. Then I sent an email to the Wat where I met him. After that I even had a friend working in Chiangmai call the temple where I had met him.

Nothing.

In desperation I searched the Internet for places that could offer some insight and help to understanding Buddhism in Thailand. Wat SriBoonRuang kept coming up.

It posted itself as a Temple Stay Retreat where one could come, meditate daily. Also chant, in Pali, along with the local congregation, monks and novices both morning and evening. The program was intricately linked to the Wat. Participants would have a range of duties that would keep them in touch with the Thai community. You could even ordain and become a monk after twenty-one days.

Monk-Lite!

So, I made a plan. Go to Chiang Dao and search for my monk. If I couldn’t find him, I’d go to Fang and try the temple stay there…hell, I might even become a monk!

 

Chiang Dao

After the train ride from Bangkok and a few days in Chiangmai and on buses, I finally made it back to Chiang Dao, eight years later.

Chiang Dao proper is not much of a town. To get to the mountain area where the tourists and temples are you have to hire a pickup at much inflated prices. They know there is no other way for the farangs (white westerners) to get there. I was the only one in the back of the pickup when she stopped about halfway up and in jumped an orange robed monk. He sat across from me with his ochre colored umbrella and smiled openly with his one toothed grin.

He literally had one front tooth.

His robes were dirty and patched in a couple of places. I said Hi in Thai and he beamed, “You speak Thai!” He reached over, grasped and stroked my arm, as Thais are prone to do, then began the usual litany of questions. By the time I hopped out we were fast friends and he waved fondly as he disappeared down the road.

Chiang Dao was basically the same. A row of guest houses that line the lane up to the temple, massive canopy trees, a few small restaurants near the main cave attraction, Thum (Cave) Chiang Dao.

 

I arrived early afternoon and took the first guesthouse that looked cheap. (The one I had stayed at before had gone all farang-fancy and was now beyond my budget.) This one was a A-frame of bamboo with woven palm walls, a bed, shared bathroom. Enough.

A Fitful Walk

I told myself that I would wait until the next morning to take the 500 plus stairs up to the temple. I tried to nap but fitfully. Finally, unable to contain my excitement, I started to walk the lane up to the parking lot, about a kilometer away.

I was barely on the road when a large silver Mercedes van sped past, nearly forcing me into the jungle overgrowth.

Okay, not cool.

Another van nearly clipped me as soon as I was on the road again. I stood aside and looked back. There, coming up the lane, was an endless stream of silver vans. As I got closer to the temple parking lot the vans started to back up down the road by the dozen. I found myself trudging past them as they filled the mountain air with diesel exhaust. When I got to the parking lot there were two cops directing traffic. A parking lot had even been lined out on the expansive lawn that formed a park in front of a Hindu shrine at the base of the temple stairs.

A Pilgrimage

I stood there in amazed disbelief as van after van continued to pull in to their directed spots and each vehicle began to disgorge a dozen or more people, mostly women,  dressed head to toe in white. All tolled there were at least six hundred of them. They all began their ant-march, 500 step-climb up to the cave to honor Phra Luang Pu Sim and his legacy.

It was a pilgrimage from Bangkok.

Hundreds of ardent followers out to make merit by visiting several sacred sights over a two day period.

My timing couldn’t have been worse.

I began to walk back to the guesthouse knowing they would be gone by nightfall,  to wait them out until the next day.

 

 

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Clouds Can Lift       

  

The clouds were just lifting off the mountain as I began my ascent the next morning, nary a silver van in sight. In fact, I only saw two other people on the climb up and it gave me time for even more pause as I passed the signs with their rather cryptic but level messages:

              Where does suffering dwell? Nowhere else but in the minds that grasp and cling.

When I reached the top the view, as expected, was beautiful. Clouds hugged the valley below, the larger canopy trees poking up through them. My eyes searched about for orange so I could question one of the monks. I was in the main temple cave and one of them came in. Not looking too busy I approached and asked if he knew one such Phra Achan Sawan.

