Samsara

Sex, Religion, and the Death of a Forest

David Adams

Samsara: From the verb root, samsri: "passing through a series of states." Envisioned as a cyclical affair in the Buddhist religion; a wheel of existence. Birth and death. The changeable and unsatisfactory nature of the world. The state from which liberation (nirvana) is ultimately achieved.

Inspired by the true story of the Thai monk, Pra Prajack Khuttajitto.

FIRST DRAFT

This manuscript has not been edited by an outside professional. Your feedback on grammar, content, style, and plot structure are requested before it goes to press.

Copyright 2002 by David W. Adams.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Contact: Institute for Cultural Ecology * P.O. Box 991 * Hilo, HI 96721. info@cultural-ecology.com.

Introduction

In 1927, Hollywood filmmakers Ernest Schoedsack and Merian Cooper braved malaria-filled forests to capture some of the earliest live footage of Northeast Thailand. At the time, few farangs (westerners) had penetrated the heart of the pernicious jungle that spanned from the coast of Vietnam, through Thailand, and into Burma.

Cooper would later go onto make Hollywood classics such as King Kong, Mighty Joe Young, and The Quiet Man. Still, he regarded Chang--the story of Thai man against nature--as his finest work. Little did he know that he filmed a doomed forest.

Rice is the only crop.

Should it fail,

the little family will grow hungry

. . . Oh Buddha help to protect the crop.

Cooper’s subtitles tell the plight of a solitary family living deep in the Thai jungle. In front of his bamboo hut, Kru the Farmer conducts an evening head count. He takes stock of his wife, two children, the family monkey, a watchdog with pups, and a water buffalo. They stand united: an island of humanity against an endless forest. As the last rays of the sun filter through the canopy the buffalo is secured, chickens penned, and puppies carried to an elevated house. “Tigers like dog meat,” our filmmakers remind:

. . .and they like it young and tender.

Kru’s wife pulls the ladder and severs the link between humans above and wilderness below. With the family secure, the dreaded creatures of the night begin to stir: a sun bear with cub emerges from the cavity of a deadfall, a porcupine with extended quills lumbers carelessly across a clearing, a monstrous boa constrictor begins his sinuous evening journey, and, in cue with
villainous background music, the tiger stalks his unseen prey.

Tiger-the bully of the jungle . . . Cruel . . . bloodthirsty.

With the approach of the tiger, Kru’s water buffalo breaks free and flees to a nearby river. In a rage, the tiger follows. "For such is the law of the jungle . . .”

Death to the weaker, food to the stronger.

The death of the family water buffalo leads Kru to declare war on the Thai jungle. Consulting the elders at a nearby village, he explains his mission to rid Isan (Northeast Thailand) of fearsome beasts. “Last night the tiger took my buffalo,” Kru laments. “Many leopards prey upon my stock. One leopard I slew. But there are tracks of more. Give me many men O Chief. To help me.”

The council allocates village men to help Kru conquer the jungle. Wiry battalions dig pits, construct snares, and set camouflage nets. Banging loudly on brass gongs, they herd the animals toward their traps.

Drive them out brothers, Drive them O brave men, O strong men.

Monkeys watch from above as a boa constrictor is pulled from its den and clubbed to death. A leopard tumbles into a pit and is gunned down. Finally, a tiger is chased into a net. A man takes aim and fires two bullets into its chest.

We be mighty hunters Kru.

. . .a fellow hunter boasts.

With the defeat of wilderness, Kru turns his attention to the netherworld. He fashions a bamboo dream catcher and hangs it over his rice paddies as protection against wayward ghosts. The day of the rice harvest arrives to Kru’s small corner of Isan. He and his family head to the field on this, the most anticipated morning of the year.

But alas . . .

Trampled . . . Trampled!

A chang . . . a giant chang!

Wild elephants. Chang.

The lone beast that Kru has yet to conquer lays waste to the family farm. The distraught farmer returns to the Council of Elders to plead his case. “And coming through the jungle O wise men, everywhere I saw tracks of chang, it must be that the Great Herd has returned--the dread destroyers are once again on the warpath!”

His plea is met with laughter and scorn. No one believes the Great Herd has returned. In Hollywood fashion, the elephants arrive to ransack the village. Chaos ensues. Houses are destroyed as men and women flee the compound.

“In answer to the jungle’s challenge--they build a huge elephant trap or kraal.” The surrounding jungle is set ablaze. Disguised as moving bushes, the hunters usher the herd towards the trap.

Out swords! Out spears. Out O brave men. Help us Lord Buddha!

In mass, the Great Herd is forced violently into captivity. “Our troubles are over Chantui,” Kru says to his wife. “We’ve killed the tigers . . . and the leopards. And when the little Chang grows up we will make him work for us . . . yes--all is well. Praise Lord Buddha.”

Cooper and Shoedsack’s final, if not haunting, observation:

Never completely victorious,

never completely defeated . . .

such is man’s fate in the jungle so he fights on . . .

For first was the jungle.

Always will be the jungle.

From the beginning until the end of Time it stretches . . .

the Unconquered . . . the Unconquerable.

This is a story about how the descendants of Kru

conquered the unconquerable: about humans versus nature—

sex, religion, and the death of a forest in Thailand.

Part One

1

February 10, 1991

Get your ass out of Bangkok!

This city isn’t Thailand; it’s hell.

If you stay you will be ripped off or worse.

Just get on a bus and get out now!

Tate McNeil shared the epithet he encountered above an airport toilet. His two friends, Red and Adelaide Greg burst into punctuated laughter--as though a big guy going to the bathroom were the punch line. Gunnar Ray, features writer for the Bangkok Times, listened attentively. His query on how three Australians ended up in the VIP box of Thailand’s kickboxing championship had led to a story.

Tate finished the remaining eight ounces of his Singha beer. “So you some kind of airplane gunner?” he said to the reporter.

Gunnar sighed. He had been in this cockpit before. “No. Just a guy named after his Norwegian grandfather.”

“So if I tell you how I ended up here,” Tate continued, “that means you’re me new mate. And you can’t be tellin’ nobody else about it.”

Gunnar clicked off his tape recorder. He had yet to reveal that he worked for the Times. His assignment was to generate a special interest piece on kickboxing champion Khun Taktan. Taking a story off the record would do little for his assignment. He stared up at the lengthy Australian, sighed, and agreed to the terms. “Mates.”

Standing next to the Thais in attendance, Gunnar felt statuesque, even somewhat muscular. At 5’10 inches tall, 165 pounds, he seldom looked up to anybody in Asia. Next to Tate and his mates, however, his physical prowess diminished. Tate hovered five inches above him and had tattooed arms twice the size of his own. Gunnar had been in Thailand so long that the sensation of being next to such a physique unnerved him. His sharp, prominent nose--a feature scarcely noticed in his homeland, earned him the greatest of praise in the rice fields. His high cheekbones and blondish appearance made him a fair-skinned beacon in a sea of black hair and brown eyes. The Thais gravitated to him; pulled by the mystique of distant lands and a journey they would know only through his colorful stories. When on assignment in remote villages, he was often told he resembled the English soccer players displayed on posters. But when he spoke, he established that he was more academic than not. He was fluent, polite, and ultimately sympathetic. He had mastered enough of the Thai language for his dry, circumspect humor to be enjoyed by all.

Times sportswriter Gary Simons usually covered the bloody bouts featuring kickboxing champion Khun Taktan. For unknown reasons, however, the fighter had personally requested Gunnar Ray for the match. The twenty-six-year-old reporter knew little about the sport. Thankfully, a fight program tipped him off that boxing was measured in rounds, not quarters.

Two months earlier, he had interviewed villagers who suffered from strychnine poisoning when an unregistered gold mine released toxins into a nearby stream. His story on a province-wide tree-planting effort in Chiang Mai had earned him national acclaim. During his three years at the Times, the young writer had quickly made a name for himself. But, as his editor reminded him when handing over VIP tickets to the match, “Kickboxers sell newspapers. If Khun Taktan wants you to cover his fight, then you do exactly as he tells you.”

Gunnar could never have imagined that his newfound acquaintance with the Champ would blossom into a friendship. Equally improbable was the notion that he would call upon that friendship to save an endangered forest in Northeast Thailand and villagers threatened with relocation from their ancestral lands. An activist monk by the name of Ajahn Piko was already organizing a resistance to the government’s scheme of evicting poor villagers, clearing the forest, and planting eucalyptus for export to Japan. The monk had penned a letter to Gunnar Ray announcing a protest and calling on the reporter to publicize his cause. The government’s relocation plan went by the name Kau Jau Kau--Land Distribution Program for the Poor Living in Degraded Forest Areas.

Overseen by a bureaucracy first assembled to prevent communist insurgency in the 1970's, the end of the war threatened to dismantle an entrenched power structure. Forest reserves became the new targets. Five million villagers (ten percent of the country’s population) that happened to live in or around the reserves were scheduled for eviction. For Gunnar Ray, rubbing shoulders with the nation’s most-recognized athlete would not go un-rewarded when it came time to publicize the plight of poor villagers and the threatened forests they lived in.

Tate continued his story, a tourist oblivious to the woes of native Thailand. “So I gets’ me self here from Nepal three weeks ago, a few days before these pukes show up. So I get off the plane and find one of them little holes on the ground they call toilets in this crazy country. I’m pissin’ in that little hole by me ankles and see that message written plain as day on the bathroom wall . . . you know, about getting my ass out of Bangkok. Anyway, I paid no attention to it and took a taxi to Sukhumvit road. I headed into a nice hotel bar to have a drink before looking for a place to stay. That’s when I met this sheila. She just reached out and grabbed me by the arm as I sat at my barstool. I’m thinking, 'hey, this is my kind of country.' She was kinda pretty: lots of make-up, long eyelashes, and full lips. So she invites me home from the bar, she does.

Now you gotta understand, I was in Nepal before this and sick for a long time. You know, had the three-month shits mate. I’m still sick. If I lose five more pounds I’ll have Feed the World looking after me. There were no women in Nepal either. I mean I saw women, but they refused to even walk on the same side of the street as me. Hindu thing. So like I said, this Thai woman with caked on make-up seemed like the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Tate’s friends again broke into loud, embarrassing laughter. Behind him, a pair of Thai executives cast incredulous looks at the proud storyteller.

“As we go into her house, a shopkeeper smiles at me. She just stops her sweeping and smiles. I didn’t think much about it and went right in. Nice place too. Gal had lots of money . . . not what I expected. Pictures of her parents and three brothers hung on the walls. She wasn’t in the photos, but she had her own album that she wanted me to look at. We spoke mostly in hand signals and the thirty Thai words I knew. I studied the language before coming to Bangkok. The only book I could find in all of Katmandu was a pocket-sized read called “Making Out in Thai.” It’s a phrasebook mate--but one printed in 1969 during the Vietnam War when you Americans were bombing the hell out of the Viet Cong from Thai air bases.

Anyway, me entire language book is based on helping some pomp American soldier pick-up a Thai prostitute for a reasonable price. I can ask a store clerk for extra large condoms but I can’t even get a waitress to serve me a glass of water because of this book.”

“Unless that waitress happens to be a prostitute!” Adelaide Greg smiled. He gave Tate another smack on the shoulder.

Red howled in agreement.

Tate continued. “After I asked this girl all of the questions in the phrasebook that don’t have to do with sex, warts, or supporting the war effort, she waves at me to follow her up a flight of wood stairs. Next thing I know, I’m sitting on the bed in her room. She pops in a music cassette and here we are alone and I can’t even pronounce her name. So me missy lights a candle and places a long pillow in the center of the bed. You ever seen one of these things? They’re five foot long and look just like a soft penis!”

“A pildo . . .” Greg added.

“Aye!” Tate agreed. “Bloody pildo mate! So she tells me using hand signals that I’m on the left, she’s on the right, and the pildo is in the middle. My heart starts beating like crazy as this girl slides her hand down the stuffed penis and places it on my hand. I close my eyes and count from ten to one to calm myself. I start thinking about how your Magic Johnson just announced that he has AIDS and shit like that."

"It's getting better all the time!" Greg howled.

"Aye. So she yawned and kicked a leg over the pildo. Did I tell you about the women in Nepal mate? I thought to myself: 'Remember Magic Johnson: if she wants to play ball, keep it on the court.' I looked into her eyes and told her: ‘that pildo better stay between us missy!’
Testing my Thai language she said, "Khun pen puu chai . . . Chan pen puu chai duay."

I understood the "Khun" and the "Chan" parts of her sentence (“I” and “you”). And I knew I had heard “puu chai” before, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember what it meant? I nodded my head in agreement and said: 'I puu chai and you puu chai.' Her eyes lit up. She thought I approved of whatever she said. Her foot crossed over that pildo and rested on my shin. So I reach into my back pocket and fish out my phrasebook. 'Here's puu ying,' I said smiling. The book showed a Thai prostitute wearing a cut T-shirt. I pointed to it and said, "You puu ying." Taking the book, she sighed and flipped through it playfully, somewhat knowingly. She turned to the back page where the American stud is shaking hands with his newly purchased "puu ying." She tapped three times on the photo of the man. Then she said: ‘Him puu chai. Me puu chai duay.’

I paused for a moment and thought through her words. I looked past her painted eyes to her wide neck.”

“Tell him Tate!” a drunken Red grabbed at him.

“Bloody Adams apple mate.”

“You’re kidding . . .” Gunnar said.

Tate wiped off his chin in a manly gesture. “’You're a puu chai!’ I said to her. ‘You’re a bloody man!’ I grabbed this girl by the arm and it was like grabbing onto a bull’s rump. Have you ever been fishing for salmon and hooked into a lingcod? That’s what it felt like. I had me a lingcod and I had to get the hook out quick. Then I realized: ‘Hey, this guy could kick the living crap out of me with arms like that.' I jumped out of bed and sent that bloody pildo flying three feet in the air. I get’s me backpack. As I’m leaving the apartment I look at the photo of the three brothers hanging on the wall. ‘Just one of the boys eh?’

So as I’m leaving, I hear her sobbing in the living room. I go back in and tell her no hard feelings. That’s when she opened her purse and pulled out some tickets to a boxing match.”

“Tell him Tate,” Greg placed his arm around the shoulder of his friend. “Tell him who your missy is!”

“Khun Taktan mate! I was in the same bed as the kickboxing champion of the world!”

Gunnar’s eyes lit up. Visions of Tate on the cover of a tabloid paper surged through his mind. “Jesus Tate!” Gunnar said, shocked. “The guy is built like a brick shithouse. You really couldn’t tell?”

“Hey. I grew up on an outback-station herding cattle. Guys don’t dress up like women where I come from. It’s not like this crazy country where you see them on every corner. It never entered my head.”

Gunnar looked around nervously to see if anyone sat listening in. “I suggest you keep that story yourself,” he said, impressed by the tale. “There’s a reporter from the Bangkok Times lurking around here and he’s just itching to write a feature on Khun Taktan .”

“Aye.”

Gunnar continued. “If it makes you feel better, it happens all the time. German tourists take the “lady-boys” home thinking they’re the cock of the walk. Usually the “girls” have been on hormone pills for years. No offense Tate, but Taktan is still as manly as Thais get--makeup or not.”

“Well . . . Taktan and me are mates now.”

2

“In the green corner, weighing seventy-one kilograms and with a record of twenty-seven wins and three losses, tonight’s challenger, Parsit Sunkorn.”

The stadium crowd applauded politely: a few courtesy hoots and hollers showed they considered Sunkorn a worthy opponent.

“And, in the rose corner, weighing seventy-three kilograms, with forty-four wins and no losses, the Kickboxing Champion of the World, Khun Taktan.”

Hysteria!

Screams circled the arena like a thundering tornado. A satellite orbiting the equator registered the collective cheer from fans gathered around television sets. The Champ lowered her silk hood to reveal brown eyes rimmed with no-streak, racing blue Revlon eyeliner. On her cheeks, she went with a peach foundation. The transvestite turned kickboxer circled the ring and blew kisses into stands. If she were a mere publicity stunt, three of her former challengers would not be permanently disfigured: one with a shattered jaw, a second with a manmade harelip and a third with a collapsed nostril. And if she were feigning a lifelong desire to have her penis lopped off, she would not have applied three times for plastic surgery only to be refused. Khun Taktan was indeed a woman trapped in a kickboxing champion’s body: one who happened to beat the hell out of the opposite sex for a living.

