Monks’ Business

February 21

Cooking Love, the very interesting restaurant here in Soi 1, has Thai iced tea on its menu. I tried a version with lemon, which is much tastier than the tea made with milk.

After a late breakfast, or early lunch, of steamed fish and mixed vegetables, we walked to Wat Phra Singh on Sunday the 21st. I had recently learned that the name translates as “Lion Buddha,” which is the principal Buddha image at the main altar. I was hoping to see why they call it that, but couldn’t see the connection.

Near the altar are effigies of principal monks. They have been covered in gold leaf, which is flaking and gives the statues a kind of out-of-register appearance.

“The uncanny valley” is a term used of robots. It means they are a little bit too human, but not human enough to make us feel comfortable with them. That’s why companion robots are designed to look like the robots in cartoons

If you have ever encountered the hologram known as Miss Libby at Newark Liberty Airport, you have seen the floor of the uncanny valley. But since I have been here, the term has taken on a new meaning.

There is a common practice at the wats of celebrating outstanding monks with fiberglass representations. One at Phra Singh, like so many others, is outstandingly lifelike—down to the wrinkles in the skin and the unevenly cut fingernails.

You can expect some of these figures to wink and start moving. “See? I’m not a statue at all. I was just messing with your head.”

The wihan, or main temple, at Wat Phra Singh has detailed murals on the walls. I’m not sure what’s going on. Joanna said one panel may show people maybe smoking opium. In another, they are drinking.

Another could be a bar, a brothel, or an aristocratic court. They often look alike in pictures.

I learned later that the paintings represent Jataka tales, which are ancient stories about Siddhartha Gautama’s incarnations before he became the Buddha.

We took a tuk-tuk back to the hotel and hid out till dinner time. The Sunday night market was packed. Most of the people seemed unable to see anything, let alone buy it.

We threaded our way through the press to Girasole, where we had pizza.

Monday, the 22nd, was Makha Bucha Day 2559.

We made a nice, late start to the day when the bars are closed.

I ran out for coffee and took it easy at the hotel while Joanna was across the soi having a massage.

We revisited some of the larger temples to see what was going on, but the early services were over. More people than usual were in the temples with offerings.

At one, Chiang Man perhaps, the area in front of the altar was roped off for the monks, who go through a lengthy ritual, rehearing the more than 300 principles that regulate their conduct.

While we were there, two monks knelt on the carpet facing each other to pray. They were both so still that they could have been a couple of fiberglass statues.

I was also looking for something I saw (or think I saw) in a temple on the first or second day in Chiang Mai.

It was a memento mori, something I hadn’t encountered before in Buddhist lore. Reminders of death are commonplaces in Christianity. You never know when you will die. If you die in sin, God will torture you forever.

Buddhists just expect to keep doing it over until they get it right.

Some Buddhists believe in heaven and hell, but for the most part, they consider life hell enough and just want to get out. I find most religious Buddhists I have met to be remarkably tolerant, but theirs is a philosophy of life I don’t completely share.

Anyhow, I think that in addition to the fiberglass monks and Buddha images in one wat there was an effigy of a skeleton dressed in dark robes and sitting on a chair. I didn’t get a shot of it because I wasn’t sure photography is permitted in temples. I have found since then that snapshots are OK, so I’d get a picture if I could find it again.

Wat Chedi Luang and Wat Pan Tao, right next to it, were getting ready for the big evening ceremony. Vendors of religious offerings and secular food were lined up on the sidewalks outside.

At Chedi Luang, we ran into this guy.

A sign in English explains that it isn’t a representation of the Buddha Gautama, but of another enlightened person, Tan Pra Maha Kajjana, who was so good-looking that people used to mistake him for the Buddha. His good looks caused problems, though. For instance, one hapless soul believed that Tan Pra was a woman and proposed marriage, but because of his error was turned into a woman himself.

Tan Pra turned himself into a fat, ugly monk to avoid causing trouble.

We went to the restaurant row on Intrawarorot Road by the Three Kings Monument, where we shared crispy pork and roast duck.

Next stop was Wat Chiang Man. I missed a turn and took us too far.

After we visited the wihans, Joanna was feeling woozy from the heat. That’s usually my job. We hired a tuk-tuk and went to cool off.

I stayed at the hotel for a beer and a cool-down and went out again while Joanna rested, this time to Wat Lam Chang, which is across the street from Chiang Man. No skeleton at that one either.

So I came back to hotel for a short nap.

Before dinner, we visited the yard of Wat Pan On, on Rachadamnone Road. A monk said the evening ceremony would start around 6:30.

At a soup shop next to Girasole, I had noodle soup with fresh and stewed beef and beef balls. The beef balls are a sort of Thai take on Yorkshire pudding, chewy flour dumplings flavored with beef.

By the time we finished up and got back to Wat Pan On, a lecture was in progress. It appeared to be a recording or an address from a remote location.

We moved on to Wat Pan Tao, the temple with the colorful yard. The holiday spirit was more in evidence here. The pond and the lawn around the Buddha were covered with burning candles. A group of monks moved into the temple and one started to lead them in prayer.

The moths, however, were thick under the lights. They were getting into our clothes, and we were dripping sweat, so we had to step outside.

We walked up to the Three Kings neighborhood and had mango with sticky rice crepes for dessert. That place, called La Mango, is air-conditioned, so after we cooled off we went back to see what was in progress at the wats.

At Wat Chedi Luang, the holiday procession had begun around the great pagoda. People carried small bouquets of flowers with sticks of burning incense. A man in a police uniform was speaking to the crowd through the PA system.

When we went next door, to Wat Pan Tao, it was even better. The procession was circling the wihan to the sound of chanting monks, instead of a cop. More than a dozen monks in saffron led the procession. In this observance, people were carrying candles.

When the big procession ended, the monks formed a solemn procession of their own. They walked along a boardwalk of split bamboo at the border of the pond. Joanna recorded that with the photo of the day.

The monks came to small bridge and crossed to the lawn covered in candles.

The lawn has an effigy of Buddha flanked by rows of devotees. I can’t be sure, but the tableau may represent the event that the holiday commemorates: on the full moon day of the third lunar month, 1,250 disciples visited the Buddha to receive his precepts and carry them to the world. Sort of a Buddhist Pentecost. The candles represent the light of Buddha’s teachings.

While the monks venerated the Buddha, one took up a microphone and began to discuss the significance of the day. He talked about how much better it is to do good than to do evil, and how Makha Bucha Day marks the beginning of the spreading of that and other Buddhist principles.

After a few minutes more, I had acquired enough merit and wanted a beer to celebrate.

Having been warned that Makha Bucha Day is a dry holiday, I had stocked up. So what did I learn? OK, I’m not quite a Buddhist, but maybe I am as close to that as to anything else.

May Buddha bless you and keep you all.

Harry