No, but let me go ask the head monk.

I continued my rounds of the compound and the monk soon found me and No, he doesn’t know of such a monk. He noticed my dejection and asked some further questions. I told him it was eight years ago and that I wasn’t even sure if he had been staying here or just visiting as he gave me a Bangkok address. He disappeared for a while and soon came back. Yes! One monk remembers him! But, he moved away five years ago and now no one knew where he went.

My link had disappeared.

 

A Fork in the Road

At the fork in the road, if you go right, it leads to another forest monastery, one not as famous but in my mind perhaps even more lovely because of its obscurity and remoteness. I had remembered this place, Wat Thum Pak Piang.

From my previous trip and after the news of my lost monk, I walked over to this forest compound to reflect on my next move. It was as I remembered it only even better. The forest of teak trees that they had planted were now even taller and denser than before. The kutis (monks houses) were as simple and efficient as I remembered them.

Disheveled Trail

I entered from the back trail and as I walked down the path there is a sala where there were several monks lounging, smoking and snacking. The area looked a bit disheveled as did the monks, then I noticed one of them madly waving me, palm-down, to approach.

It was my one-toothed pickup-truck monk!

I walked over to say hi. He waved me up onto the platform. While I fumbled with my laced shoes, he told the others that this was the Thai speaking farang he had met on the way in. There were three of them there and I wai-ed, as one should to all monks. The oldest and nearest motioned for me to sit on the mat at his feet. The usual litany of questions ensued.

A Litany of Questions:

1. Where are you from?

2. How old are you?

3. How long have you been here?

4. Why do you speak Thai so well?

5. Are you traveling alone? Why?

6. Do you have a Thai wife? Why not?

7. Do you have a farang wife? Why not?

Fortunately the last question is always satisfied when I answer,

“No, I don’t have a wife but I have a ‘fan’.

The Fan

There is no comparable English word, but the gist of the translation is very convenient as a gay man. It’s something like…boyfriend/girlfriend, partner or special friend. Like many personal pronouns in Thai, it is gender neutral. Of course, most people assume I mean a woman but if asked [which would be beyond Thai decorum] and I answered it was a man, few would be shocked by such a disclosure.

Thai sexuality is so much more fluid than our rigid, puritanical views that it rarely plays into any moral judgement. Recently I met a rather effeminate monk that one of the others referred to, in English, as the girly-boy. Thais still find this sexual innuendo all rather amusing but also regard it with nonchalance. As a natural occurrence, it reflects the human condition.

Nickname Reality

Even Thai nicknames still reflect all sorts of natural and obvious things that Westerners would now call offensive – ‘Fatty’ ‘Redface’ ‘Shorty’ ‘Limpy’ ‘Blacky’ ‘Tiny’ ‘Warts’ – things Thais take at face value rather than pretending they don’t exist.

Differences, fag or fatty, are celebrated.

Satisfying the usual questions we moved on to different subjects. I told them my story of the missing monk and they nodded, said they didn’t know of him. I explained that I was hoping to study with this monk and that now, not finding him, I was going to go up Fang to study with a farang based group up there. We talked more.

After my stay in Fang it was finally concluded that I should return to their Wat where I could stay, meditate and chant with them.

Then the oldest, the one I was sitting next to, who, by the way, also had only one front tooth in his head, went off with a glazed over look in his eyes and expounded on the Buddha’s teachings.

The Gist of Death

I couldn’t understand half of what he was talking about. The gist of his long spiel was about death, how everything dies, how not to get attached because everything, everything, in the end is an illusion. See things for what they are. Don’t portend them to be anything other than that. Especially where emotions are involved.

Things like anger, shame, guilt or even love, are temporary states that no one can cling to in hopes of being happier for it.

Stillness

Stillness, (Chit Ning) he said, is a different matter.