As Taktan circled the ring, her ponytail bounced playfully from one muscular shoulder to the next. A pink gown adorned with rose petals and bright red lace covered her washboard stomach. When she wore a dress and heels, she knew a peace that passeth understandeth. In the ring, exposed for the world to see, she felt misplaced. Few in the audience knew the depths of her inner struggle; how far she would go to realize her dream of being a Revlon spokeswoman and Paris model. Still, the signs of stress were there. On her right shoulder, she wore a tattoo of a venomous snake severed in half by the protruding teeth of a human skull. Atop her dresser drawer, estrogen pills sat in wait. All she needed to realize her dream was a sympathetic doctor, an anesthesiologist, and a serrated knife.

Gunnar Ray, columnist at the nation’s largest English language newspaper, scribbled pre-fight observations in his notepad:

Tattoo: skull w/snake between teeth (see Freud).

Forty cross-dressers cheer behind the Champ’s corner.

Arena smells like an armpit (Why does Taktan want me

of all people, to cover his kickboxing match?)

Gunnar’s weekly column focused on religion, the environment, and travel. For one night, however, he would pretend to care about kickboxing transvestites and whiskey guzzling fans. At his editor's insistence he would, “generate a story worthy of the front page whether he liked it or not.” Sure, he had heard about Taktan--the most recognized athlete in the entire Kingdom. Who hadn’t? The international boxing community also knew of her greatness. With a single, ferocious, punch, she had punctured the eardrum of Chinese karate champion Wei Fu Nan in a “friendly” exhibition match.

Taktan circled the ring with twelve long stem roses in her hand. One by one she hurled them into the audience. She tapped her challenger on the shoulder and presented him with a flower. Sunkorn gripped the stem with disdain and dropped it to the mat. The insult ignited Taktan’s womanhood. Her painted nails penetrated the leather of her glove. The elbow that had detached a man's retina three fights earlier began to quiver. She picked up the flower and returned to her corner. Behind her chair, thirty of Bangkok’s most beautiful katuhys (transvestites) blew kisses from the stands. Taktan politely bowed and acknowledged her fan club--many had taken the night off from a cabaret show to lend their support. He turned his back and hurled the final red rose over his shoulder. The “lady-boys”--as Thai’s called them in broken English--fought like a pack of wild dogs to retrieve the champion’s favor. Taktan’s trainer waved a towel behind his head to prevent cheap perfume from irritating his eyes. The Champ sighed as the scent reached her. She longed to leave the ring and run wild with the pack.

With tape recorder in hand, Gunnar Ray left Tate and friends to seek “on the record” informants who might offer insight into Taktan’s world. He paused when he reached an effeminate man coddling a Yorkshire terrier. The unusual sight of a Thai with a pet dog was a story in itself. “May I ask how you know Khun Taktan?” the reporter asked.

“Look at my eyes,” the man answered, petting his terrier. “Can’t you see that we wear the same mascara? I’m his makeup artist Darling.”

Gunnar flashed his press credentials. “Is there anything you can tell me about the Champ that is newsworthy?”

The man's eyes followed the contours of Gunnar’s chiseled face to determine if he was friend or foe. “The relationship between a boxer and his make-up artist is sacred you know. But I can tell you we no longer use graphite to color Taktan's eyebrows for a fight. A year ago an opponent landed a punch on one of the half moons I created. The next six blows painted Taktan's forehead and cheeks with extra eyebrows. The newspaper photos upset him so much that he refused to talk to me for a week!”

Taktan's personal manicurist, overhearing the conversation, added the newsworthy observation that Taktan wore pink nail polish instead of his usual red when the numbers of the month and day added up to fourteen.

Pulitzer Prize winning stuff.

Taktan completed the pre-fight ritual. He kneeled and prostrated himself three times to the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. Catty Kung Fu music filled the arena as the two fighters touched gloves. The Champ bobbed and weaved. Seconds later, a flurry of blows brought the crowd noise to a crescendo. As the fighters unlocked, any last hints of this being a ‘gentleman’s sport’ were gone. Taktan delivered a front kick to Sunkorn’s stomach. The challenger responded with a wild hook that missed Taktan’s chin. Taktan countered with an elbow that snapped Sunkorn’s head back.

Gunnar returned to Tate’s side. “Did you see that elbow?” the Australian yelled.

“This is my first kickboxing match,” Red added. “How do you think Taktan would do against a black belt in karate?”

“Already been tried,” Gunnar answered without emotion.

“And?”

“Punctured his ear drum. All that wu wei stuff--soft overcomes the hard--cost the Chinese champion hearing in his left ear. Like I said: brutal.”

Round Three: Taktan erupted from his chair and kicked Sunkorn in the right thigh. With each blow, the crowd cried out “whoa” in celebration of the contact. The challenger retreated to the ropes. Bad decision. Taktan had a habit of breaking body parts on ropes: bones, teeth, cartilage and spirits. He unleashed left and right body kicks. Next, he hit the challenger with a straight jab to the head. Gunnar closed his eyes. Tate and his friends yelled louder than the Thais around them. “Crack!” The sound of Taktan’s elbow connecting with Sunkorn’s forehead reached into the upper seats. The eyes of the stunned challenger turned to glass. He collapsed on the mat. The katuhy section erupted in cheer. Concussion. Stitches to follow. Victory and still champion: Khun Taktan.

With blood on the mat, Taktan's bodyguard snaked past the cheering fans and tapped Gunnar Ray on the shoulder. "Off to interview the champ," Gunnar said with a hint of pride. "Pick up the Bangkok Times tomorrow if you want to know what he has to say about the fight."

Outside the locker room, Gunnar joined a hoard of Thai reporters waiting to interview Khun Taktan. What strange underworld had he been summoned into? He tried to get excited about meeting the most colorful persona in the entire Kingdom. However, the beating he once received from by a bully in front of thirty screaming ten-year-olds had vanquished his interest in pugilism. Taktan entered the hallway and answered a few brief questions. His bodyguard grabbed Gunnar by the shoulder and pulled him forcefully through the crowd and into the locker room.

The door shut and Taktan and the reporter stood toe to toe.

The twenty-eight year-old Taktan had two years on Gunnar. The reporter initiated the bow in respect for his senior status and the fact that next to the King, Khun Taktan was the most recognizable face in the country. The fighter smiled politely then hopped onto the massage table. In a single motion, he whipped off his shorts and wrapped a towel around his waste. The champ's masseuse entered the room and worked his muscular shoulders with steady thrusts. Gunnar sat pensive. He remained uncertain as to why he had been singled out. After ten minutes of bodywork, Taktan raised a hand and dismissed his masseuse. Gunnar Ray and a half-naked man remained alone in the room.

“Do you know why you are here?” Taktan asked in Thai while propping up into a sitting position.

“Only what my editor told me,” Gunnar answered. Your manager called the Times and requested that I come to the fight and interview you for a special interest story.”

“That's right. I can’t speak English, but my manager can. I told him I wanted a reporter who could write about me as a human being and not a sports animal. I trust the Times. Your editor Steve Barker recommended you. My manager translated the article you wrote about the villagers poisoned by an upstream gold mine. I want you to write about me with the same compassion that you wrote about the villagers . . . make me a human being; let my fans know that I am suffering."

An ingratiated Gunnar Ray smiled with the knowledge that his voice had reached the echelon of the Thai sports world. "But why not contact a Thai language newspaper?" Gunnar quizzed him. "The Times targets farangs and Thai college students forced to read our paper as homework."

“The Thai papers don't take me seriously. They showcase me like I am some freak put on this earth to entertain them. I want to teach them a lesson. Anyway, they will pick up the story once you have published it. I know and trust your editor. He covered some of my earliest fights. He helped convince the world that I was for real: not just some dress up queen with a lucky punch.”

Gunnar Ray felt himself tumbling into a world not of his own choosing. “As you already know," the reporter explained while pulling a pen from his shirt pocket. "I'm not a boxing specialist. I will try to be sensitive to what you tell me, but to be honest I don’t know much about the Thai sports world.”

“My decision is about freedom, not athletics. That’s why I want you to cover this.”

Gunnar waited for an explanation. Khun Taktan reached behind his head and untied an elastic band. Her hair unfolded to her shoulders.

“So what am I to share with the world?” the reporter asked.

“My real name is Weera Intira,” she said in an effeminate voice. “I’m from Udon Thani Province. You know. Isan.”

The champ reached into a pink fanny pack and retrieved a letter with the Bunrungrad Hospital emblem on the front. She pushed the document toward Gunnar. The reporter scanned the letter for discernable words. Taktan covered his face to hold back tears.

The lack of spacing between Thai words and the medical terms used made the letter difficult for Gunnar to read. "Some kind of rejection letter?" he mused, placing the paper on Taktan 's half-naked lap.

The champ looked up briefly and let out a muffled bawl. “Read it,” she said sniffling.

“I can’t,” Gunnar said, discouraged. “I can speak Thai better than I can read it. It will take me fifteen minutes to get through this letter and I still won't understand the technical terms.”

The reporter began his study of the language during his first trip to Thailand. He memorized a pocket-sized dictionary and lived with Thai villagers outside of Ubon Ratchathani. For six months, he studied under a farang monk at a forest temple during the days and returned to the village at night. At the temple, he discovered the full potential of harnessing the Buddha's teachings to help the environment. In the village, he became proficient in the spoken Thai language.

Taktan snatched the paper from Gunnar’s hands. “It says that the doctors won’t cut my damn penis off!”

Gunnar cringed: unsure of whether to take this as good or bad news.

Seeing the lack of understanding on Gunnar’s face, Taktan reached behind his back and whipped off his towel. The shocked reporter stared wide-eyed at the naked man. “It’s this fucking penis that makes me cry,” Taktan pointed. “Nearly everyone in my fan club had theirs cut off years ago and here I am prancing around the ring with a man’s penis attached to me.”

Perhaps sportswriters were used to coming face to face with the male organ. Taktan’s display, however, caught an anxious Gunnar off-guard. He shuffled through makeshift notes to avoid eye contact.

“This is the third rejection letter I’ve had in six months. The doctors say there could be emotional scars that may not heal if I remove it.”

Gunnar looked up. “Penis regret?”

Taktan continued to stare at his unwanted appendage. “I have to sleep with this damn thing in my bed every night. That’s an emotional scar. If they cared about my emotions they would just cut it off. But what they really care about are the threats my sponsors are making behind my back. They’re afraid if I cut it off I will lose interest in kickboxing.”

“So what’s your dream Taktan?" Gunnar said, reaching for a discarded towel and tossing it onto his privates. "If we are going to problem solve, I need to know what your dreams are?”

“Revlon,” he said, securing the towel to Gunnar's relief. “I want to be on magazine covers wearing Revlon makeup. And I hope to do the runway circuit in Europe as well. That’s my dream. Do you see the problem now?”

Gunnar hesitated. Apart from the fact that he had never seen a runway model with a eighteen-inch neck and a chest that could crack a walnut between the cleavage, he did not fully understand Taktan’s problem.

The champ continued. “It's obvious. I can’t wear an evening gown with this thing hanging from me. Would you buy a dress that hangs over a cock?”

Gunnar paused. He chose his words carefully. “Probably not. So are you telling me that you are ready to retire from kickboxing in the prime of your career?”

“Absolutely!” Taktan answered without hesitation. “If I can get a contract from Revlon, I would retire tomorrow. But I can’t even begin to approach them with this penis hanging from me.”

“Taktan, you’re the biggest sports hero in Thailand. I bet Revlon would jump at the opportunity to have you wear their mascara. Penis or not.”

“No. The penis has to go first. I will not be a freak.”

“Well, the way to get them aboard is to tell them that you will name their product as the inspiration for your career change. In exchange, demand a three-year contract. If I write this article you will definitely have the support from the populous to cut your penis off if you choose to. I believe that is an unalienable right--at least in America.”

“That’s why I’m telling you Gunnar. I’m ready to announce my retirement. This boxing title means nothing as long as I have a penis.”

“Okay, I’ll write your story. To confirm, are you giving the Bangkok Times the sole right to publish your announcement? This will be rather big news to my editor.”

“Just write my story Gunnar. I don’t want to get up in front of some damn television camera and hold a press conference. Just tell the world what my promoters have done to me. I want them to suffer for making me keep this penis.”

“I’ll stay up all night. The story will be done by tomorrow morning. If you change your mind, just call me. This is all off the record until 10:00 AM.

3

Wired from six cups of coffee and two hours of sleep, Gunnar Ray burst into Steve Barker’s office with story in hand.

“How about that fight Gunnar!” Steve said, reclining in his executive chair with a cigarette dangling from his lip. “I bet you are a boxing fan now!”

“Sure Steve. Watching a man get hauled off on a stretcher definitely improved my impression of kickboxing."

Gunnar reached into his pack and removed one of Taktan's boxing gloves. He tossed it onto his editor's desk.

"Here’s an autographed glove from Khun Taktan. And here’s your feature article.”

“Sweet Mary Mother of Jesus,” Steve said, admiring the signed red leather. “My son is going to go crazy! He’ll beat up his friend’s for years with this glove!"

Gunnar sighed. Unpleasant images of his poor showing in the fourth grade brawl returned. “Just make sure he doesn't cut off his penis."

"Not my boy!"

"Read the story. We have something here."

Gunnar returned to his desk to read his backlogged mail. Ten minutes later, Steve’s door burst open. He raised Gunnar’s story above his head and jumped up on a newsroom table. Twenty puzzled writers stared up from their coffee mugs as their crazed British editor hovered above them. “Fellow writers and friends, in my hand is the biggest story of the year . . . the past ten years . . . maybe the story of the century! Khun Taktan, kickboxing champion and Thailand’s greatest athlete, has announced his retirement. And, get this! He is going to cut his dick off and become a runway model.”

“Way to go Girl!" Anna from advertising yelled in support of Taktan’s decision. The newsroom filled with heated debate over the decision. Men cringed while women celebrated the decision as a victory for their gender. All the while, Steve stood above it all: holding tight to the year’s biggest story. He jumped down from the table and jogged toward the reporter’s desk. “Gunnar, you could win an award for this piece you know!” he said, glowing. “We are going turn this into a commemorative insert to be sold on news stands for years to come. We’ll translate it into Thai and set all kinds of sales records. There’s going to be newspapers calling you left and right trying to pick you up! You’re promoted!”

Gunnar shook his head in disbelief at the attention given a man who would cut his own penis off. “Steve, do you realize how incredibly unimportant this story is to me? It doesn’t mean dick, if you will excuse the metaphor. I write about nature and religion because I care about the future of people and the environment. Thailand was second only to Nepal in the rate of deforestation. HIV has reached epidemic proportions. And you’re standing on a table proclaiming that Khun Taktan’s penis is the biggest news of the decade? Trust me Steve, I’ve seen it. It’s not that big a story.”

“Lighten up Gunnar. You can still save the world with your features. But Almighty Father the advertising dollars alone for this release is going to be huge.”

“Look. Just promise me that I will get the space I need to cover religion and the environment. I've got a note here from Khun Sarawat from northern Thailand. He wants me to write a feature on the rampant logging in the Phetchabun Mountain Range. A major river with villages on either side winds past the base of the mountains. Sarawat is worried that without trees, the mountain won't be able to hold the water when the monsoon rains arrives. The villagers are in danger from flooding. Sarawat is the leading environmental spokesperson from the north you know. I think it’s important that we follow up on this. I need to be on a plane tonight. Give me three days to interview Sarawat and survey the damage and I will produce something as important as Taktan’s penis.”

The following day, Gunnar surveyed the logging damage to the Phetchabun Range. Khun Sarawat took the lead. “What concerns me most,” the environmentalist explained while pointing to the half-barren slopes above the village of Ban Kok Po, "is that without forest cover to hold the rains, the river could flood without warning. Villagers could be swept away and hundreds of houses destroyed. If they stopped logging now, the worst could be avoided. But the mafia is involved. There is no negotiating. You are looking at an ecological disaster.”

