Monday,
January 05, 2003 -
Buying Karma (Part 1)
Buddha
attained enlightenment at the age of thirty-five.
Before that, as Siddartha, he was a Hindu prince living in a palace with
a beautiful, loving wife. He left
these things behind and traveled impoverished and wandering through life in
search of its meaning.
As anyone
might--though somewhat egocentrically--I tend to imagine parallels between the
path I’ve lead and that of Siddartha on his quest. However, I can almost be sure that when he left this
material world, it wasn’t to squander and revel in the debauchery that is the
city of Pattaya. Though who’s to
say that as a Prince, Siddartha didn’t have a harem of Hindu hotties with
which to practice the kama sutra when he grew weary of his wife’s
company.
So I find
myself here, where it all began for my wife and me.
Now, some of you have questioned how can I remain married in such a town
full of near-naked and ah-so willing women.
Well, I could go into details and tell you how Jum has passed all the
tests and stuck by my side when the chips were down, but rather I’ll just say
that I still think of her when I go to the bathroom, and—more
importantly—that I’m a cheap bastard. These
nymphs cost money. Frankly, when
living with a mia Thai one really isn’t possessed by the
prurient urgency that inspires one to engage such hedonistic activities and
herein lies both the dilemma and the revelry of spending a long time in the city
of short-times.
There are
both positive and negative aspects to being married in this modern day Gomorrah,
but as in all things there is neither good nor evil: only essential,
juxtaposing elements—ever shifting—in the balance of a fool’s journey
through life.
It was New
Years Day: a time for renewal, reflection, and seeking direction.
The mia luang, or first wife, and I set off for the temple atop of
what the local farang population call “Buddha Hill.”
A brief stop at the tam boon store—for lack of Jum remembering
the actual name of the establishment—allowed us the purchase of an orange
bucket wrapped in cellophane and filled with sundries among other hygienic
essentials that was to be our donation for the local prah (monks).
We also picked up an envelope into which we sealed not only prayers but
also some money so as to boost the signal on our temporary leased line to the
help-desk of the Fates.
The wat
was crowded today, as New Year’s is always a popular day for tam boon.
Tam Boon literally translates to “do good.”
Tam boon also equates in some eyes to the entering of a virtual
contract of karma where the “do gooder” hopes to receive well upon
certain requests made during this spiritual transaction.
It might help
for some of you to understand why a farang, like me has any interest in
such things like this. So, at this
time I’ll backtrack slightly for those who haven’t already heard this story
and explain how I became involved in Buddhism, karma, and maw doo
(fortunetellers).
Some three
years ago, as those to be wed are apt to do in Thailand, Jum and I ventured out
with the family stacked four to a motorbike so as to seek the clerical wisdom of
the prah who would divine the most auspicious date for our union to
commence. Given that we only had
allowed less than a week to select from, we were destined to miss out on a
certain amount of luck that may have been forthcoming on another, more suitable
day than the fateful 31 Dec BE 2042 (Buddhist Era) on which the union did in fact take place.
At the time
of this short consultation—though my poor ankles smashed between my ass and
the hard tile thought it an eternity—it is customary to undergo a brief
interview and receive some premonition for one's future based upon what I—at
the time—determined to be aspects of astrology, numerology, and a hefty does
of a creative imagination or intuition—if you will.
Now, regardless of whether one believes in any of this—and I’m a
borne skeptic—the story advances and hopefully it is rather readable.
“Bad luck.
You will be very sick next year when you are thirty-three.”
My wife translated. “Also,
if you don’t have a child, you will receive a large sum of money when you are
thirty-four. Your luck will change
at thirty-five.” These were the
succinct yet potent premonitions of the prah.
“Oh,
that’s just lovely,” I thought. “I
sure as fucking Christ hope that doesn’t come true—well the first
part at least.”
In short:
My luck was a bit off those next two years.
I was blessed with an un-healthy dose of “the bug” to which I nearly
succumbed at thirty-three and forced into an early retirement.
I didn’t have any kids, but I received a healthy sum of cash by luckily
having been covered by two Japanese health insurance policies at thirty-four.
During and throughout my tribulations, I was constantly pleading with Jum
to have her mom find and re-consult with this elder only to find that he was
dead, which I considered to be rather ominous indeed.
More
recently, while Jum was in Isaan (Northeast Thailand) this past December
having her wisdom teeth out for less than a tenth of what it would have cost in
the good ‘ole US of A. She
consulted with a maw doo who was able to shed a little more “light”
on the situation being in the live state that he was.
This particular maw doo was renowned throughout their small city
for having cured an insane woman whose mind had been shot from a traumatic case
of unrequited love. He’d brought
her back from a babbling idiot to one of the family again.
Strangely,
when asked about me, he didn’t say that Jum had a cheap-ass husband who’d
rather go to Pattaya than pay for anesthesia; but rather he divined without any
assistance from the wife that I’d been very sick, but more so that I’d been
possessed by a phi, or evil spirit, some five years prior which was hell
bent on destroying me body and soul.
Upon hearing
this, my first thought was: “God damn
you E. Diddy!”
Now, and
again regardless of your beliefs, I’ll tell you of a dream I’d had some five
years ago while sleeping alone in my bed high on the hill above the extinct
crater of Leahi in the tropical paradise where I spent my twenties,
beautiful Hawaii. In this dream, I
was walking through my ex-girlfriends house, a troubled house in Manoa into
which I’d rarely ever stepped foot and even less been invited to. Horrible things had happened there and to the family, which
had suffered much tragedy both before and during the time in which I knew them.
Yet, they endured. Koichi, the father, was a religious zealot and had been known
to not so kindly refer to me as the Devil.
Why I was in
this house I’m not sure. The
recent re-kindling of this ever-doomed relationship perhaps had reawakened
something in my sub-conscious. As I
walked through the small home looking around at this and that—for I never had
spent more than fleeting, midnight moments of passion there—a dark presence
had surrounded the house with its aura. And
in this dream, it focused its attention on me and pursued me out of the house,
up the hill, and into my waking state. It
wanted my soul. It wanted to kill
me. It had entered my body.
At the time, I’d dismissed it as a bad dream, an ill-omened one albeit,
but merely a dream.
Perhaps, in
this girl’s constant pushing me away, which I had seen as mere slut-driven
insanity, she was trying to protect me from this evil or, perhaps I was the
vehicle through which this darkness was lured away from that haunted place.
Maybe, she’ll thank me one day, or not…
“Do you
have a picture of this man,” said the maw doo?
Jum fumbled around and dug my Bank of America ATM card from her purse. The handed him the card with my bald and smiling likeness on its face. It was her only picture of me.
He
rubbed his hands on the card, spat on it (a ritual to exorcize the spirit), and
said, “The phi is no longer with him. Yet, this man should stop
drinking. There’s something
here.” He had his hand over his abdomen.
I was uncanny that Jum hadn’t mentioned my recent and not so different
diagnosis from my doctor at UCLA.