We visited a lot of Buddhist temples on the trip. And a bit
like the teachings of the Buddha, it took a while before they made sense to me.
I found myself impressed by the ornate decor and architectural splendor but at
the same time not captivated by the experience. A few days into the trip, something
began to click for me, as if I’d stopped trying to figure out the sound of one
hand clapping and started to feel rather than trying to understand.
Walking through Buddhist temples in on my first day Chiang Mai, I struggled to relate to the physical monuments to Buddhist legends or to underlying principles.
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The jet lag wasn’t helping me. I also wasn’t seeing the structures
reflect the scriptures in the way Catholic Churches are often organized around the
struggle of a saint or an apparition of the Virgin Mary. My quick searches on
Wikipedia usually led me to a king who wanted a bigger temple than the king
across the mountains.At times the decor felt garish. “Another golden Buddha?”
Became a common catch phrase for temple visits.
Then there were rules that ranged from reasonable things
like taking off your shoes and covering your knees to outlandish ones
prohibiting bleeding. Or rather anyone who could routinely go through a
specific type of bleeding.
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This prohibition generated a lot of guffaws among fellow
Flashpackers that overshadowed any spirituality we might have found.
Maybe I didn’t appreciate the temples until I needed one.
Because I did have a number of “What am I doing here?” moments during the trip.
Travel is not particularly natural to me. I struggle with the consumption that
it implies and the inequalities that it reinforces. Thinking too much about
these things can get in the way of the patience needed to let a trip’s
experiences unfold. The fourth day of our tour had a very temple-heavy schedule
- our morning was made up of visiting the Jade, White, and Blue temples. The sometimes-driving
pace of the trip left me at times wondering “Am I really going to spend more
than a week wandering through temples with people I barely know?”
I was trying to talk myself down from this at the Jade
Temple, Wat Phra Kaew. I took my shoes off and walked in to find that the
temple carpet felt calming on my bare feet. I found an unexpected comfort in
gazing at a jade statue of a Buddha holding a marble inside a red and gold
wooden display case. It took the edge off my travel anxiety.
The Blue Temple was similar. The ornate dragons at the
entrance looked like life-sized plastic toys.
But once inside, the towering
porcelain-white Buddha set behind imposing columns and a backdrop of blue and
white patterned walls seemed to immediately hush the chatter of crowds and the
buzz of motorcycles outside. It was starting to make sense.
The White Temple was an entirely different experience. Wat
Rong Khun is a sprawling compound of white buildings with mirror encrusted
ornaments that create a Liberace-esque showiness.
It at times reminded me of the White Witch’s Castle from Narnia. You reach the main building by crossing a bridge over a small lake.
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The entrance looks like an invocation of hell - represented
by disembodied concrete hands that rise up from the ground, which I gather is a
reminder that reaching paradise requires avoiding temptation.
The interior of this building was painted in mural graffiti
style with the Buddha’s likeness melding together with Michael Jackson, Darth
Vader, and Neo from The Matrix. (Pictures aren’t allowed in this part of the
temple.) It reminded me of how Catalán architect Antoni Gaudi pushed
the boundaries of typical religious symbolism at the Sagrada Familia church in
Barcelona. I admit the effect was not always attractive and at times struck me
as garish and over the top. But it was very interesting and intellectually
provocative in ways I had not expected. This was not your grandpa’s Buddhist
temple. And this was definitely not just another golden Buddha.
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