The proximity of deforested mountains to river-dependent villagers reminded Gunnar of the haunting combination that led to the massive floods and landslides that decimated southern Thailand in 1988. In the greatest natural disaster in Thai history, over 1,000 villagers were swept into the torrents of a mad river. Several hundred thousand more wound up homeless. The government responded to the tragic loss of life by issuing a nationwide ban on logging. As evident by the denuded slopes above and the ongoing Kau Jau Kau “reforestation” scheme, corruption could not be “banned.”

As Gunnar interviewed villagers, the Taktan Commemorative Insert hit the stands. Samsung, Toshiba, and Philips purchased half-page blocks of advertising. With Gunnar’s story on the front and a photo lay out of the Champ’s reign on the center pages, the insert sparkled in both English and Thai editions. By 12:00 noon, even homeless people were standing in line to purchase the paper to read and later sleep on. It was ridiculous.

Two weeks later, as Taktan entered his fleeting last days with a penis, Steve Barker slapped a faxed copy of a police report on Gunnar's desk. “You’re the Bangkok Times travel, religion, and nature specialist, correct? Looks like a well-traveled Buddhist who loved nature was just shot twelve times. They cut off his head and kicked it like a rugby ball down a Phetchabun alley. This is your kind of story.”

Gunnar reached for the memo. He immediately recognized the head, minus a body. He gasped in disbelief as the eyes of the decapitated man stared back at him. “This is horrible! I just interviewed Khun Sarawat a couple weeks ago. There could not have been a kinder, gentler, man. He was going around to the schools, getting village children involved. His concerns about the logging of the Phetchabun Mountains were justified. There is a disaster in the making here. All Sarawat wanted to do was alert the public.”

“Guess he was too damn effective,” Steve answered. "Looks like a mafia hit. I tell you, there is a curse on environmentalists in this country. The good ones either kill themselves, or get whacked sure as Sunday. When you consider that Thais produce good activists at the same rate they produce good soccer players, you realize the unfortunate trend. Anyway, this is your story.”

“This is front page stuff, Steve. Have Yongyut write it up as a news piece.”

Steve smiled. “Yongyut has passed the ball to you I’m afraid. Some Thai writers are taught never to use the word mafia in a sentence. He can’t seem to get over that little writing block. Anyway, you featured the guy two weeks ago. Whoever blanked him probably has you on their list already.”

“British sense of humor Steve?”

“Okay, I’ll bargain with you: I’ll write the news blurb; you write a feature on the trend of assassinating environmentalists in this country.”

“Let’s see . . .” Gunnar said, pressing his fingers into the corners of his eyes for relief. “If I write a sympathetic story that makes me an environmentalist. What did you just say happens to environmentalists in this country?”

“Someone has to let the free world know that Thailand has job openings for the environmentally-concerned.”

“I’m not sure my health insurance will cover this Steve. I’ll research the assassinations and think about some benign way to point out the alarming pattern here. Also, I received a letter from Ajahn Piko a few weeks back . . . you know, that activist monk up in Burriram. He says he has some protests planned against the relocation of villagers and the cutting down of the forest reserves. He wants me to interview him. I guess now is as good a time as any. I'll ask him about the assassinations. Find out if he is worried about taking a bullet for his cause."

“Piko?”

“Right. From Burriram.”

“I heard he's forming some kind of forest cult up there.”

“Could be. His letter expressed disappointment that the Times hasn’t featured the plight of villagers. He wants to get the word out to an international audience about turning Sua Yai Forest into a National Park.”

“Slim chance of that. The government has had its eyes on that forest for years. They are content to turn the entire province into a planted desert.”

“I’ll head up there in about ten days. Give me a week with Ajahn Piko. There are so few activist monks. He deserves some press if he is taking on the government.”

Steve nodded in approval. “I’ll be in my air conditioned office if you need me. It’s getting near the hot season . . . I don’t envy you a trip to Isan one bit. You can boil an egg on the sidewalk this time of year.”

“'Fry,' Steve. The idiom is: 'Fry an egg on the sidewalk.’ Some wordsmith you are.”

“You're in Thailand, chappy. Humidity factor. Things boil down here. And since there isn’t much shade left in Isan you’re in for a steamy trip.”

“I’ll bring a jar of lutefisk and think cool thoughts.”

As the Bangkok Times closed for the day, Gunnar headed into the archives. One by one he thumbed through the assassinations of politicians, financiers, and prominent drug lords. Peppered in this mix were several of the unfortunate few environmentalists and social advocates who had achieved notoriety and success. Saeng Rungnirandornkul and Nisit Chirasophon were prominent labor leaders murdered under mysterious circumstances. Nid Chaiwanna, principal of Ban Huay Kaew School in Chiang Mai, saw his life end en-route to a protest. He opposed leasing a large stretch of rainforest to the wife of a wealthy politician. A masked gunman clinging to the back of a motorcycle fired .45 caliber bullets through Nid's head. Gunnar next thumbed through account of an activist who rallied citizens against a reservoir that would flood thousands of acres of community forest. He was shot execution style and dumped in a culvert. With a large stack of photos to go, a man popped his head into the archives. “Out you go Gunnar,” the security guard held the door open for the reporter. “9:00 PM--time for Warrapol to go home to his wife.”

“Sorry for the delay." Gunnar stacked the clippings is a single pile. “I got lost in stories of cold blooded murder.”

“Plenty of those in Thailand,” the guard nodded. "Dress up like a tourist if you're afraid. Nobody hurts the tourists."

“I suppose you're right. This is the safest place in the world if you are on vacation."

"You look tired Khun Gunnar,” the guard continued. “The problem with you farangs is that you take everything so seriously. The Thai word “ngarn” means both work and celebration in our language you know. You don't look like your celebrating. That's why you farangs need more vacations than us. We celebrate every day."

Gunnar had grown accustomed to being called a farang. At first, being lumped in with different nationalities because he had white skin offended him. In spite of learning the language and the culture he could not shake the handle. The Farangset (French)--from which farang evolved--were the first Westerners to settle in the Kingdom. In the late 1600’s, upwards of 600 soldiers enjoyed Thai hospitality. Ultimately, they were asked to leave out of fear that they would mount an attempt to take over the country. Into modern times, Thailand remained the only Southeast Asian country to avoid colonization.

Gunnar secured his backpack. He explained the reason for his long hours. "A man I respected just got shot last night. Do you know about the activists that have been assassinated in this country?”

“A few.”

“Do you think the mafia would shoot an American newspaperman?”

“Only once.”

“Hmm. Not the answer I was hoping for.”

Warrapol closed the door and Gunnar left murder and mayhem for the streets of Bangkok--not much of a transition.

PART TWO

4

“In the future . . . this land will be full of blood.”

Pra Prajack Khuttajitto

Two bullet holes in the plane's fuselage stared back at the monk like eyes from a distant era. A Japanese pilot delivered the one-two punch in a dogfight over Okinawa. Now, the ghost in the machine remained unshakably present. Ajahn Piko lifted his Buddhist robe and kicked a leg into the cockpit. With the push of a rusty button, grinding metal filled the Thailand pasture with pre-dawn noise. The plane shook like a moth on a summer porch light as the propeller became an invisible blur. A burst of air blew past the hairless monk. He adjusted his leather-rimmed goggles and released the brake. Balloon tires skipped playfully over loose stones. The monk's face erupted into a boyish grin as the machine whisked him down a plowed lane in the farmer's field. When engine noise not of his own making penetrated his forest hermitage, his spiritual center was shaken. Foreign combustion drifting through the tree canopy ruined his dream of inhabiting a forest free from encroachment. With his hands on the throttle, he owned the noise before him: controlled it. The wickedness of the machine, the violence of horsepower, and the contrast to his otherwise grounded existence made this the most anticipated morning of his month.

A rice farmer hoping for better soil to sow in a future life had granted the monk use of the aircraft. Once flight savvy, Piko took the controls and flew solo. His mission: map the impact of poachers and illegal logging in Sua Yai Forest--the last jungle in Burriram province. In exchange for the use of the plane on the first day of each month, the monk chanted Buddhist prayers for the farmer, his six children, and the health of the aircraft.

By most accounts, Ajahn Piko was Thailand's only flying monk. A handful of fakirs near the Cambodian border boasted of airborne journeys, but those were unconfirmed at best, and out of body at least. A satellite map of the 200 square mile forest rested on his lap. In the center, red contours conveyed the dense monsoon rainforest surrounding Fon Maak Mountain. With the highest rainfall in the province, the mist-covered peak supported 1,600 species of plants and nearly 200 species of birds. On foot, a man, rucksack, and snakebite kit could cross the eighteen mile east to west length of Sua Yai Forest in two days. Travel from north to south required a twelve-mile journey.

The plane lifted. Patched tires rose above the salty terrain that made farming in Northeast Thailand so difficult. The Ajahn banked right, and then climbed to a cruising altitude of 2,000 feet. The air cooled and the sun rose. He enjoyed an unobstructed view of Isan and its natural borders. Eighty miles to the west, tropical colors reflected off the Dong Phaya (Mountains of Mystery). To the east, a day's drive through the poorest of villages, a traveler reached the Mekong River and the Laos border. Sixty miles south, over terrain dotted with ancient Khmer temples, Cambodia loomed. And to the agricultural-north, the majority of the region's eighteen provinces and seventeen million people extended for 150 miles before again meeting the sinuous Laos border. Between the river and mountain, fertility and despair lay the region of Isan.

The rays of a sun fast on the rise revealed Fon Maak (Mountain of the Rains) in its green splendor. A carpet of monsoon rainforest covered every crag, slope, and gully. Piko banked right. The glory of the mountain gave way to a desert-like landscape for as far as the eye could see. Scraped clean of forest, a manmade Isan withered under the February sun like a snail ripped from its shell. Life endured, but it wasn’t pretty. Overcrowded villages, agricultural squares, roads upon roads: Isan. Without forest cover, the blazing sun had turned once proud streams into abandoned snake skins that time blew away. Here, in a poverty born of marginal lands, a population explosion, and a Bangkok-based market economy, the grandchildren of Kru tilled soil. Chang--the great elephant herds--had long since been confined to a few wildlife reserves. A region that boasted 60% forest cover in 1937 had, in the course of a human lifetime, reduced its native wealth to a paltry 14%.

On the northern forest edge, a plume of smoke rose above the earth. In the past six months, Piko had watched acre upon acre succumb to fires set by the villagers from nearby Ban Yiaw Yai (Village of the Big Hawk). To encourage mushroom growth, elderly women set the forest edge ablaze. Piko pushed the throttle toward the cracked instruments and bore down on the smoldering trees. Mushroom Lady. A defiant grandmother raised a torch to fend off the plane. The monk tipped an angry wing in her direction. On his map he sketched another intrusion.

Past the willow of smoke, a herd of gwaang (forest buffalo) foraged on fresh grasses. Most villagers believed the buffalo had been hunted to extinction. From 2,000 feet Ajahn Piko knew better. He kept the rogue herd a secret less flank steak end up in his own begging bowl. Above the buffalo, a squadron of wreathed hornbills flew in formation. Their six-foot wingspans harnessed the thermal winds and carried them south toward the Cambodian border.

First from the ground, and now from the air, Ajahn Piko knew every inch of the green island beneath him. Before entering the Sangha (community of monks and lay supporters) at the age of sixteen, he had hunted all sides of Fon Maak Mountain. He spent nights in a hammock gazing at distant constellations. He delighted in the songs of the Indian rollers and gray-headed flycatchers that brought harmony to the pre-dawn light. And he celebrated the coming of the monsoon rains of May. As the clouds unleashed their torrents, parched earth awakened as if stirred by a cosmic hand. Grasses peeked through dry leaf cover as frogs emerged from five months slumber beneath baked mud. Piko's father captured the males and allowed them to call in their mates. One by one the female frogs were gaffed without mercy. The boy hesitated before he killed. In that pause, the seeds of renunciation were planted.

His heroes were not the hunters of the northern forest but the saffron-robed monks that passed light-footed through the same terrain. Unlike his father, they refrained from killing even the most noisome of insects. The boy could imagine no better existence. He imagined walking all of Siam on unbroken pathways. That was forty years and thousands of tree-covered acres ago. The jungle-clad Isan of his youth had succumbed to the fastest growing economy in the world. The boy turned monk never aspired to political activism. Few men and even fewer monks do in Thailand. Nor did he dream of flying vintage aircraft. But with his forest oasis on the verge of destruction, he could no longer retreat.

On the eastern flank of Fon Maak Mountain, in a place where the ung ahn (bullfrogs) sang the loudest, two canvas tents and a campfire ring appeared in a small grass clearing. Gibbon poachers. Risking a suspended sentence and $125.00 fine, camouflaged men stalked the tenor of Thailand’s singing wilderness. A captured gibbon could fetch thousands of dollars on the black market. A drugged animal would be stuffed in a suitcase and flown as luggage to neighboring countries. The thirty-five percent survival rate kept the trade profitable.

At the sight of the aircraft, four dark-skinned men carrying ball-loading rifles--circa 1894--emerged from their tents. At 220 knots, the monk bore down on the enemy camp. A poacher dove into his tent expecting gunfire from wings still bearing weapons. Like an ostrich with his head in the sand, the man's hind wiggled in full view. Piko curled his lips in anger as he ripped across the sky. He reached for a stuffed pillowcase behind his seat and hurled the cloth skyward. Hundreds of Buddhist epithets descended on the men like windblown butterflies. The Ajahn banked right and watched as one of the poachers snatched a slip of paper from the air. The message from the sky:

The fires of six Buddhist hells await those

who poach the animals of Sua Yai Forest.

Ajahn Piko did not believe in the physical existence of the fiery realms warned about in the Buddhist Scriptures. Still, such a message descending from the heavens and landing in the hands of imbeciles might inspire enough fear to drive them from their camp. The vinaya--monastic code of 227 precepts--made no mention of monks flying WWII fighter planes and barnstorming gibbon poachers. Piko knew this. The vinaya came into existence 2,500 years ago when wilderness surrounded humans and not humans, wilderness. When a forest fell to the ax, a monk could move deeper into the jungle. If born into Thailand's environmental crises perhaps the Buddha would be an eco-terrorist as well: edgy and determined like the flying monk.

Piko continued his flight toward the eastern border. He gazed down upon a clearing where he had watched a solitary tiger stalk a grahting (forest deer) two month's earlier. The decline in tiger numbers had resulted in an inverted food chain. Insects and infections, more so than tigers and leopards, were the deer’s leading cause of death. As Piko neared the completion of his circular flight, his own Wat Sua Yai (Temple of the Big Tiger) came into view. Five small forest huts and an outdoor meditation hall (sala) peaked through the tree cover. Two miles past the temple stood the monk’s boyhood home of Ban Nam Sai (Village of the Clear Waters). Forty-six metal roofs, divided equally on either side of a dirt road and adjacent to a small creek that became a river in the rainy season defined the settlement. Not quite a mile of forest separated the small hamlet from an exposed Isan; a sea of encroaching eucalyptus and cassava plantations.

Near the forest border, four yellow bulldozers sat in wait. The indiscretions of Mushroom Lady and the gibbon poachers seemed of little consequence when compared to what the Thai government and Bangkok business interests had in store for Sua Yai Forest. The eviction notice had been served to the villagers Ban Nam Sai Village and Ajahn Piko. By threat of force, they would become the latest victims of relocation. A million farmers had already been relocated. In the Northeast alone, 200,000 families were now slated for removal from forest reserves so that the government could clear the land to plant eucalyptus and other cash crops.

Not far from the earthmovers, the sun reflected off the windows of a massive greenhouse. Within its confines, 100,000 eucalyptus seedlings were nurtured with the intent of reforesting the slopes of Fon Maak Mountain. Eucalyptus grew faster and made for better pulp than native trees. A single species stood poised to replace entire ecosystems in the name of paper. Piko tried to focus on his breath but the sight of the greenhouse brought him to tears. Land: more valuable to the government than Isan families; more precious than the native forests. The military, Royal Forestry Department and Bangkok business interests had joined together as spokes on a wheel moving to transform Isan. The power brokers had accounted for everything save one detail: a flying mendicant was on the loose.

5

Sweat, sprinkled with Isan dust, collected in the wrinkles of Piko's forehead. Like rings on a tree, each of his fifty-two years could be measured in some form of indentation on his person. His healthy bronze skin was typical of his Isan heritage; a shade lighter than the farmers in the village yet dark enough to earn the prejudice of fare-skinned Bangkok Thais. A slight scar followed the contour of his shaved eyebrow and continued onto his temple.

