Anyway, after debating with Mommy how I should go in (many a time), and after Mommy telling me to just go in (many a time), I decided the best option, like most decided options in my life, was to, instead of meeting someone face to face first, or by phone, was to e-mail them, and let them know that I was coming. So, about three days later, after many e-mails returned around 12 a.m., and many emails typed in broken English, I finally legitimized any reasons for going, which were to either meditate, pray, or burn whatever incense the place had inside.
So, around 5 o'clock in the evening, arriving later than I said I would, feeling like the most ungrateful falang frequenting Kitchener's only Laos temple alone, I arrived, hesitant and feeling that I had no right, whatsoever, to enter those doors. I don't know what's been wrong with me lately, I may have been reading too much Jamaica Kinkaid, but I felt as if that space was no place for a man like me. I wasn't, after all, Laos in the least, or Thai for that matter. This was a place for religious recluse; refuge from the world (of the white man) quite frankly, and as much as I felt I needed it, or as much as I felt I needed to entertain my own exotic curiosities, I had no right in the least to be there. I didn't even know what to do. Sure, I knew how to pray, and I know all the prayers supplanted in my mind that still enable me to have incovenient Christian underpinnings, but what would I do when I got in? I'd passed this dilemma onto the opinion of a friend who assured me that I was being an idiot - that any culture which comes to a multi-cultural place wouldn't box themselves up from the world, but instead welcome anyone, or not come at all. But let's be reasonable, why set a temple up then, if not to feel safe and connected to something you may have left behind or defines your perception of the world? But I digress, this isn't a disertation, or an argument on the politics on religion and space (though that'd be a pretty interesting read). So I entered.
Through the doors, and kicking myself for having not brought slippers, I stood in the dark entrance until I heard a "hello" from the silouette of someone who looked like they were melting (monks and robes). The place bore a welcomed odour for a cook's nose, but may have been something smelt as strange and unappealing to someone who was otherwise ("otherwise," being not a cook in an Asian restaurant, not a monk in the temple, and not a person who frequented it). I was curious where it came from, but was shaken out of it when the monk approached, after having turned all the lights on. I told him who I was, and he said I had probably spoke to someone else who wasn't there at the moment, but that I was expected. He turned to leave into another room while I was still asking some questions, so I cut myself off and just stared, politely, going through what I could possibly ask in my mind.
I shouted back if I could go up to the alter. The monk, who's name I didn't even ask, and whom I didn't even bother to tell my name to, didn't object. So I went, and I sat, and I thought: man, I wish I had my camera.
Sitting and having a long staring contest with the biggest Buddha in the room, I was forced to throw the fight when I heard the quiet russles of the same monk in his robes behind me, coming up, and sitting next to me. A younger monk followed behind him, getting some water and setting it down beside me. I thought briefly that the younger monk must have been who the older monk went to the other room for, just in case this crazy falang had an itch to steal whatever fake gold that may have ordained the place. It was expected; shit, I've never even gone into an Asian grocery store without getting the stink eye at least once; at least until they realized I'm a regular, but even that takes time. I'm sure the monks were nothing like that, but if worse came to worse, maybe they would bust out huge scabberds and crunchy kung fu moves. If only.
Our consciousness' must have been attuned when I asked the next question:
Monk: you know meditatAaation? Me: How do you meditate?
a beat.
I had a pretty good idea, but thought it was necessary to fill up all the awkward whiteness in the room.
The monk spoke strangely similar to Uncle in his explanation of things: same attitude, same mindfulness, same cheery "huuuuuus" in his voice and laughs. He was pushing hard against whatever abstractions prevented him from thinking in Laos to speaking in English. It was broken, but understood - by me, anyway.
Monk: When wuee meditate, wuuee burreeed in fo times. In anda out. You tink. You tink of bureeding. So you reelacs bawdee.
Me: Do I have to sit any particular way? (why I used "particular"?)
Monk: You sit enywuAY comfertable. You put ahms in furont like dhis. Bureed in, bureed out. Foget all. Den, aftah fo time to reelacs, wuee bureed in and say, Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu long and suLOWly; aftah bureed out, go Doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhh.
Me: hmm. That's sounds tough.
Monk: You try. You try!
