Chasing Monasteries
Luang Prabang, Laos
This was not my first or even second acquaintance with Luang Prabang. My third landing in the idyllic old capital, which amicably rests between the Mekong and Nam Khan rivers, was intentional: to immerse in quiet, to meander through the 32 monasteries that populate its bucolic landscape, to delve deeper into my inner world.
Walking became my daily meditation through movement. I wanted to commune with the natural world and connect with the spirit of the temples. After several months of an active and fiery yang existence integration and balance beckoned.
The watery boundaries of the convergent rivers cradled me as I sat with whatever needed to arise.
What I was reminded of, amidst the Buddhist iconography, bodhi tree paintings, glittering temple tops, and novice monks whose boyish mannerisms belied the authority of their amber robes, is “real” life seeps into monastic life. They are not separate, the mundane and spiritual, yet so often we try to separate and compartmentalize what is meant to be lived holistically, not within our institutions, office spaces and schools, but within ourselves.
As I walked from temple to temple, I encountered mobile phone conversations and candy consumption interspersed with devotion and prayer. Many of the young monks were there to further their education so they could attend university or enter the workforce, an opportunity otherwise lost in their local village. This was not necessarily a forever life path, but for now path.
One studious seventeen-year-old called me over to practice his English. Several books adorned the rickety outdoor table where he was seated. I asked what his favorite book was. With a widespread grin and without hesitation he replied, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad.” He followed up with, “And I like Jack Ma, the creator of Alibaba.” He wanted to study economics.
An equally widespread grin crept across my face.
Where we feel bereft, we frequently seek what we perceive the other to have, spiritually, financially or otherwise. At times, it feels as if this is the greatest paradox, this inversion of needs. Except it isn’t; it is based on each individual’s lived experience, and there is nothing inherently dualistic about this.
I was privileged to be exposed to the world at a young age, obtain a university education and, subsequently, nestle into places that cultivated quiet contemplation and deeper connection to spirit.
His lack of privilege led him to monastic life at a young age, where he would learn all he could to gain access to higher education and achieve a level of financial sustainability he would not have had access to in his village.
He wanted what I had; I wanted what he had. Neither was the golden egg the other imagined it to be, and like most things, the truth somewhere in the middle.
I spent the rest of my days walking from monastery to monastery in relative solitude. We travel to these places so that we may return home to these places within ourselves. And our teachers come in many forms, even teenage monks aspiring to be businessmen.