The markings of past travels each carried stories of forest wanderings that villagers implored the monk to tell again and again. Piko circulated a blackened teakettle to his four monks. Pra Visalo, thirty-three, came from Udon Thani province to the north. A fortuitous case of blood poisoning brought him into cohorts with the Ajahn. In a remote village near the Laos border Visalo lay curled up in a small wat (Buddhist temple) with purple streaks extending from either side of a puncture wound. The village herbalist proved more competent in distilling rice wine than treating torn flesh. He failed to abet the blood poisoning. Rumors that the leg might be amputated sent the village headman to call on Ajahn Piko. The monk descended from his retreat to help. He dispatched two village boys to harvest roots from the surrounding forest and prepared a mash that his mother, a respected medicine woman in Ban Nam Sai, had taught him to make as a boy. Three days later the wound closed and the gruesome streaks began to retreat.

Piko could read the merit of a monk's lifestyle by the legs alone. Pasty white calves belonged to city monks; insect-ridden feet spoke of village monks; while puncture wounds and snakebite scars were the calling cards of forest wanderers. Judging by the legs of Visalo, Piko knew he was in the presence of a lifetime Thudong (forest monk). His own legs read like a war story. A scorpion bite incurred during a four hundred mile trek through eastern Burma had left purple scar tissue on his left calf. Ankle scars from a nguu hang gra-ting (pit viper) and nguu saam liang (three-triangle snake) read like postcards from his journeys to Laos and Southern Thailand. When Pra Visalo’s health returned, he joined Ajahn Piko at Wat Sua Yai. That was eight years ago.

Pra Phuttana, the eldest in Piko's Sangha at sixty-two, seldom traveled past the village he grew up in. The Ban Nam Sai native had entered the monastery late in life and maintained more worldly ties than the steadfast wanderers. Still, he remained an integral part of the temple. When Piko and his monks wandered to remote lands, Pra Phuttana served as temple abbot. What he lacked as a traveler he made up for in social skills. His adept handling of domestic disputes allowed Piko to maintain a comfortable distance from village squabbles that in some cases dated back three generations. To the village children, Phuttana brought a human side to the nearby wat. While the other monks passed by with heads lowered in quiet contemplation, Phuttana offered a wink--a subtle acknowledgement of their importance. During the rainy season, his tales of old Siam--of Ban Nam Sai Village surrounded by endless jungle--captivated young and old alike.

Pra Ripansa, the youngest of Piko’s entourage at nineteen, had left behind a career in the public eye for a life in the forest. An accomplished performer, the effeminate monk once excelled in maa lam: traditional folk song and dance played to whiskey-soaked audiences throughout the Northeast. He embraced the androgynous role with ease. When his voice changed, the touring crew left the young singer behind. His father expected the boy to marry and bare grandchildren. Life in the company of a woman, however, did not appeal to him. As an alternative means to honor his parents he joined the monastery. In two year’s time Piko had molded a boy who once cried nightly in his goutie (forest hut) into a respected monk who kept pace on long journeys with Pra Visalo.

Pra Taniro, thirty-six, rounded out Piko's small, but loyal following. In 1976, at the height of communist insurgency in Thailand, a protest attended by Taniro (a.k.a. Manop Singkhorn) at Bangkok's Thammasaat University turned into a bloodbath. Police and right-wing paramilitary groups fired on unarmed students. Manop and his friends witnessed the massacre firsthand. They fled the rally determined to join members of the PLAT (Peoples Liberation Army of Thailand) who had infiltrated Sua Yai Forest. Ajahn Piko intercepted the young man before he joined the insurgents. Manop ordained shortly thereafter.

This diverse collection of personalities shared one focal point: Ajahn Piko and his mission to save the Sua Yai Forest. Until now, their activism had been limited to confronting gibbon poachers, arsonists, and the forest mafia who logged the hardwoods at night. On occasion, they attended nearby village schools to encourage children to revere the last green space in Burriram. All their efforts would be for not, however, if the government’s plan to re-plant the jungle came to pass. Five monks and a forgotten village against the Thai military: the odds could not be worse. The arrival of the earthmovers--CATS--brought teeth to the eviction notice. All who dwelt under tree cover would soon know the government's wrath.

Cats within and CATS without.

As Ajahn Piko informed his monks of the latest forest intrusions, a yellow and orange tomcat hopped up on the bamboo floor of the sala. For seven months, the marauder had hunted the forest pathways after its abandonment by a villager. The uninvited guest opened his mouth and dropped the limp remains of a Hainan blue flycatcher on the wood floor. Ajahn Piko paused and stared into the broken body of one of the most beautiful birds in Sua Yai Forest. It had taken him two years to master the bird's complex song. Its infrequent stopovers provided only a few opportunities to mimic its throaty whistles. The cat purred loudly, pleased to be the center of attention. Piko closed his eyes and watched the colors of passion surge through his chest. A layperson would call the burst anger, but the lifelong monk experienced it as unbridled energy. The cat licked its bloody paws and toyed with the lifeless bird.

“I had planned on saving the advanced teaching on paticcasamupadda (interdependence) for later in the week,” Piko said, meeting the vacant stares of his fellow monks. “However, in honor of our new friend and his wicked act, I shall begin the initiation today.” The monk rose to his feet and disappeared behind the meditation hall. Pra Ripansa reached over and removed the mangled bird from the cat's grip. The feral animal relinquished its toy and stretched out for an afternoon nap. Piko returned with a rusty metal shovel--pointed, not square.

With hands on the splintered handle, he looked past the cat's eyes to the soft skin of its extended belly. How many native songbirds had that stomach digested? How many endangered tree frogs eaten? The monk took a meditative breath and allowed the winds of passion to blow through. He raised the heavy metal above his head. As the cat looked up, the blade of the shovel came down. The shattering of the animal’s backbone rang throughout the forest. Blood shot upwards in a two-foot fountain. The cat screamed until its voice became inaudible with pain. Pra Phuttana yelled out in horror. Pra Visalo lay sprayed with blood. Pra Ripansa broke into a sprint down the forest pathway, certain that a forest spirit had possessed his Master. When Piko lifted the bloodstained shovel, the cat lay in two writhing pieces. Just like that. And the songbird remained dead.

“In the name of Lord Buddha!” Pra Taniro screamed. “You’ve killed him! You've slaughtered the cat!”

“No. He’s still alive!” Pra Phuttana yelled back. The monks looked on in horror as the front paws of the cat burst into a sprint. The twitching muscles moved the head a full eighteen inches away from its severed hind. On cue, the back legs also began running, as if to catch up with the front. For a moment, the legs moved in unison and the cat seemed whole again—despite the distance between body parts. Blood-covered Pra Phuttana plunged his hands into the splayed organs and tried to re-attach the cat. A clicking noise issued from the esophagus. The liver and spleen spilled onto the bamboo floor. And the legs finally stopped their sprinting: first the back, then the front. Silence. The eyes of a dead cat faced those of a dead songbird.

“This is a travesty!” Visalo yelled out.

Ajahn Piko stood over the execution without comment. The face of death no longer shocked him. How many funerals had he presided over? How many mangled forest creatures had he sidestepped in his wanderings? Still, the blood of the deed covered his hands.

“You’re kamma!” Phuttana pleaded. The elder monk had never witnessed such a flagrant act of violence by a monk “This is a baap (sin) of the first order. This will set you back untold kalpas (eons) on the path.”

Taniro agreed. “We strain our water with cheesecloth to avoid killing insects and before us you kill a sentient being a thousand times closer to enlightenment.”

Piko leaned the stained shovel against a support beam. He quietly resumed a sitting posture before the stunned monks. Ripansa returned to the circle, his face white with shock. “You say I killed a cat,” the monk answered coolly. “I say I saved a thousand songbirds.”

“But what of the vinaya?” Visalo asked. “There is no precedence for this. Ahimsa--non-violence--is the key precept behind the robe.”

The Theravada tradition forbade monks from even traveling during the rainy season less they trample earthworms. With four monks as witnesses, Piko had just severed a semi-lovable cat. The monk reclined on an extended arm and continued his explanation. “A year ago, Pra Ripansa began feeding the cats with food from his begging bowl. The villagers saw this and soon two cats turned into twenty roaming the compound. A year later, twenty cats have turned into forty cats. Villagers in the region now think our temple is a place to dump unwanted animals. The birdfeeder is manned by two particularly bad-tempered cats that ambush native birds in mid-air.”

Taniro tried to follow his teacher’s logic. “Yes, Ajahn, we too love the birds. But the vinaya does not differentiate between native and non-native beings. All are sentient. All acts of violence against them are a baap.”

Piko listened and offered a polite smile. He knew the monastic code as well as any of them. “Have you not seen the heaps of feathers around the forest? If we do nothing, we kill just the same. The songs of Sua Yai will be no more. We have sworn to protect the forest. I say the cats fall under our jurisdiction.”

“Why not let the village boys use their slingshots?” Ripansa said, disheartened by the explanation.

“Boys will turn the hunt into sport. The bloodshed will effect their re-birth. Plus, the decision would have to go through village meetings. Some farmers might think the cats are more lovable than the birds. If we manage the forest, it can be done with Right Understanding and without passion.”

It made sense. Sort of. But Pra Phuttana sat sprayed with blood and a once healthy cat lay in two pieces. Visalo remained unconvinced. “If the Sangha Council hears of this it could endanger the monastery. There are no grounds for killing.”

Piko sat unimpressed by the predicable arguments. “I say there are grounds for killing feral animals in a native forest. I say the Buddhist teaching of paticcasamupadda justifies the act. It is the mandate we can use to manage the forest wisely.”

The monks sat aghast. What esoteric interpretation of the Buddha’s teachings could possibly justify killing? “Very well then," Piko continued. "Let us journey to Fon Maak Mountain and meditate on the interdependence of all things. Once you have explored this doctrine in full, you can decide for yourself whether it is wrong to kill feral cats who feast on our native songbirds.”

That evening, Phuttana announced to the villagers that the monks would travel to the mountain for retreat. The next morning, the women of Ban Nam Sai prepared a feast of gluttonous proportions. The monks feigned indifference to the amount of meats and custards placed in their bowls. Still, the bounty of food delighted even Visalo. With full bellies they began their eight-mile journey into the heart of Sua Yai Forest.

Ajahn Piko hoisted two twist tied plastic bags over his shoulder and assumed the lead. Five miles in, the monks opened their mosquito netting and prepared for nightfall. Piko took shelter on the edge of a clearing away from the other monks. With his head atop granite, he stared into the twilight sky. He listened as a field mouse traveled under leaf cover and watched a barking deer emerge from the shadows. That night he dreamed of a time when the big cats ruled the forest. He saw an albino tiger emerge into the same clearing where he had seen the deer. The monk and tiger became one. As a predator, he sensed the subtle passage of the deer though high grasses. With each step, ribbons of muscle contracted in dedication to the hunt. He followed his unseen prey across Long Reow River, past freshwater crocodiles basking in the midday sun. A herd of gwaang took off on a sprint at the sight of the ghost cat.

He awoke to the chatter of a chestnut-sided bee-eater. Once again he looked at the world through human eyes. Still, if only in his dreams, he had felt the spirit of the ancient forest: the white cat and a world before humans.

At 5:45 AM, Ajahn Piko had his monks moving single file up the dimly lit trail. An hour later, the climb ended at the Cliffs of Kalipattu. Granite faces illumined by morning sunlight made for a dramatic backdrop. Excitement filled the mountain air as the monks set up camp. Stomachs growled. They formed a semi-circle around Ajahn Piko. Pra Ripansa eyed the two plastic bags next to the senior monk. Perhaps his Master had taken pity and secreted dried meat and vegetables? With the eyes of his monks upon him, Piko lifted the contents of both bags above his head. He loosened both knots and let the cat out of the bag. LITERALLY! Two pieces of fur covered intestines hit the earth with a "thud" and a "squish" respectively. Blood seeped out of body parts: first blue and crusty, then red and oxygenated. Pra Ripansa’s mouth opened and the meager contents of his stomach threatened to stream out. Pra Taniro closed off his nose to prevent inhaling the spoiled meat. The hind and front legs had become stiff as cardboard. Ajahn Piko dipped his hand into the cat’s intestines and scooped up dung beetles that had made the long journey. “This is a beautiful sight,” he said, raising his catch for the monks to see. “A feral cat has become the favored food of the bird he killed. Is this not magical?”

Taniro covered his nose with his robe and nodded in slight agreement.

Piko wiped his hand on a patch of dried grass. “There is no greater mystery than paticcasamupadda. The dependent origination of all things is the single insight that will relieve you of the burden of self--just as my shovel liberated this cat from further wicked acts. Two days ago, this animal had a sense that it was an independent, fully contained entity. It patrolled our compound enjoying a life of handouts and native birds. We will not waste his carcass however. Instead, we will read his broken body like we read the Tripitica (Scriptures). When finished, individuality will be meaningless and your understanding of interdependence will make you crusaders for the forest.”

Phuttana’s face remained yellow from the stench. He issued a deep-throated groan as a slight breeze carried the scent in his direction. Piko prodded at the front half of the cat with his walking stick. He then poked at the hind half. The smell increased. He smiled. In a deliberate motion, he moved the hind half two feet away from the front. “Both halves of this cat were in motion after the blade sliced through it. I ask you, which of the two halves contained the cat's "self?" Was it the front half and the head, or the rear half and the vital organs?”

Taniro stared intently into the collapsed eyes of the dead cat. “I say the head. I saw its face when you cut him. There was awareness in its eyes. It knew it had been severed and it screamed from the mouth. The sense of "self" belonged to the head.”

“Yes,” Pra Phuttana answered, “I saw it too. But you cannot say there was only awareness in the head. Did you not see its tail and back legs moving? The hind quarter suffered as well--even without a brain.”

“So the cat had two "selves?" Piko smiled. The monks alternated between their examination of the front and rear parts of the cat. "You must penetrate deeper," he admonished them. "Ripansa, stand up and take hold of my walking stick."

The jaundiced boy dusted his robe and grasped Piko's staff.

"Let's start from the beginning," Piko continued. "Go ahead and point to the cat."

It seemed such an obvious request that the monk glanced over to Visalo to see if he understood his Master correctly. He gently placed the tip of the stick onto the cat's flesh.

"You have showed me the neck," Piko said with a hint of disdain, "I wish to see the cat."

Ripansa hesitated. He then prodded at the blood-mashed hind.

"You've found a leg," Piko admonished. “Plenty of legs around this circle, but I'm after a cat."

Ripansa felt embarrassed for both himself and his Master. Was he insane? Everyone in the circle could see the mangled cat before him. The young monk did the next logical thing. He walked behind the cat, pressed the stick above its anus and ushered the hind half into union with the front half. When he had joined the body parts, he smiled at the wisdom of the deed. Waving the stick like a wand over the carcass, he announced his conclusion. "There is your cat.”

Taniro and Phuttana nodded in unison. They believed the simple act of uniting the two halves solved the whereabouts of the missing feline. Piko let out a dry, calculated, groan.

“Wait,” Visalo replied, anticipating Ajahn Piko’s response. “The answer is neither half. There was pain, but no individual feeling it. That is the mystery the Ajahn is trying to get us to see. We cling to the idea of having a self. It is our primary preoccupation. Still, that does not make it real. Labels such as “cat,” and “Pra Visalo” are social conventions we place on a interdependent world to turn it into useful “things.” When we look for the self, for the individual or "piece" to which we refer, we cannot find such an entity separate from the world around us.”

Piko surveyed the clever monk without expression. Pra Phuttana and Pra Taniro remained silent in the presence of a superior answer. “Does everyone agree with Visalo’s explanation?”

Reluctantly, heads nodded in agreement. The self was a convention of thought; while useful, it obscured the greater truth of interdependence thereby leading to unwholesome actions and emotions.

“RUBBISH! Ajahn Piko yelled, sending a shock wave through the already sickened monks. “That is no explanation! Did you not see the animal suffer? That was real pain you witnessed. The cat deserves more than a meaningless quote from the Scriptures . . . from books that belong in a Bangkok library, not in the forest. This cat did not die so you could regurgitate Buddhaghosa. Scripture cannot save our forest from destruction. You need to know in your heart what paticcasamupadda means. Only then will you be able to act as defenders of Sua Yai. No one sleeps tonight until they have searched every inch of their body for a “self.”