Me: Okay, I'm gonna try. Okay, here I go.
It was nice to legitimately not have to think about the things I have to think about. Usually people say they can't meditate because then they think of all the things they have to do. Personally, I think they haven't thought long enough otherwise. Only then can you find a kind of ease in being able to just forget about burdens. Because man can they be a bother. Believe you me, it's nice, especially when you think as long, and obsessivly about things as I do. So long in fact that you're constantly irritated, tired, anxious, or whatever. Maybe you understand, maybe you don't. Maybe it doesn't matter. But I did it. I tried to "did" it.
It was hard the whole way through and I knew it would be. I was constantly distracted by my own physical pains of sitting, the chimes of electronic Christmas music heard from the outdoor pagoda the monks had strung lights around, and my own sufficating, uncontrolled breathing. I needed to practise more kung fu. I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried, and I wondered if the monk was watching me, or meditating himself. I opened my left eye, forgetting the monk was sitting on my right, and wandered onto the Buddha, onto the burnt incense, onto a dish full of steamed food - that's where the smell came from. I wondered if it was Mommy's.
Monk: Heeheehee; how you do? Good?
Me: It's hard.
Monk: when you meditate, you try tink of aeah (air) going in nose, to STOmack, and you bureed out, and tink of aeah come out. Dat waaiee, you foget.
Me: what do you say again? Budoh?
Monk: Budoh. You bureed in, Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu, and out dddoooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
I tried breathing in while saying Bu, sounding obviously squeaky and obnoxiously loud; the monk on the other hand, held perfect pitch, and his voice wasn't at all high and whispey like mine. It was incredible. That that kind of range existed at all.
Monk: if too haahd, you bureed in and tink - tink of Buuuuuuuuuuuuuu. Bureed out, say, ddddddoooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhh. you do.
Me: *Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu* Doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Time passed.
Monk: Okay?
Me: I have to stretch, I'm so stiff. My legs hurt!
I thought I was good at kung fu, AND flexible, but apparently I needed work sitting still and eating more bitter.
Monk: eets hahd! When you meditate and you tink, when you feel, you focas on place. So you tink of nose, den you feel pain on leg, you tink tink tink about leg. Tink tink tink. pain GONE! Take long tiiiimmmee. but you do! Some time, bug walk on you - deedeedeedee - you feel on ahm, o face. you want to take off. No, you let go. Go away, some time you open eye to see if bug dare, but it gone! Still feel it! Turick! Just focas, til it go way! That meditation! First you do ten minutes, and den fifteen! Den HOUR! If you do hour! You gurate! Take puractise!
I imagined all the fat heads who might have tried meditation before me because their book club, or first wives club or whatever said the View said it was awesome and great. I also wondered how long they lasted. Why all this xenocentrism? I'll never know.
Monk: Buddha say, have turee baskets, one basket fo bawdee. Need to understand dhis first. Buddha say know bawdee to know self, to understand awders. When we know how bawdee works, what painful, we understand awders. Have compassion fo awders. We know Bawdee, we know self. understand self befo awders. Know pain, know pain awders have. Be mind full.
Me: Can I come back?
Monk: YAH!
From there I left for work, making it just under the wire. Kids were crowding the hall, shouting, "WEEZEE!!! You're late! We were waiting for you!!" That was that. I went to work, inconvieneced some Mandarin speakers by eating at their restaurant too late, went to a staff party, was threatened by some black guy for hitting on his girlfriend, and drove some people home. Budoh.
Mommy is very involved in her husband's Buddhist community, though she isn't Buddhist herself. I remember the odd nights in the summer when monks would come into the kitchen to say hello, and me always wishing they'd give me a bracelet they strung together themselves. I still wish for one. I think, as much as she can, Mommy goes to temple, or calls temple, or brings food to temple whenever she can, though she'd never admit it. I'm not fanatically religious myself, but there are times I find myself looking for some anthropomorphic god where I want one to be. It's good to feel connected. Always, and to something. Mommy once told me, that when it came to her and religion, or a way of life, or Buddhism, that sometimes it's good to have those things, even if they're not real. It's good to have someone to talk to, somewhere to think, somewhere to be. "I don't believe it," she would say, "But I believe it. Y'know, Skinny boi?"
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