June
2003
Updated
July 2006
Ko
Si Chang: Meditation Cave Temple
Part
2
Buey
was somewhere in between 30 and 40 years old and wore
brown monastic robes. Her head was shaven and her
features were pleasant. I considered how different
she was from so many of the Thai females that have
given Thailand a reputation. The bodies were basically
the same but the life choices were different. In this
vein, I imagined what Buey would look like with long
hair, too much make-up and skimpy clothes. However,
my imagination failed and I couldn't conjure up a
realistic image of a nun-turned-bar-girl.
Buey
took us to view the various meditation and living
areas housed within the limestone caves. Their construction
method was to lay concrete on the ground of the caves
so that the floors are even and can be kept clean.
Some rooms also have walls and even carpeting. Death
was a common meditation theme and many caves had photos
of corpses in various states of decomposition or dissection.
The point was that by contemplating death, you would
understand the ephemeral nature of existence.
The
most interesting room was above ground and not in
a cave. It housed one skeleton and one corpse, partially
decomposed but well embalmed and three jars of embryos
that died in the womb of various congenital disorders.
One embryo had a malformed head that like an alien
from a movie. Another had one-tube nostril instead
of a normal nose.
We
were looking at the partially decomposed adult corpse
and Buey was explaining that many people slept in
this room to progress further in their meditation.
The corpse was of a small woman with a few teeth left,
little hair and skin was peeling off in various places.
In other places, bone was visible and some of the
leg bones were hanging off the body or had already
fallen off. It was morbid. In order to break the mood,
I interjected," This body reminds of when you
eat fried chicken and you have a chicken leg and the
only way to get the meat out is to pull the bones
apart. Those bones look just like these bones."
Shortly
thereafter, Buey revealed that the body was not just
an anonymous corpse that had been donated. The corpse
was her mother's body. Her mother had also been a
nun at the Wat and had died several years earlier
of cancer. Booey often slept next to the body. After
learning this, I felt somewhat guilty about the fried
chicken comment, but Buey seemed to take it all in
stride. She said that many people, after viewing corpses
like this, became vegetarians.
The
Wat had signs in English and Thai posted throughout
the complex, expounding some Buddhist principal or
asking provocative questions some of which appeared
to be like Zen koans. Buey explained that the temple
often accepted visitors to participate in the monastic
life as novice monks, many of which were foreigners.
The visitors would have to follow the routine like
everyone else however. The routine went like this:
Rise at 4 am. Wash. 4.30 am Chant. 5.00 am Collect
alms from the donors by walking along the street with
a begging bowl. 7.00 am Eat. 8.00 am Work. 11.00 Eat
lunch. 12.00 Work. (No dinner) 6.00 Chant, 7 pm Free
time. I asked Booey whether I could just come over
and meditate and stay at the bungalows over the hill
and she said, no problem.
White
Squirrels
Bleary
eyed, the following morning, I sipped my coffee surveying
the bay from the veranda at Sri Phrisanu Bungalows.
Across the bay in the trees, I saw them hopping around
the tree branches - they were pure white squirrels.
I thought maybe I was mistaken and that they were
perhaps birds, but their motion was that of squirrels.
I had never heard of the white squirrels of Ko Si
Chang. Later I learned that they were quite an attraction
on Ko Si Chang and that special laws were enacted
several years ago to prevent their capture and preserve
their numbers. They were beautiful, unique, almost
magical and most people would never know about them.
They were the perfect metaphor for humble and beautiful
Ko Si Chang.