That evening, monks meditated under the stars. Visalo began his inquiry with thought. He followed the streams of ambition, fear, and loathing into the dark cavern of origination. Thoughts, he observed, flowed and changed according to conditioning. They belonged as much to the natural world as to his prized person. He watched in amusement as his mind created a grand story about saving the cat. He envisioned himself standing in front of his Master’s shovel, interrupting the horrible blow. The river of thought met the ocean of concentration, evaporated, and then re-created itself again and again without the slightest evidence of a “self.” Ripansa homed in on feelings in the search for an independent person. He watched as remorse turned to hunger, which turned to sexual desire--not necessarily directed towards a woman. Feelings too had no origin. They moved through the body like warm and cold fronts in the atmosphere. Phuttana explored the physical body. How different this frame of bone, muscle, and organs from the one inherited at birth. What semblance does a hairless newborn have to a full-grown man? In the physical passing of years, he found no thread of “self” to bind it all together.

The next morning, Ajahn Piko roused the monks from their sleep. Before the sun had peaked above the tree line they were high stepping dense forest en-route to the west side of Fon Maak Mountain. A trickle of water fed into a small pool at the base of a ledge. Piko took to his hands and knees. "If they hear footprints, they will disperse and our meditation will be lost.”

All wondered whether they stalked man or beast.

At the water’s edge, the monks assumed meditation postures. Ajahn Piko pointed to a school of fish that circumambulated the pool with the precision of a Swiss watch. To Visalo, the fish resembled coins with fins. Sunlight reflected off their scales before they disappeared into the shadows beneath the ledge. Piko felt the magic; he remembered the first time he stared upon the mysterious school thirty years earlier. At this same pool, his Master initiated him in full to the depths of paticcasamupadda. The insight that cost the tomcat his life could lead to wanton destruction if handed over to immoral men. Perhaps not all of his monks were ready. But the bulldozers had arrived: so little time remained for Sua Yai Forest.

As the fish circled back, Ajahn Piko sent a small pebble aloft. As the stone hit the water's surface, the school went airborne. To Piko’s enlightened eye, he saw the reaction of each individual in relationship to the whole. The fish re-entered the water in the same perfect formation as they had left it. “Focus on a single fish,” Piko whispered to the monks. “See if you can say anything about the individual without referring to the larger school . . . to the greater environment.”

Two minutes later, the fish again circled past the curious monks. Piko sent another pebble into the air. The gymnastics were repeated as each individual moved in relation to its neighbor.

The coming of the military had heightened Piko’s resolve. He sat determined to transform ordinary monks into a renegade clan. The bloodshed had begun with the cat . . . but that was just the beginning. He needed monks that would follow him into battle. Four committed men would have to act from the same uncompromising center as he: one rooted in experience, not blind abeyance to the rules of the vinaya.

Visalo focused on his breath, the circling fish, the brotherhood of monks, and the rays of the morning sun penetrating the water. Phuttana homed in on the center of the school. Some magical force kept it in perfect unison with the others. The slightest twitch by one sent a shock wave through all: each individual, an organ in the larger body of the school. Piko turned within and tapped his reserve of saksit--spiritual power. In day-to-day living, he skimmed the surface of this reservoir for daily problem solving and to keep a cool heart. With so little time to turn monks into warriors, he directed his full concentration into the center of the great mystery. He penetrated layer upon layer of mind until he triggered an ecstatic release of energy. His body filled with warmth and vibrated at an otherworldly pitch. Wonder, awe, excitement, mystery: in his rapturous state, the division between water and land disappeared. Space became as real as solid. Sunlight contained life itself. Fish, monks, flycatchers--all were rays from a star in animal form. Gravity became more a vision than a force. It didn’t just push and pull, it shaped: the organs of fish swimming in the pool, the overhanging granite. So obvious. So overlooked.

Piko’s insight penetrated the monks on either side of him. They too gazed upon the circling fish through enlightened eyes. Relationships. Everywhere relationships. The essence came from without, not within. The movement of each individual became dictated by the proximity of other fish, the angle of the sun, the color of the pond's bottom, the speed of the earth’s revolution. For Taniro, the insight confirmed Indra’s Net: an ancient teaching wherein a net of jewels was positioned such that every stone contained a reflection of the thousand others until the reflections became more real than the individuals themselves. But that was just a story. The monks saw the dance of interdependence in its most vivid form. Emptiness. Everywhere fish swimming through emptiness.

As Piko’s reserve dissipated, his meditative state broke. Pra Visalo's growling stomach spoke of more worldly concerns. Piko leaned over the pool and eased a hand into the water. As the school circled past he unleashed a quick jab and returned with a shiny plaa sii ngeun (silver fish). “What do you see?” he said, dangling the fish above the pool.

“A fish struggling to return to the water.” Visalo answered, placing a hand on his stomach.

“Yes. The vision is broken. You are hungry. Your mind is filled with desire to relieve your ache. We crave "things" to satisfy our appetites. But, the world is not truly composed of “things.” We can never be full by filling our bellies with illusions. The interdependence seen in this pool is an outward expression of an inward truth. We name the world to make it useful: to control and manipulate nature and other people. Judge the right and wrong of your actions based on this insight.”

“So will you kill the fish as you did the cat?” Taniro quizzed him, no longer consumed with the morality of killing a self that did not exist.

Piko looked at the gasping mouth of the plaa sii ngeun. “No,” he said releasing his grip and allowing the fish to fall into the water. "He may not have a self, but he does have Integrity. And Integrity is what is glimpsed in the purest vision of paticcasamupadda. Integrity alone is worthy of our reverence.”

At 10:30 AM, in accordance with Ajahn Piko’s orders, two villagers arrived with packs of food strapped to their back. The sound of metal pots hitting granite rang like a dinner bell throughout the clearing. From the four directions, monks arrived at a pace equal to their hunger. The bhikkus accepted handouts with their eyes and chins pointed to the earth. The villagers thanked the monks for the opportunity to climb Fon Maak Mountain and improve their kamma. Ajahn Piko added stream water to the delightful food and mashed it together to make it less palatable. His monks followed suit. "Control the appetite," Ajahn Piko reminded, "and you will control the mind."

That afternoon, Piko assumed a teaching posture and circulated the teapot.

“So what does it all mean?” Phuttana asked his Master. “We have found nothing. We see emptiness everywhere we look. There is nothing left that is real and enduring.”

“Integrity is real,” Piko answered, coaxing a wasp out of a crease in his robe.

Ripansa followed. “Is that not just a word like all other words that flow without meaning through our minds?”

“No. Integrity has meaning. Integrity is harmony over time. It is the principle by which the ten thousand organize, sustain, and define themselves as a natural system. Integrity is a seed that opens in a wildfire. Integrity is Fon Maak Mountain and the life upon it.”

Ajahn Piko stood before his Sangha. He led them to the edge of a nearby stream and knelt before a mai rang tree. “You are in luck,” he said pointing to the bark. “The white dyad butterfly yet takes rest.”

The monks looked on with curiosity. Their Ajahn had located rare species of butterfly. “This tree is the favored resting spot for the dyad. I first spotted him an hour ago. Herein lies Integrity . . . what is worth fighting for.”

As Piko spoke, the dyad opened its wings to reveal a rust-colored pinstripe. The natural camouflage allowed the insect to disappear into the bark itself. “See how butterfly finds harmony with the tree? The stripe on its back is aligned perfectly with the grain of the wood. This is Integrity . . . dependent origination and cooperation over time. The butterfly behaves appropriately within its surrounding. It is an organ of the tree, which is an organ of the forest. In the one lies the many.”

Taniro nodded in appreciation. “But what of the cat? Where did he find perfect rest in this forest?”

“Beneath my shovel,” Piko said with a wry smile. “His calico fur broadcast that he had lost his place in this world. Animals and people out of place commit wicked acts. They behave without Integrity.”

“But how can we know it? Integrity?”

“You can’t ‘know’ it. It’s not yours to know. But you can be it. Be perfect in your environment.”

Phuttana wondered if the Integrity his Master spoke of was the same as Dhamma--the laws of nature as detailed in Scripture. Nothing in Scripture spoke of monks killing sentient beings and a severed cat lay but yards away.

“But how do we judge what is right and what is wrong?” the elder monk asked.

Piko leaned back for a moment in contemplation. He gazed above the shaved heads of the monks and into the forest canopy where a brown-throated sunbird called to its mate. “Any action that contributes to the diversity of life is an act with Integrity. Any act that intentionally harms this balance is a baap.”

Ripansa struggled with the implications. He had seen something during his meditation that truly frightened him. “Is it not enough just to follow the 227 rules? How much simpler to just do what the Buddha taught. The rules help the mind remain at peace. We don’t have to think for ourselves.”

Piko required more from his monks than blind abeyance to Scripture. “Some of the best meditation monks in the country followed the vinaya only to watch their forests logged by the mafia or burned down by the government. If you follow the path of Integrity, I say we have a chance at saving the Sua Yai Forest.”

Nightfall arrived in the form of shadows over the Cliffs of Kalipattu. Piko felt the latent heat seep out of the granite, pass through his robe, and linger like a specter in the darkness. When the last scarlet minivet finished his song, a planetary buzz remained on the mountain. Piko embraced the vibration. He allowed it to course through his body as a mosquito landed on his inner arm. The pest grew fat with blood. It rested, as if aware that he had tapped a monk committed to preserving even the most noisome of native creatures.

“I have made my nightly donation to your tribe,” Ajahn Piko said calmly. The mosquito lounged next to a bead of sweat. “Kindly spread the word to leave my monks alone so they may meditate without fear of blood loss. Their concentration is no match for your incessant whining.”

Resembling a salmon egg with wings the insect lifted skyward. As night replaced the shadows, images of bulldozers and men in military fatigues filled the monk with dread. He focused on the stream, hoping the sound would cleanse him of disturbing images. In despair, he broke his meditation posture and approached the water that gave voice to the land. He cupped his hands and doused his face. What would happen to his mother? What good is a spirit doctor in a land with no spirits? The forest kept her active and engaged with pii lurking behind ancient trees. Her practice of samon pai (herbal remedies) depended on vines, roots, and leaves to heal the sick. How could she heal in a manmade desert?

The monks gathered one last time before descending Fon Maak Mountain. “Where is Ripansa” Piko asked, one monk short of contentment.

“He spent the night meditating in a distant cave,” Phuttana answered.

“Tham Yao Cave?”

“Yes, Ajahn. You know how he feels about caves. It’s his dream to spend the next rains retreat underground.”

Piko followed a deer trail over hard granite to the front of Tham Yao Cave. The entrance sloped downward into the black center of some unseen bat haven. The monk cupped his hands and yelled into the earth. “Pra Ripansa,” he said to the youngest of his four monks. “If you are festering in the darkness, announce yourself.”

“I am here Ajahn,” a faint voice answered. “I am meditating in the way of the ancients.”

“Come forth. Come into the light where I can see you.”

The sound of a begging bowl bouncing off granite marked Ripansa’s progress. He shielded his eyes as the glare of sunlight replaced the darkness.

“Did you see the sun rise over Fon Maak Mountain?” Piko asked with a fierce voice. “And can you tell me the first bird that called to the heavens this morning? Was it the large billed crow or the flowerpecker?”

Ripansa stared back without answering.

Piko continued. “I asked you to sleep beneath the stars and search for the self.”

“Dear Ajahn,” Ripansa spoke with boyish exuberance. “On a journey to relieve myself, I found this splendid cave. The opportunity to meditate in the way of the ancients pulled me into the dark center.”

Piko knelt down and framed a marigold clinging to life in a crack in the granite. “Did you find something more worthy of contemplation than this flower?”

“But Ajahn, I practiced in the tradition of Buddhaghosa . . . I followed the breath just as the Visudimagga teaches. After all, it was in a cave where Elder Cittagutta achieved his enlightenment.”

“Elder Cittagutta!” Piko burst into a single roll of laughter. “What do you know of Elder Cittagutta?”

“He lived for sixty years in the great cave of Kurandaka.”

“And?”

“He so perfectly guarded the sense doors that he never noticed the murals of Buddhas on the cave walls nor the ironwood tree at the cave entrance.”

"And that is enlightenment?"

“It is said that cave practice allowed him to enter all the jhanic (trance-like) states of consciousness that are free from trsna (craving).”

“Pra Ripansa, do you know what those who forsake the forest for a life in a cave really are?”

“Enlightened beings?”

“Potato bugs.”

“Ajahn?”

“At least a potato bug has the good sense to feel out his environment. There are better monks for you to admire. Elder Cittagutta turned his back on the forest: he wasted a precious human birth contemplating the invisible while a vibrant world streamed past the hole he called a life. Do you not feel the least bit of regret for missing the spectacle of colors reflected off the Cliffs of Kalipattu? You have aged in that cave and will never get that sunrise back. The large billed crow called the first light into being this morning. Make the forest your meditation and you will have all the insight you crave. Why dwell in the shadows when you can celebrate the sun?”

The monk and his apprentice walked silently back to the campsite. Piko shook his head at the thought of Pra Ripansa curled up against a cave wall. Perhaps his own claustrophobia made him suspicious of monks who would purposefully disregard the gift of the forest for a tomb of stone. To Piko, caves were a place to escape a rainstorm and nothing more. The mere thought of passing warm days away in darkness made for an anxious feeling. Anyway, he needed monks dedicated to the forest, not to stone. Caves would survive the onslaught of bulldozers: the forest would not. And enlightenment without a forest would be a lonely place indeed.

The honor of carrying the eviscerated cat to a nearby knoll fell on Pra Ripansa. The calico would undergo a full transformation from being a killer of the native flycatcher, to a fleshpot of maggots for birds to feast on. After the funeral rite, the monks formed their customary single file line ordered by years in the Sangha: Piko, Visalo, Taniro, Phuttana, and Ripansa. They reached the temple at dusk. At the bird feeder, the feathers and mangled body parts of two striped tit babblers lay in a heap. Ajahn Piko knelt before the bloody remains. He shook his head in disgust and then continued to the village to check on his mother.

With their Ajahn in the village, the monks held a meeting near Saat Saduak Stream. Two candles were lit and a semi-circle formed. The interdependence they had glimpsed on Fon Maak Mountain had touched them at the deepest level.

“What of the hierarchy of births?” Ripansa said in a defensive tone. “What our Ajahn teaches makes this principal meaningless.”

“Right!” agreed the Elder Phuttana. “How can humans be the top of creation if there is no top and bottom? Doesn’t Scripture say that only humans can become enlightened?”

Visalo shook his head, puzzled. “But if all things define each other, how can the flowerpecker be higher than the flowers that shape its beak? They are inseparable. It is meaningless to speak of a hierarchy."

Ripansa remained uncertain. “How should we act? The world feels different now.”

“With Integrity,” Taniro said with confidence. “The Ajahn does not mourn when he holds a funeral for a rice farmer. But I saw him on the verge of tears when he discovered logging near Ting Loei Creek.”

Visalo agreed. “All his lessons come from the plants and animals. I have never once seen him read the Scriptures. The native forest is the Buddha to him. Look around. There isn’t even a single statue of Gotama here. The forest is enlightenment. And Integrity is the path of the forest.”

Ripansa remained uneasy about the responsibility that went with such an interpretation. “But what about the rules? The vinaya?”

Taniro answered him. “The Buddha taught us to be ‘lamps unto ourselves.’ What kind of seekers are we if we disregard what we discover because it does not conform to Scripture? Our Ajahn is right. Integrity is real. The prohibition against all killing is for children who cannot think for themselves. There is a time and place for everything so long as it is done with Integrity.”

Of one mind, the monks armed themselves with shovels, hoes, and anything else that could deliver a blow. Calling upon childhood training as hunters of northern forest, the robed warriors went on the rampage. Cats approached expecting a handout. Instead, their heads were cracked, bludgeoned, or removed altogether. Visalo laid the bloody body of a pregnant female atop the twenty-seven other dead cats. Taniro dug a pit deep enough to bury the remains while Phuttana washed intestines off the hoes and shovels.

