Twirl: With Simon in the Temple

It had been a while since I had exposed Simon to the carnal temptations at the Casnovy a Go-go bar, so it was about time I took him to a temple for compensation and penance to introduce him to the spiritual life in Thailand.

So we recently went to the Wat Chaimongkron, a stone's throw from the aforementioned bar located on the Pattaya Tai. This Wat covers a spacious area with all kinds of buildings, of which the bot, the wat and the bell tower are very beautiful in architecture. The library, surrounded by water to keep insects away from the holy books and scriptures, is also an attractive building, apparently of a fairly recent date.

But actually we had not come for the external appearance but for the content of Buddhism. Now you don't get to know much about that in the temple if, as is the case with both of us, you don't speak the language, so we had prepared ourselves thoroughly by reading a nice book about Buddha. In the introduction to that book we had read that writing a book about Buddha is actually a very un-Buddhist activity, because it is about what he has to say in terms of insights and not about his life course. In addition, Buddha also emphasizes independent thinking: "Don't just take anything from what others say, not even from what I, Buddha, say myself!" , for how can we keep this commandment without breaking it at the same time?

Fortunately, we both love paradoxes, such as the one we recently encountered: "If you try to fail and you succeed, then what?"

We looked around us and saw images of Buddha everywhere in all shapes and sizes and shapes, countless images, and we shared our deep doubts about what was more important to the average Buddhist: the insights of Buddha or the exaltation of his person. I raised the question of why Buddhists tend to blow up images of Buddha to gigantic proportions, and Simon put forward the theory that it had to do with elephants: Surely the most perfect man, as Buddha was, must be greater than the greatest animal, right? I admitted that there was something to it, but I also had to conclude that we were unable to verify this theory and that we had also fallen into the trap of appearances again.

We noted with delight that Buddhism is not, strictly speaking, a religion, for Buddha never speaks of gods; in fact, at its core, it is simply an attractive conception of life with a very appealing ethic of detachment, moderation, tolerance and truthfulness. A bit like our ancient stoicism, I would say.

“Just that belief in reincarnation, isn't that absurd?” I brought in. Simon didn't answer but looked at me with a piercing look. Suddenly I realized that I had made a huge blunder and the shame flew on my cheeks. Simon gave me the final blow: "And you say that to a man with whom you amble through Pattaya thirty years after his death!"

I know when I'm defeated. I was defeated. In my defense, I argued that Buddha himself was not even so sure that reincarnation really existed, according to his statements in the Kalama Sutta, but there was no escaping it. bless us by the monk on duty, who looked remarkably like Antoine Bodar, but with a bald head.

The same gooey and effect lurking appearance. But Antoine is still alive so there could be no question of reincarnation there.

So we had made a lot of merit with that incense! With tasty anecdotes about the lucrative indulgence trade and other popish naughtiness, we left the temple and treated ourselves to a nice cold beer on a terrace on Beach Road. When that was over, it was time to say goodbye. “I hear you are moving to Bangkok. Well, I'll miss you here!" said Simon. I replied that I would miss him too, that I was going to Amsterdam first for a month or so and that it was not at all impossible that he, Simon, would turn up in Bangkok in the future, not at all excluded, right….?

He sighed slightly, looked at me melancholy and nodded. We shook hands in silence and went in different directions.