Almost the new year....

During the time after the initial 12 days, I was slowly entering into a more functional state of being. With about 20 hours a day in bed or lying on the cool floors, I was able to use the handful of other hours finally doing other things besides sleeping and hallucinating. I was able to leave the house more, and when at the temple, I wasn't just lying down or resting all the time. I was able to check email more frequently and I was also able to start teaching the students in the community more often. I only had the strength to be out for an hour here or there, but it sure was nice! The students were very eager to have me back also as you can see from the photos.





Songkran was rapidly approaching; only a few days away, and I was finally feeling up to participating in all the events and decorating of the temple.

It seemed that it was perfect timing for me when I was able to start helping out for Songkran; the major cleaning and decorating had been mostly finished, and now it was the smaller things that needed to be done…

In this photo Leang, some of the villagers and I are preparing sets of candles and incense and gold foil for worship during Songkran.

One of the early days of my mental return to humanity, I walked to the temple and observed this:



















I was so confused….I had no idea what they were doing bringing all this dirt by the truck load to the temple and dumping it right in the middle of the lawn.

There was no one to ask, Leang and Lout had went with one of the trucks to one of the near by farms and were helping on the other end, digging up the dirt and loading it into the trucks. I sat and watched for awhile. Everyone was so happy and helping out. Old men and teenage boys were unloading the dirt and shoveling it into the pile. The young boys were trying to organize the dirt into a mound, the old women and teenage girls were stringing flowers, and the young girls were bringing the flowers to old women and teenage girls that they then would string together and arrange into decorations. I wasn’t sure what the flowers were for at this point, but frankly, sitting on the nice cold floor and making garland with flowers sounded right up my ally as to something I could do in my condition. Ma showed me what to do, and how to make the decorations, so for awhile I was able to help out.

Never before had I witnessed any religious institution dump dirt on the lawn before a festival. In fact, the only time I had actually seen a business dump dirt like this is during construction or re-modeling, but as I recall during those times, they usually are using trucks to take the dirt away….not bring it. Wat Bonpong is in a state of re-construction and re-modeling but that has been going on for awhile, and I’m pretty sure the Abbot has his hands full enough and wouldn’t decided to start working on the construction of temple during Songkran….unless it was part of Songkran? Basically I had no idea about this dirt and what it was doing here.
This is an amazing little while spider hiding in a Champa flower that I discovered while stringing flowers for the dirt mound.

Late in the afternoon Leang and Lout returned, and with them came understanding as to what all this meant.

People through out their lives come to the temple, some multiple times a day. Perhaps in a city children will walk by the temple and visit the Buddha statue on their way to school, and then again in the evening on their way home. In Chiang Mai, if I was at Wat Phan Aon in the early morning teaching Phra Sanan, often I would see the same men and women come each day to the temple and pay their respects to the Buddha and to the monks. In the evening, some of those same people would attend chanting and meditation with us on their way home from work. Leang and Lout emphasized to me that people are always coming to the temple and then walking away, they said they are always carrying the earth away from the temples on their shoes as they leave.
The Buddhist people come to the temple after walking and working all day and never stand in one place long enough for soil to collect on their shoes, so when they arrive to the temple their shoes are clean. But after arriving and visiting for a bit, their shoes naturally collect soil from the temple, and when they leave, they carry it away with them. It is tradition to build these giant dirt piles in order to give that soil back the temple. I just assumed all temples decorate them like this too, but when driving to the town on the motorbike to get my bandage changed at the local hospital we passed another temple. The people there were building their dirt pile as well, but there were no decorations. When I arrived back at Wat Bonpong, I asked Lout about this. He told me that he has never seen a temple decorate it like Wat Bonpong, and he love it; he said he was astounded by the love and dedication of this community, and it reminded him of his home. He said that in Chiang Mai with all the tourism and the universities located there he felt he lost a sense of community, and this makes him feel really great to be in a place with so much loving kindness. Once again, we are all blown away by these people here and all the unity the Abbot has worked toward among these people and their temple.















The entry for Songkran is next....