With blood on their hands, the Cult of Integrity was born. Its members were sons of the plow, adolescents of the robe, and now men of Integrity. Piko awoke the next morning to a forest that once again did not cry for a handout. He knew immediately what his monks had done. He said a brief prayer for the cats and then focused on the day ahead. The transformation of monks into militia had begun. They could kill a cat. But, could they follow Integrity to its ultimate conclusion? A feral military would enter the forest soon enough. Would his monks be able to act as swiftly against the two-leggeds as they did against the four-leggeds?

6

Gunnar Ray retrieved the note and sealed envelope that he had received in the mail from Ajahn Piko a week earlier. The monk’s instructions were simple: “Before you come to Isan to cover our protest, deliver this envelope to my niece. Her name is “Lek.” She works at the King’s Court Hotel."

“Whoa rot tit tit,” a street vender yelled as he surveyed an endless row of idling cars.

"Tit maak!" Gunnar agreed. Delivering a simple letter could take all night in Bangkok traffic. The reporter fished through his backpack to prepare for a combat commute. Motorcycle taxi. The fastest way to cross the city: dead or alive. He tied a double-knit scarf over his mouth as protection against fumes. The previous November, he publicized a study that showed breathing Bangkok air equaled smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. The drivers of motorcycle taxis, he concluded, were chain smokers by default. To his knees, he duct taped fashion magazines with thick glossy spreads of Thai models. For his torso, he squeezed into an imitation ADIDAS sweatshirt. The reporter had seen the scars on his Thai friends who had been in motorcycle accidents: untreated flesh that healed in grotesque, animal-shaped forms. To promote the new helmet law, he planned to write an article on the most-interesting scars in Thailand. The sweatshirt and periodical-covered knees would provide a second skin should he hit the pavement.

The assault on his senses began. Tuk tuk’s (three-wheel taxis) without mufflers, cars with compression-enhanced horns, venders with tring-a-lings--all reduced a vast universe into a single experience of noise. Beneath the chaos, pulsating like the nervous wings of a hummingbird, remained the ever-present rumble of cars in idle.

In the makeshift lane between vehicles, an endless stream of motorcycle taxis raced to some unseen stoplight. The car drivers, for their part, ignored the cycles and stared zombie-like into the brake lights in front of them. In America, crab fishermen combing the icy Alaskan waters owned the honor of America’s most hazardous occupation. In Thailand, motorcycle taxi drivers are the great risk takers. Four-way intersections serve as the Davey Jones locker for the poor souls that end in a screaming twist of metal. Sure as Bangkok smog, those seemingly indifferent car drivers do them in. Daily. Sometimes busses too. Messy. Often in intersections. Bloody.

“Taxi! Taxi!” Gunnar raised a hand above his head. A man in a red vest wearing #44 pulled to the curb. Before he could say "khap khun khrap," they melted into the Thai roadway. The reporter stared into the decal of a Buddhist monk affixed to the driver's helmet. “Who is the monk,” he yelled to his driver.

“Ajahn Ngeun,” the man yelled back, downshifting.

“Venerable Mr. Money?” Gunnar said with a incredulous tone. “That's a first.”

“He's very powerful. He prevents me from getting in accidents. And I always get a good tip from farang.”

The cars stopped, but the taxi continued to roll between them. The driver pulled Gunnar’s legs tight against him and switched gears to pick up speed. Car mirrors passed just above his magazine-covered knees. Near the stoplight the driver jockeyed for position. Passengers atop nearby motorcycles locked their arms around numbered jerseys. Engines howled as eyes fixated on the dangling light above. Two cycles started to move. Then another. More still. GREEN! The front tire lifted slightly as they overtook taxi #67 with a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl clinging to his back. Next, they passed #84 and a low-level executive carrying a briefcase. Finally, they zoomed by #23 and a well-dressed woman who preserved modesty by allowing her legs to dangle on the same side of the bike. Another stoplight. Samsara . . . the endless cycle of becoming.

“So where do you come from?” Gunnar yelled to his driver.

“Isan!"

"Why did you leave?”

“The soil is poor and it’s hard to find work,” he answered in Thai. “I always worried about having enough decent food. In Bangkok, I earn $11.00 dollars in one day. Not bad.”

Gunnar expected as much. Khon Isan (the people of the Northeast) had flocked to the capital city by the millions. The reason: a thirty-five percent unemployment rate combined with annual income figures of around fourteen percent of what the average Bangkok citizen makes. The driver reached into his pocket to reveal an income booster. Like a blackjack dealer, he shuffled through a series of cards with photos of massage parlors, karaoke bars, and other treasures of the Thai night. “You want lady?” he asked Gunnar, flashing a picture of bikini-clad women sitting behind a glass window.

“Not for me,” Gunnar shook his head.

“You want boy?” the taxi driver persisted, flipping the deck to reveal men in tight trousers.

Gunnar smiled. Taxis were the wheels in the Thailand sex machine. Seventy percent of Bangkok tourists were single males--many of whom fancied a game of cards that Gunnar did not play.

“The King’s Court is my stop for the night.”

The taxi pulled up to a neon-lit complex. Tip included, twenty minutes on the Thai roadway earned the driver $1.45. Thanking Venerable Mr. Money for a safe trip, he watched the motorcycle disappear into a cloud of exhaust.

Kings Court Hotel?

The complex before him looked more like a spaceship ready to blast off than accommodations fit for royalty. Gunnar retrieved the Ajahn’s letter to confirm the name. Indeed. It matched the neon of the Go-Go bar directly above him. The “aliens” on this ship were not from outer space. They came from England, Japan, and various other places where virile men were deprived of multiple partners without consequence. On the second floor, just past “Pet My Pussycat Bar,” he found the entrance to the King’s Court. His best guess was that “Lek” had lied about her place of employment. Bar girls often told their families they worked at hotels. If true, he faced the unenviable task of telling an esteemed monk that his niece worked in a strip club. Maybe she just served drinks? ‘Please don’t be a dancer,’ he lamented. “If Ajahn Piko asks, I can just tell him his niece works as a waitress and leave it at that.”

He took a deep breath and entered the club. "Please come in you handsome man," a small hostess said, rubbing her breasts against his stomach. He would have been flattered had she not said the same thing to a fifty-eight year old Brit wearing golf pants and without a stitch of hair on his head. Gunnar propped himself up on a stool and faced an empty stage. Three brass fire poles with fresh handprints hinted at an earlier performance. A King's Court server dressed in a black miniskirt with a white lace apron approached. “Maid to order?” Gunnar said smiling, his wit lost on the waitress who spoke marginal English.

“I would like one overpriced beer,” he said, trying to relax. With beer in hand, he scanned the bar for Lek. As the niece of a forest monk, he envisioned her as more innocent than her peers. The British man and his two bald buddies sat stage side. A trio of Germans sat against the wall pretending that they had just come for the cold beer.

A red spotlight illumined the floor. Three naked women—each nineteen-years-old--took to the fire poles. One bore stretch marks from childbirth. The other two were on the chubby side. Faces and bodies were painted with neon stripes, swirls, and dots.

The dancers undulated half-heartedly to new age music. They gazed with empty stares at the spotlights circling the walls. Five minutes into a lackluster performance, an emcee unleashed a canned drum roll. In his best grade school English he announced:

And now you see Thailand woman do famous pussy show!

Anticipation filled European eyes as the small girl on the left reached into her vagina and retrieved a blue silk handkerchief. Seconds later, she pulled out a red one. Her friend approached, took hold of the silk, and ushered a string of banners to the opposite side of the stage. Gunnar had seen the signs on the street:

Pussy open bottle

Pussy eat fruit

Pussy drink beer

Pussy play with balls

“You like show?” the waitress asked.

Gunnar responded honestly. “I have a high opinion of the vagina. I don't want to see it eat fruit and drink Budweiser. My mother has a vagina: I came into this world via that route. It has a higher calling than opening beer bottles.”

The waitress stared blankly at the reporter. She understood the three words in his tirade that provided her sustenance: “mother,” “vagina,” and “beer.”

"I'm looking for Lek. Do you know a girl by that name?"

"Lek?"

"Yes. Lek."

The waitress pointed to a woman on the stage. A dancer with a bottle dangling from her groin stared back. "Pop!" The beer opened and foam spilled down her leg. Gunnar sighed at his continued bad fortune. He had indeed found Lek.

The Brits pounded their mugs on the table in appreciation of Lek’s athleticism. The feat seemed to justify the fourteen hours they spent on an airplane. Meanwhile, the Germans argued over whether the bottle was of the twist top variety or not. Lek caught Gunnar staring in her direction. She responded with a wink. He raised his mug in salutation, and then turned away to hide his embarrassment. “Oh no!” he said to himself. “Here they come . . . here come the balloons.” Big ones. Small ones. Red ones. Green ones.

Lek inserted a hollow piece of bamboo in her vagina and loaded it with pellets. This little stunt appeared on the menu somewhere after “pussy eat egg.”

"Don't do it Lek," Gunnar thought to himself. "Don’t make me tell a monk that his niece is the Red Barron of Bangkok.”

The crowd cheered as the first balloon exploded. Lek’s abdomen contracted like a pump gun before unleashing an unseen second wind through the pipe. Another "pop." It took her ten shots to down six balloons. Not bad given the weaponry. Lek walked off the stage and curled up next to a Korean man who had ordered a drink for her. Gunnar shifted his attention back to the stage. A ping-pong ball emerged from a woman's legs and fell into an empty beer glass. Hmm.

The reporter finished his beer and walked toward Lek. Neon lights bounced off the walls and made each step disorienting. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said in Thai, preferring not to involve the Korean man in the discussion. “I need a moment of your time.” Lek looked quizzically at Gunnar. She smiled and removed her hand from the man’s leg. The Korean cast an angry glare. Gunnar scowled if only to incite him further. Outside the bar, against a balcony overlooking the human circus below, Gunnar introduced himself. His eyes wandered from Lek’s black hair to her brown nipples visible through the white lace of the gown.

"So did you like the show . . . do you like Lek?" she responded, shaking her breasts slightly for Gunnar's approval.

"That was quite a performance," he said.

"Do you want to take me home? Is that why you stole me from the Korean man?"

Gunnar rubbed his face with an open hand. He tried to think of an appropriate response. "Actually, I have a letter for you from Ajahn Piko--your uncle in Isan."

"I'm from Isan," Lek answered, nudging him gently. "But I have no Uncle Piko.”

“You aren’t from Ban Nam Sai village in the Sua Yai Forest?”

“No, I'm from Ban Daet Ploi in Roi Et District.”

Gunnar sighed with relief and patted her on the shoulder. "Is there another Lek working the bar?"

"There are three Lek’s here. Which one do you want?"

He returned to the club and asked his waitress to search out Lek #2--the niece of a holy man. He ordered another beer and chuckled at his mistake. "Lek" meant "little" in the Thai language. And even from a Thai perspective, there were a lot of petite people in this country of fifty-eight million.

Five minutes later, an attractive hostess approached. Strobe lights froze all motion into intervals. Lek stared at Gunnar. Her brown eyes, painted sky blue around the edges remained frozen in light even after she looked away.

"You wanting Lek from Ban Nam Sai?” she said in broken English. “My uncle is forest monk Ajahn Piko. How you know about me already?”

Gunnar paused. His took in the glow of Lek’s white teeth, her rosy cheeks, and her shoulder length hair cut evenly across the front. At 5'2," she had indeed earned her namesake. "Can we go outside and talk?" he said hopefully. As they left the bar, a trio of men stared with longing at Lek's departure. Gunnar took another look at the niece of a holy man. She was indeed the most beautiful maid and maiden in the King’s Court.

Two floors below they took pulled up stools in Happy Cowboy Bar and ordered sodas. The women in the open-air tavern were older; many had children living with parents in Isan. The few men sharing drinks were likewise older, drunk, or a combination of the two. The most attractive server was yet another man dressed up as a woman. Gunnar watched with benign amusement as the katuhy wrapped his leg around an unsuspecting Belgian fisherman. In English barely discernable even to Gunnar, the fisherman attempted to impress the siren with his maritime profession. Land of Smiles. The reporter, meanwhile, wavered on whether to inform the tourist that his catch of the day sported milk, not row.

He turned back to face Lek. "I’m heading to Isan to interview your uncle. He sent me this letter and asked that I deliver it to you before I leave Bangkok.”

A look of concern came over her face. Two slight wrinkles appeared above her nose. “Does Uncle know I working at bar?”

“Not yet,” Gunnar answered. “Someone told him King’s Court was a hotel. You I imagine.”

“What you going to tell him?”

“Well . . . do some of the dancers sleep upstairs of the bar?”

“Yes. But only when they are . . .”

“Stop. It’s a hotel and you’re working there.”

Lek flashed an appreciative smile. Gunnar nodded and raised his glass. He watched as she brought a sharp pinky nail across the seal. The excitement of receiving mail dissipated into the torment of bad news. Gunnar tried to remain a disinterested messenger. A single tear streamed down Lek's face. It collected mascara and eye shadow and made for an azure droplet that Gunnar dabbed with a white napkin. “Lek’s village having big problem,” she said. “Before I write Uncle and tell him that I finally coming home. I tell him I can never work in Bangkok again. But now Uncle say that I should stay in Bangkok. He say the military is coming to make my family go to the new place. Paa and Mae do not want to leave the village. And Uncle does not want to leave the forest. The village is going to do some big event to stop the government.”

Gunnar considered Lek’s words carefully. They portended a protest on the horizon. And protests in Thailand, few as they were, had a way of getting uncomfortable very quickly. In a country where conflict is avoided at all costs, when the cage opens the hidden tiger leaps. Gunnar paid for the drinks and prepared to leave the Ajahn’s beautiful niece. He had learned at a young age while visiting his grandparent's ranch in rural Michigan: if you pass through on open gate, leave it open. If you pass through a closed gate, be damn sure you close it. He would leave Lek as he found her: a beautiful woman with a problem.

“Is there anything you want me to tell your uncle?” he said, searching his pocket for an imagined set of car keys.

“No. You not have tell him anything,” Lek answered. “I am going home to help Paa and Mae. I cannot follow uncle’s words this time. I have my own problem to take care of too. I must go home.”

Gunnar cringed. He saw a closed gate swing open. “When do you plan on leaving?” he said.

“Very fast. When do you go to Isan Mr. Gunnar?”

“First, I am going to meet with a guy who wants to be my translator. Phut phasaa Isan mai dai--I can't speak the Isan dialect. If I meet some old timers that don't speak Thai, I will need him.”

“How much money you paying translator,” Lek asked with a gleam in her eye.

“A hundred and fifty dollars for the week,” Gunnar said. In America, such wages would have been a pittance. In Thailand, the amount equaled a farmer’s salary for several months. “Can Lek apply for translator job?” she asked hopefully. “You can give money to Lek's family. That way you help village and not some college boy.”

Her proposition caught Gunnar off guard. He paused . . . and then searched for a polite way to say “Hell no!” Lek worked in a pussy bar. He didn't want the aggravation of being treated like some American GI taking a prostitute across the country. He knew better. He had a bad past experience traveling with a woman in Thailand. He vowed never to repeat the same mistake.

“Lek, I really don’t think . . .”

“Mr. Gunnar,” she answered, cutting him off mid-sentence. “I know you think I am only bargirl and not have good manner. But I know how to be regular girl. Working bar is only job. Also, if you want to understand Buddha’s meaning I can teach you. Uncle teach me many thing about the Buddha. And if you come to my village, you not have to pay for food or house. You stay with my family. Saving you money and you helping Paa and Mae.”

Gunnar nodded as he considered her offer. The housing option was attractive. If Ajahn Piko intended to blow the lid on things, it might be safer to stay with a family instead of with a renegade monk. Still, Lek’s good idea was a bad idea. In spite of the advantages, it couldn't possibly be worth the aggravation. To compound this, her very presence would remind him that in a country teeming with attractive women, he had yet to make time for a girlfriend. "Lek, the fellow I plan on hiring has experience translating for farangs. He has worked with a number of different clients.”

“What do you think I doing every night?” she answered in an excited voice. “I also explain about Thai culture to farang. That part of my job.”

"This guy has a degree in linguistics. He's a professional."

Lek frowned at the reporter. "What he teach you that I can’t? You ask me anything about Thai culture and I will explain the meaning for you."

