Sitting at Chiang Mai bus station, we couldn’t help but feel slightly abused. Five days of waterfighting and partying had left us feeling like a couple of drowned rats. I wasn’t sure if it was alcohol or moat water that I had drowned in, or which of the two had left me with such a terrible headache. My shutter speed was on slow, with human beings complex in both their intentions and movement reduced to simple streaks of color across my smudged eye pallet. I had the drinkers remorse, cue the violin.
A small Chinese man approached from my left, and with a voice as soft as his feature asked if we could watch his bags. His manner was so eloquent I hadn’t course to consider his request, but in hindsight I wonder how many of the evening news stories began like this, with a well intentioned simpleton in a transit station watching bags for a strange man.
His name was Dr. Sun, and he was travelling to the border between Thailand and Myanmar to freely volunteer his experience as a surgeon in aid of the displaced refugees that have accumulated there. Exuding a humble gratification about himself which piqued my curious nature, he happily answered my stampeding inquisitions into his practice in America and the trappings of comfort that would have come with it had he not given it all up to help these desperate people. Expecting underlying smugness from people with stories like these, I was surprised when Maz told him he was a good person for his efforts and he shrugged it off as if we had misunderstood the whole point.
“No, no, no” he said with a chuckle. “It makes me happy.”
His response set my balance off kilter, as I suddenly realized my envy of his knowledge of himself. I wondered if money even mattered at all once one has found his true calling. In context, if my only job was to deliver a Mentos to the Queen on a satin pillow biannually for a handsome reward, it’s quite possible I’d ask for an invoice so I could write the packet and the pillow off at tax time as a business expense. And even though I love and believe in the Mentos freshness and how it makes you full of life, I’d still complain about my job at the after work drinks.
With the memory of Dr Sun’s selflessness throbbing through my love muscle (my heart, before you get any ideas) we delved into the touristic delights of the Chiang Rai province. Twenty scooter minutes out of Chiang Rai lies the life’s work of one of Thailands most famous artists, Chalermchai Kositpipat, and his famous White Temple.
Chalermchai and his team work tirelessly on this complex every single day. Chalermchai finances all of the operation independently, believing that once an outside investor or benefactor inserts money into a project he expects some measure of say in the proceedings. His vision was a young sapling that had already bore healthy fruit, safe in the knowledge it would grow into a magnificent tree. I envied him so much I wanted to scratch his eyes out.
Creating balance with all this white purity is the Black Temple, located on the other side of Chiang Rai. Whereas the White Temple seemed to focus on rebirth and light, the Black Temple’s art and exhibits focus on death and darkness, with large collections of bone inspired furniture and enough taxidermy for a PETA volunteer to fashion a rope out of his own dreadlocks and hang himself from the rafters.
Having contemplated the nature of my giving, or more specifically the fact that I give bugger all, we decided to volunteer at The New Life Foundation. Founded two years ago with an aim to holistically heal addicts through counseling and spiritual practice, we were off to a great start. As a volunteer, we found ourselves fully integrated into communal life, cleaning and cooking and improving the site as a whole incrementally throughout scheduled tasks for the day.
The combination of meditation and interaction with heroin and crack addicts at the end of their rope was a confrontation. The more interaction with the residents I had, the more I related much of my internal thought process to the helplessness of addiction. They were all here because they had reached their low point and decided the only way to go was up, and such has been the ebb and flow of my life in the past also. I listened to their stories with a focus and peace that had long eluded me, even when the subject matter was raw and unforgiving. Through their pain and my full attention, I was at one with people again.
On our last day at the retreat, a monk arrived at the foundation to participate in one of the courses. As I grappled with writers block at a table alone, he quietly sat down next to me and answered his cellphone. I was thrown from my ignorance, eager to understand how this monk had found time to use up his anytime minutes in between training with his nun-chucks and disemboweling himself and others with his samurai sword.
Fully ordained, at the age of 21 he exuded more wisdom than most people I have ever met. He told me of the joy of having but the belongings he carries in two bags slung round his shoulders, and that where most people have cares and worries, he has peace and tranquility.
But the question that had burned inside me so desperately since I spied his little orange robe could not stay buried for long. When I finally asked him if he was happy, his patient reply was that happiness was just a state of mind. I hung on his every word, excited with the prospect of an answer to my midnight prayers tailor made with me in mind, gift-wrapped with a bow and a scented note signed “Love, your Funky Monky. Xo”
He said that as long as one is seeking happiness, one cannot attain it, which seemed disheartening, but do read on. In any given moment, there are feelings going on inside of all of us, and if we are striving for happiness outside of ourselves it is likely we are not acknowledging the feelings we are having inside of ourselves. He finds peace in the simple observation of the thoughts and feelings that he is having right now.
The cause of misery in many of us is our habit to condemn and judge our internal thoughts and feelings as invalid or unacceptable, using the same internal voice to judge ourselves as the voice that created the thought and feelings in the first place. This non-acceptance leads to chains of thoughts about thoughts in a spiral that becomes a prison, cascading down into the depths of our despair. Seeking distraction or solace instead of observance and acceptance of this spiral seemed to me the nature of my addictions, as well as with many of the addicts at the foundation. We forget that a large dark room needs but a candle to render it light enough to move forward.
If happiness is but a color on an infinite spectrum, then peace is the white light, the inclusion of all colors. It was the peace in Dr. Sun that showed so obviously, and his giving to the disadvantaged was an extension of this internal state. Monks and their apprentices probably seek more peace than happiness then, but that does not render happiness invalid.
Happiness is an elusive but reasonably predictable choice. To have happiness in our lives, we must simply experience more of the things in life that make us feel good whilst experiencing less of the things in life that make us feel bad. This moment to moment accounting puts us in touch with our feelings as they are right now, and is the beginning of the journey out of that darkness. It’s a no brainer, and any misunderstanding to the contrary is just the hollow voice of that spiral seeking to pull us down into our own murky depths once again. With this new understanding, I resolve to light my candle when the room seems almost too helplessly dark to continue onward, knowing that darkness is but the absence of light. It has no substance lest fear make it so.
Feeling empowered by our giving and enlivened by our new experiences, we were ready to move on. Once more into the horizon we vaulted, shooting up into the sky in a cloud of swirling smoke…… Just make sure the smoke is non narcotic and the shooting up isn’t into a vein and I’m sure we’ll all get along just fine. Badoom boom.
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