Gunnar searched the bar for some cultural conundrum to stump Lek. On a metal pole near the bar's entrance he spotted an elevated dollhouse. On the front “porch,” a figurine with Chinese features and a silk gown stood watch. In the living quarters, incense sticks. "Okay," he said. "Explain the purpose of the dollhouse."

"That’s a easy one," Lek said smiling. "It's a shrine to Nang Kwat. She is special for the women in the bars. She help to bring us good-luck and keep us free from sickness. Every morning we give her food. Nighttime we light incense sticks to make good smell smoke for her. If we do good thing for Nang Kwat, she do good thing for us."

‘Pretty good answer.’ Gunnar conceded to himself. Probably just beginner’s luck. "So if a girl wants to meet a man she just gives food to Nang Kwat?"

Lek smiled, enthusiastic that a Westerner had for once asked her about religion and not sex. "Only a stupid girl asks Nang Kwat for farang,” she answered. "I never ask that. Nang Kwat is too important." Like most Westerners, Gunnar arrived in Thailand with the simple belief that 95% of the populous practiced Buddhism. The Buddha lived his life as a man: not as a God, ghost, or spirit. As with other ex-patriots seeking the philosophical right to do as he damn well pleased, Gunnar resonated with the religion's admonition to be a “lamp unto oneself.” It fit well with his strong ego and American individualism. He even called himself a Buddhist for a spell. In the Land of Smiles, he quickly discovered that among his Thai Buddhist friends, he alone did not own an amulet for protection; pray to any number of house, village, or forest sprits; or fear a walk through a dark forest. He concluded that he, or forty million Thais, had to give up the Buddhist title.

Lek turned her back to the reporter and raised a hand to her breast. She inserted two fingers in the center of a padded cup and removed a piece of cloth. In the reporter’s open hands, she unfolded it from corner to corner. The warmth of the cloth matched the temperature of Lek’s small breast. Gunnar's skin tingled as he considered its resting place. A labyrinth of squares--each with a unique character therein--added to the mystery. Beneath the squares lay a crudely drawn fetus. Gunnar stared into unborn eyes that seemed to look back at him.

"Khmen," she said, running her fingers under a script with more swirls and eddies than a good trout river. "That’s Cambodia style writing.”

Gunnar held the cloth toward the light. He examined the script with renewed interest. Many Thais believed that saksit loomed large in neighboring Burma and Cambodia. In both countries, monks still wandered through forested mountains with a higher per-capita of ghosts than their denuded homeland. As a result: cloths, amulets, and other treasures of the neighboring spirit world had become regular imports.

Gunnar began to rethink his stance against taking Lek upcountry. He could learn from her. Plus, she did have a roof to put over his head. Sensing the reporter's intrigue with the spirit world, Lek fished through her purse and retrieved a small cylinder filled with orange liquid. She placed it on the center of the Khmen cloth. A small woodcarving lay suspended in the liquid. Two dots for eyes and a straight line for a mouth constituted the facial features. In the center, or stomach, were two additional small dots and a curved line. Another fetus. More saksit.

"This Took-a-Tae," she said respectfully. "This is what some girl use if she want to meet farang. But like I tell you, I don't use anymore. I don't have any interest to meet man now. But I keep for good luck."

"How does it work?"

Lek brought the faint impression of the fetus to the bridge of her nose, then slowly on toward her chin. She performed the ritual three times--an auspicious number in Thai cosmology. "See. If you want to find a good farang man, you just do like this and ask Took-a-Tae for help. When finish, take a little bit of orange water and put on forehead. Then you not have to look good for man, good man come look for you."

If the hundreds of farangs crowding the complex were an indication, Took-a-Tae had indeed worked her magic. Gunnar retrieved a small sketchpad from under his belt and scribbled notes. Lek again reached into her purse. This time she unveiled an article that Gunnar knew intimately. In his open hand she laid an erect wood penis the size of a pinky. The sight of the miniature phallus and the earnest look on young Lek’s face made the reporter laugh outright.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Lek said, removing the article as punishment for his reaction. “I tell you already. I only use for good luck now. I not use to make spell for man. I just want show you what some girl using here.”

Gunnar tried to contain himself. He shifted his attention to a dusty photo of an old monk to temper his reaction. Next to the monk were the familiar American spirits, Jack Daniels and Jim Beam.

Regaining his composure, he continued his inquiry into the sacred and the profane. "What's his story?"

"Oh that's Lumpah Khun,” Lek said of the forest monk while placing the penis back in her purse. “He is very special. He has more saksit than a city monk."

"So how does he help?"

"Many years ago, Lumpah Khun go driving to a temple and his car get in terrible accident. I mean the car completely destroy and turn over on the road. Nobody can walk outside that crash and feel okay. But Lumpah Khun just crawl out the car, wipe off his robe, and continue to the temple. If you see the picture of the car, you going to know it's a miracle. So now we ask Lumpah Khun to help protect us from accident. Many people wear amulet that show this monk. My father tell me that one time Lumpah Khun came to our village to get food. After he left, the rain fall and the rice grow strong."

Gunnar again burst into hearty, uncalled for laughter. "Why you laugh at me again?" Lek said poking him in the stomach. “Lumpah Khun is not funny. You ask about monk and I tell you.”

Gunnar closed his notepad. "It's just that in America, we keep our religion as far away from our booze and sex as we can. I guess we think they belong in different places . . . we don't want anything around to remind us of what we shouldn't be doing, when we're doing it. Here, religion is everywhere. Right now there are two girls lighting incense sticks to Nang Kwat. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here talking to you about a Buddhist monk while you put an erect penis in your purse. Back home we party on Saturday night and repent on Sunday morning. Here, things are all sort of fused together.”

"Is that good?”

"I really don't know . . ."

Below the photo of the monk, a long-abandoned beehive clung to a branch. Next to the hive rested the skull of a grahting (small forest deer). More than just a bar, the ensemble provided a Jungian glimpse of the Thai psyche.

Just as Gunnar felt things could not get any stranger, a large male with an unusually large nose came to a halt outside the bar. In spite of his awkward appearance, people vied for his attention. As with the ladies in the complex, he had come down from Isan on business. The main difference being that he walked on fours and weighed as much as a minivan. A boy in tattered clothes sat atop the elephant. An older man with dark skin, matted hair, and a left eye that had been sewn shut held the reign and a box of sugarcane. Ten baht per stick allowed tourists and bargirls alike the chance to feed the world's largest land mammal in the middle of a metropolis. Gunnar watched as three Thai men darted beneath his huge belly and emerged on the other side. The elephant, like Nang Kwat, Took-a-Tae, and Lumpah Khun had a role in the Thai pantheon of good luck. Ducking under his torso could help one win the lottery, among other things.

Gunnar cast a weary eye toward the faint glow of Mars between two high-rise buildings. A moment of quiet reflection on the planet’s rotation helped to re-establish a sense of place. “Black holes and supernovas are also part of our strange universe,” he thought to himself. “Add to that one prostitute-fed pachyderm, a sacred dollhouse, and a monk watching over whiskey bottles.”

May you live in interesting times . . .

“So do I get the job Mr. Gunnar?”

The reporter felt his vow not to travel with a woman slip away. “You get the job. You can thank your Took-a-Tae. She found you a farang. Not a rich one; not one who wants to get married; but a farang nonetheless. I’ll do my best to be a good student of your culture.”

“So when we do we go to Isan?”

“In two days. But here’s the deal—you have to wear jeans and long-sleeve shirts the entire time. No sexy outfits.”

“Mr. Gunnar, I tell you already, I know how to act around a monk. You not have to worry. This kind of dress only for job. I have regular clothes. I can be a regular girl.”

“Good. That’s all I want from you. Translation services from a regular girl.”

7

February 27

Cicadas: first a grove, then a mountain, erupted in song. A gray-bellied squirrel emerged from a deadfall. It spied the gathering of villagers and returned to his burrow. Hush. The forest again fell silent. Ajahn Piko stared out upon the men and women he had known since childhood. Atop the bamboo floor of the sala, sixty-two farmers waited for the monk to speak. Piko released a long, drawn out breath. The smooth skin that had once supported eyebrows wrinkled into tight folds. “I have called this gathering in the name of saving Sua Yai Forest, the sacred center of our province.”

The village that raised him as a boy now listened as an attentive flock. The headman was his brother, the shopkeeper his uncle, and the maa pii (spirit doctor) his mother. “Behind us is the last intact forest in Burriram. It our home, but it is also the home to 180 species of birds, two species of gibbons, deer, leopards, and thousands of insects whose names I do not know.”

He rose to his feet and unrolled a two-foot map. Pock-marked with scribbles from his recent flight observations, Piko revealed the latest intrusions on the forest. The monk, turned aviator, turned cartographer, translated his findings. "As you can see, we have lost another three square miles to encroachment. Ban Pa Lam to the north remains the biggest problem with their rampant burning. And to the East, near Ting Loei Creek, the mafia continues to log at night. Also, on the west flank of Fon Maak, Pra Taniro encountered sandalwood traders."

While the villagers supported the monk in his fight against poachers, their main concern centered on the massive quadrant on the map marked with black lines. Within those lines, their village and native forest were scheduled for destruction. All were terrified of being relocated to a patch of bone-dry earth forty miles away. One million villagers had already been evicted: Kau Jau Kau--remove the poor to feed the rich.

In front of the monk lay four wooden crates.

Ammunition. Ripansa thrust a metal bar under the first of the lids. He ripped into the ply-board with a hint of violence. Piko continued. “We shall greet the soldiers who would remove us from the forest with something more powerful than guns.”

The monk reached into the box and hoisted a single Buddhist robe high above his head. “Those who wear the saffron cloth will save our forest.”

Sun-baked faces stared back with hesitation. “If we ordain our last sons,” Kunisalo, a village pig farmer lamented, "who will plow the fields? Raise the pigs? Care for the elderly?”

Piko placed four saffron robes over his shoulder, turned his back to the man, and approached a towering bombax tree. With the bravado of a stage magician, he linked one robe to the next and circled the tree with simple and sturdy knots. Villagers looked on in amazement. Illusion? Or, had their Ajahn just transcended the laws of nature? An ordinary tree had just become a member of the Buddhist Sangha.

Ajahn Piko yelled out, his voice alerting an unseen deer. “Let the destruction of an ordained tree be equal to the killing of a monk!”

Concerned voices rose above the canopy as villagers struggled to make sense of it all. In Buddhist Thailand, killing a monk was the greatest crime imaginable. Cosmic laws applied. Fiery hells and torment through a thousand lifetimes awaited the perpetrator. Nervous circles of light sliced through the darkness as villagers waved cigarettes in heated discussion. Who had ever heard of such a thing? Their Ajahn wished to transform the non-human into the human? In the crates were enough robes to ordain 1,200 trees. Did that mean new mouths to feed? Roots to water? Who was to know? Weeks earlier, on the day of the eviction notice, Piko had placed a call to a wealthy lay supporter in Bangkok. The man ordered and paid for the robes at the Ajahn’s request. Pra Visalo anointed another tree in the burgeoning sacred grove. All the while, whispers of disbelief rose like sparks into the dark sky.

“Without forests, there can be no forest monks,” Piko continued. “The government calls what they are doing ‘reforestation’--but in truth, it is utter destruction of the land. They just logged and re-planted Hin Dang Forest in Chonburi Province. Five hundred and forty villagers were relocated to places with no schools, no toilets, nothing. The community forests they occupied were cleared in a matter of weeks. There is nowhere left for the forest monk to retreat. At Sua Yai we will make our stand. We will be the voice for the animals and trees. We shall fight like the tiger and not retreat like the deer.”

The villagers looked on with admiration and fear. They felt the Ajahn’s love of the land and it inspired them. However, protecting trees that served as a safe haven for pii bawps and other fearsome ghosts remained a secondary concern. The forest served as a food supplement and buffer between other villages. No one would cry if the poisonous snakes, ravenous tigers, and heinous scorpions were evicted. Their need to remain on the land reigned supreme. Big business financed the government; the government paid the military; and the military had relocated one million farmers already. Santipap Banatik--the village headman--approached his brother. He spoke for the crowd: “Your love of the forest inspires us,” he said. “But how will you keep us from being removed? We have seen the relocation site. There is nothing there. The soil has been leached from eucalyptus in fallow. And there is no school. Never have we seen such a desolate place. What do we tell our children?"

Santipap's children were the sons and daughters that Piko never had. His eldest son, Boon, had two children. He raised water buffalo and farmed an acre of rice. Lek, the village princess whose beauty had attracted suitors from the time she was thirteen, worked in a Bangkok hotel and sent money home to support the family. Nok helped her mother in the house. She seldom traveled beyond the confines of the village. Ake, the youngest, aspired to becoming Ban Nam Sai’s first college student.

All dreams were on hold. Kau Jau Kau meant the end of tomorrow. The squalor of the relocation site would kill some of elderly and leave the children without an education. The village could lose an entire generation to the sweatshops and prostitution rings of Bangkok. It would take money to re-build the community. In Thailand, exploited youth, more so than farmer's sweat, brought in currency.

“Family and friends,” Ajahn Piko spoke with palms open. “I tell you, the fight to save the village is the fight to save the forest. No outsider has ever heard of Ban Nam Sai Village. But people know Sua Yai Forest. The animals you fear can bring attention to this stretch of the province. Fon Maak Mountain is the green eye of Burriram. Stories from old Siam abound here. Ajahn Mun, the greatest of forest monks, once resided in Pah Tam cave just to be close to the animals. Save the forest and you will save yourselves.”

Tired eyes looked back at the Ajahn in partial understanding. For hundreds of years, humans had tilled Isan soil and fought back the forest. Leopards stalked the goats, barking deer ate the planted lettuce, tigers feasted on village water buffaloes, and malaria weakened the villagers. Now, in their time of need, the monk asked the men and women of Ban Nam Sai to devote their efforts to save a forest they had staved off for centuries.

“What would you have us do Ajahn?” Santipap asked his brother.

“Sit with me tonight in this sala,” Piko answered. “The devoted can meditate and purify their minds. Others can sleep. But when the first thrush unleashes song and the white-handed gibbons howl to the dawn’s light, let us set the forest ablaze with Buddhist robes.”

As rare wrinkled lipped bats flew overhead to return to their caves, Piko and his monks rose in unison and headed to a nearby stream. They washed their faces and then roused sleepy-eyed villagers.

“A Buddhist robe carries much saksit," he explained to the faithful. “Handle these cloths with the utmost respect. Search out trees as wide as your outstretched arms and fasten robes around them."

One by one, village men and women disappeared into the forest. Some carried as many as twenty robes on their backs. Monks followed established trails to prevent harm to insects underfoot. Villagers veered off the paths to convert the largest and most deserving of trees. As the morning lingered, the arboreal missionaries returned less frequently as greater distances were covered. With each passing hour, the forest came to resemble a New England autumn. Ajahn Piko perfected his method: three twirls, two square knots, recitation of prayer, attend to the next convert. He returned to find the villagers gathered around the fifteen-year old son of Montree Ratpochai. “He’s been snake bit,” Santipap explained. Piko stared down at the bite. From the spacing between fangs and the pattern of swelling, he knew gnuu hang gra ding had struck. Poisonous. Painful. But not life-threatening. He whispered instructions to Pra Visalo. The monk discarded his robe and fastened on a layman's breach cloth. With a machete strapped to his side, he looked more a hunter than a Mahanikai monk. Ratpochai voiced his distress. “This is the thanks we get from the forest. My only son may lose the use of his leg. Perhaps we should focus on defending the village. The forest can look after itself.” Ajahn Piko did not respond to the frightened father. Instead, he kept pressure above the wound. Pra Visalo returned with several species of roots and vines.

He pulverized a root and mixed it with water to create a drinkable brew. He lifted the boy’s head and poured the pungent broth down his throat. “Do not blame Ajahn Piko,” the boy said to his father. “It was my weak mind. I carelessly stepped on the snake’s tail. The Ajahn teaches us to be mindful and I acted carelessly.”

Ajahn Piko smiled and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. He applied an extract from the bark of a khonthee so thale tree on the wound. “This will help prevent infection and ease the swelling. You shall vomit and suffer delusions, but you will not die. My Master once poured the same vile broth down my throat when this snake bit me. When you can no longer tell if you are awake or dreaming, recite the sacred syllables “bud-dho” in honor of the Buddha. Never forget that all is anicca (impermanence) and that your pain, just as your pleasure, cannot last.”

With his work as plant collector finished, Pra Visalo re-fastened his Buddhist robe. Piko seldom called on his monks to disrobe. In times of great stress, however, he would enact the ancient practice of temporary disrobing once common to a land where survival and wisdom complemented each other.

By mid-afternoon, 1,200 trees donned the robes. Sua Yai Forest had become a living member of the Buddhist Sangha. Ajahn Piko looked over the sacred grove and felt a sense of hope. He tried not to indulge in the warm glow of accomplishment, but the spectacle of teamwork, ingenuity, and saffron robes brightened his mood. Bangkok would soon hear of the ordination. Some ambassador of intimidation would arrive to quell the uprising. Rural dissidence had a strange way of making third world bureaucracy move post haste. For a moment in time, however, the sacred forest ruled.

8

Two days later, three elderly women dressed in flowing silk gowns arrived at the forest temple. Their aged frames folded like worn deck chairs as they prostrated themselves to the Triple Gem--Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. Each carried a bronze pra khreung (amulet). The eldest thumbed at a likeness of Ajahn Mun--the great meditation master. Between the bony fingers of the second rested King Rama V. In the hands of the third lay Pra Som Det--a monk renowned for supernatural powers. The eldest of the three spoke first. “Ajahn Piko. We have come from Bangkok to ask for your blessing.”

Curious, as well as cautious, Piko did not answer. Instead, he waited for his visitors to reveal their motives. A woman pockmarked with age spots continued: “We have heard that you live austerely in the forest . . . that you sustain yourself on birdsong and wild fruits. And we know you have special abilities beyond those of ordinary city monks.”

Ajahn Piko remained silent. He had never revealed his dabbling into mystical practices. Besides, that was years ago. Looking into the future was as much a game as anything else. He always returned to the practice of mindfulness--of accepting things as they are--out of respect for the Buddha. Still, rumors had begun to circulate about his Sangha. Many people saw Fon Maak as a magic mountain ruled by ghosts and wild animals. To live in its shadows intensified the saksit of the robe. One-by-one, the women laid their amulets next to Piko. The monk handled each individually to respect the different saksit they contained. He chanted until his words meshed with the trill of a white-eyed laughing thrush. The women sat with hands pressed together. All delighted in the personal recharge of their spiritual calling cards.

The monk's relationship with the spirit world had evolved over the years into one of quiet acceptance. While he wore no medallion, he sported faded tattoos on either arm. At the insistence of Maa Pii, the sixteen-year-old boy accepted the tiger on his right shoulder and the yak on his left. Both animals served as protectors of the Emerald Buddha in the Ramayana—a Hindu epic and holy text. For Piko, the tiger had deeper meaning. The forest he lived in was named after the animal. All too often the tiger haunted his dreams: watching him nightly from behind tall grasses. His mother saw the coming of the gula (Burmese tattoo artist)--as fortuitous. To her, illness came from without--from the shifty realm of unsatisfied spirits. Just as a Western child endured the needle to ensure good health, so too would her son. A serum of oil from a python's gall mixed with Chinese ink protected young Piko against illness. The tattoos made him fierce: prevented knives from penetrating his skin; denied the cold and rain their force. Should a bandit see the markings, he would no doubt think twice about launching an attack.

Young Piko accepted the tattoos and the spirit-filled world of his mother until his late-teens. After he ordained as a monk and adopted a meditation practice that forced him to examine the physical world like a scientist, he became wary of the netherworld. He traveled to the mountains above Chiang Mai to spend a year under Ajahn Konkrat. An adherent of the minority Thammayut sect, Konkrat was a Buddhist missionary who aimed to convert as many villagers as possible from spirit worship, to the Eight-fold path Buddhism. The Thammayuts came into power as a reformist sect in 1892. Philosophically, they sought a return to a strict following of the Buddha's teachings. Practically, they served Bangkok's ruling elite and their goal of unifying the outer provinces under central authority. In 1929, the government banned spirit worship outright in favor of adherence to the Triple Gem-Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. Of course, the government official who made the decree likely checked with an astrologer to ensure such a course of action would be fortuitous.

Like-minded villagers who worshipped the state religion could be more easily subdued, taxed, and made "Thai" than a disparate collection of farmers and hunter/gatherers from various religious backgrounds. Ajahn Konkrat taught young Piko that winning converts depended first, and foremost, on discrediting the village maa pii. In a Lisu hill tribe village near the Burmese border, Konkrat and his monks set up camp in a cemetery--an area ripe with pii. They preached Dhamma to all who would listen. Konkrat espoused the glories of taking refuge in the Triple Gem as opposed to the hierarchy of spirits. The villagers, for their part, watched in anticipation to see if the monks would fall deathly ill for disrespecting the spirit world. The village maa pii, sensing the gradual shift of power to the monks in residence, cursed the zealots at every turn. She cornered young Piko in the forest and exposed her sagging breasts. She followed the insult by pointing her callous feet at his face and swearing at him in her native tongue.

At the age of nineteen, Piko returned to Ban Nam Sai to confront the spirits in his own backyard. He had not seen his mother in two years. He arrived determined to impress both her and the villagers with his newfound maturity and leadership skills. To some extent, it was expected, if not required, for a monk to turn his back on his mother. To realize the Buddha's teachings in full, an ascetic had to identify with the Dhamma and not family obligations. Piko aimed to do just that. From his mother he learned early on that every place had its spiritual ruler. The pii ban looked over the welfare of the village while the pii dong kept watch over the forest. The young monk determined to replace both rulers with the Triple Gem of Buddhism. Villagers would then come to him, and not his mother, for spiritual guidance.

One of Piko’s first memories was the strange scene of Maa Pii holding a purification ritual over a man who had fallen deathly ill. Against all sound reason, the hunter had set up camp amidst a grove of ancient trees three miles from the village center. For as long as the elders passed down village lore, the trees were the feared haunt of the forest's most powerful spirits. They towered high above the surrounding canopy allowing powerful beings a privileged view. In their shadows lived the most secretive of Sua Yai's animals. The spotted leopard made a den near the mai intaninbog tree. The collared scops owl nested in the grove. And the rarely seen Asiatic black bear returned nightly to its den after foraging.

While the pii took scarce notice of native animals, domesticates fared much worse. Two village dogs, on two separate occasions, were found near the area with their entrails feasted on: classic work of the dreaded pii bawp. Young Piko announced that he would set up residence in the sacred grove. He alone would rid the forest of its ghosts. Maa Pii alternated between horror and outrage. The thought of her son pitting himself against the pii puya tayai and pii puta made her tremble. At the same time, the belligerent boy had directly challenged her for spiritual rule of the village. Had it been any other monk, she would have driven him from the forest.

As he departed for the grove, villagers were certain they had seen the last of him. Few believed his immature saksit could withstand the onslaught of the most powerful of pii. Thirty days later, Piko remained unharmed: triumphant. He spent the next three weeks teaching the Dhamma and glories of taking refuge in the Buddha. Content that he had made an impact on his village, he headed north to continue his wandering.

Months later, he returned to a hero's welcome. Eight village men led him deep into the forest to show the monk what they had done in his honor. "We have converted fully to the Triple Gem, to the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha," Pitak Kongkul boasted. "No longer do we honor the pii dong or fear the dreaded pii bawp." The monk looked on in shock at the open hole in the sky where the vanaspati (sacred grove) once towered. "We cut the trees down and not one of us has fallen ill. Finally, the forest is ours to do as we like. We can kill animals without fear of retribution from the pii. Glory to the Triple Gem: to the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha."

Piko entered his mother's house in a fit of despair. He changed out of his Buddhist robe and into a pair of his deceased father's pants and shirt. "Maa Pii," he said kneeling before her. "I implore you to call the pii dong back to rule the forest. The men have cut down the vanaspati and aim to kill animals wantonly. My teaching skills are not yet strong enough to convey a proper understanding of the Dhamma. The pii dong can protect this forest better than I. Please, mother, I will announce to all that the pii have returned. It is best if the villagers believe they risk injury to themselves if they kill trees and animals without respect.”

Maa Pii looked at her son with understanding. The defeat of the pii had affected her healing powers as well. The lesions and gashes she treated now failed to close. The health of the village, and the forest, depended on the restoration of the ancient system. "I will do as you wish, on one condition,” she explained to her son. “Some day you will become a very powerful monk and will possess much saksit. If you return to live in this forest, you must allow the protective pii to remain. You must never challenge me again in front of the villagers. I am their healer and they must have faith for the plants to work."

As Ajahn Piko finished blessing the amulets, the three elderly women rose to their feet. The eldest questioned the monk. “Venerable Ajahn may we volunteer our services to mend the robes of your Sangha?”

Piko emerged with a worn robe in need of the needle and thread. The rest of the afternoon, the women busied themselves sewing and dusting the beams of the sala. They had discovered Ajahn Piko via an ancient conduit of communication. Orawan Wongdam, wife of the farmer who loaned Piko his plane told her third cousin that a monk flew high above the earth in a crop duster the first day of every month. Krit told her youngest sister from Kanchanaburi, who, in turn, passed the information via a card game to her best friend Aom from Nakhon Panom. Aom told Da--the wife of a village soup maker--that a monk in Northeast Thailand flew above the tree line of a Burriram forest wearing only his Buddhist robe. She, in turn, told her husband. The soup maker arrived in Bangkok to purchase cutlery. He told the tale to a store manager who promptly told his mother that a monk from Burriram flew into the heavens and returned with healing power to aid the sick and elderly. The store manager’s mother now mended Piko’s robe.

9

“Now I've done it . . .” Gunnar lamented as he planned his trip to the Northeast. “I've done what I said I would NEVER, EVER, do again: travel, with a woman, on a research trip in Thailand. Sure, Lek is a translator and nothing else--but the fact remains that she is very much a woman . . . and beautiful at that! The stares. The whispers. Complications on complications.”

Gunnar’s pledge to travel alone came after a strange twist of events during his first trip to Thailand. At twenty-one, he entered the Kingdom wearing a backpack topped off with a tattered copy of Walpola Sri Rahula’s "What the Buddha Taught."

His girlfriend Kelly joined him.

Kelly hailed from Winnipeg’s inner city. Her short hair--cut ragged by her uncle razor--stood straight up, fell lazily to a side, or both depending on the dew point. Her pale skin, fresh like November snow, reflected her Slovenian ancestry. Emerald eyes added to her beauty. Gunnar thought the colors of her face: charcoal, white, green, and brown would make for an attractive flag.

Kelly did not act the part of a princess. Hell no. Her outlook on life was as unfiltered as the cigars she smoked. Those cigars. Yes. They described Kelly well. Wrapped in a bundle with an oversized rubber band, they were not the kind of smoke flaunted by movie stars on the cover of Cigar Magazine. No. Kelly’s cigars were uncivilized--the same puffed by Mexican banditos in the old Spaghetti Westerns.

During that first trip, Gunnar and Kelly saw the best and worst that Bangkok had to offer. They explored the Chao Phraya River in a long boat; went to the night market that spanned two city blocks; sampled exotic fruits whose names they could not pronounce; visited the Emerald Buddha at Wat Po; and stared in disbelief at shantytowns where families of ten lived under a single metal roof. After a week of sightseeing, Gunnar confirmed his appointment with a reputable monk to teach him Buddhism. Kelly, for her part, began her study of traditional Thai dance.

Maha Tawui served as the abbot of Dong Thep Monastery. On paper, Tawui seemed the perfect monk to school Gunnar on the fine points of the religion. He had established himself as one of the leading translators of Pali texts and held a prominent position on the Sangha Council. Famous for its massive gold-leafed Buddha, the grandiose temple painted in extravagant blues and greens celebrated the best of Thai architecture. Dragons emerged from the four-corners, ancient princes with double-jointed fingers sat atop mythical animals and murals depicting the life of the Buddha covered the walls.

The day of Gunnar’s visit a large crowd gathered around a makeshift stage. Rows of Thai children sat mesmerized by a puppet show that re-enacted the life of Buddha. They watched as a puppet astrologer warned the King that his son would become either a world conqueror like himself, or a mendicant who wandered the earth in rags. Afraid that his son would follow the path of religion, the King banished all signs of suffering from the courtyard. In a story 500-years older than Christ, the puppet Siddhartha danced with beautiful women and enjoyed the best foods his sheltered world could offer.

“As long as old age, sickness, and death remain outside of the temple walls,” the puppeteer explained, “Siddhartha is content to follow his father’s footsteps and rule the world.”

Fate entered the courtyard in the form of a man twisted with disease.

Children in the audience covered their eyes at the hideous sight. All saw the depths of suffering as if for the first time: the innocence of youth succumbing to the cruel world of change. Aghast at the sight of the body riddled with disease, Siddhartha determined to leave the courtyard to see what could produce such an abomination. With the eyes of young and old fixed on the stage, the puppeteer drew a curtain and changed sets. The new cardboard town revealed the world uncensored. Siddhartha discovered an old man crippled by age, a sick man dying in the street, and a dead man on a funeral pyre. With death and suffering in full view, the seeds of religion were planted. The future Buddha renounced the transient pleasures of the courtyard and joined a band of wandering of ascetics.

The children in the audience nodded with understanding. The story provided insight into the mission of their brothers and uncles wearing the robe. Under a papier-mâché bodhi tree the future Buddha battled Mara, the great temptress and symbol of human passions. He overcame loba (greed), dosa (anger) and moha (delusion). The revelation that he returned to the world with became known as The Four Noble Truths:

Life is dukkha

(Vulnerable to disease, bound by change, and marred by dissatisfaction.)

Dukkha is caused by craving

(Interpreting life to be other than it is.)

Eliminate desire and dukkha ceases

(That which does not arise cannot be mistaken or cause suffering.)

The Eight-fold Path is the way to extinguish dukkha

(The way out is to practice Right Understanding, Mindfulness, Speech, Conduct, Livelihood, Effort, Attentiveness and Concentration.)

Gunnar found Maha Tawui in a far corner of his monastery. The monk stood half-naked while his entourage bathed him from head to toe. Soapsuds formed strange shapes on his body—half a poodle on his stomach, a false teat on his chest. Gunnar smiled and then bowed three times.

"I'm Gunnar Ray," he said respectfully. "I talked to your associate on the phone last week."

"Oh yes, Gunnar. Moment please . . . I will finish my wash first."

The sight of inferior monks bathing Tawui called to mind the subservience offered to despot rulers--Greek kings fed grapes by nameless nymphs. Still, Gunnar tried to see the act from the Buddhist perspective. The bathing of Tawui produced merit for the monks.

On grass mats under a fig tree, they discussed the fundamentals of Buddhism. Throughout the meeting, Gunnar kept an eye on the front gate for Kelly. She had reluctantly promised to join him for the meeting. Kelly took issue with the all-male hierarchy of the religion. In Thailand, she railed against the relegation of nuns to second-class citizens. Female practitioners, she had read, were treated more like temple servants than serious religious seekers.

After polite conversation, Maha Tawui prepared to make an early exit. Gunnar shook his head in disgust. He hoped to discuss his meditation practice with the monk. Instead, Tawui cut the conversation short.

“You need to take a course in giving directions!” Kelly yelled from across the courtyard.

"Is that your friend?" the Ajahn asked, eyeing his girlfriend as she walked boldly toward him.

"Yes, that's her," Gunnar sighed. "I know it's her because I told her to wear long pants to the temple and she's wearing cut off shorts. Yep, that's my Kelly alright."

"Mai pen rai," Tawui said, surveying Kelly’s shapely legs. "Never mind."

Kelly stood towering above the head of the sitting monk. Unaware that she had violated two sacred Thai customs before even saying hello, she smiled and offered to shake the monk’s hand. Make that three sacred customs. "Sorry I'm late."

"Take a seat," Gunnar said sternly. He pulled on her tattered shorts and reigned in her hand before she touched the monk. "The Ajahn is very busy today and has run out of time."

Kelly smiled. "That's okay. I want to do some shopping anyway."

"No, no, please stay," Maha Tawui insisted. "I will make time for Kelly. Special time."

The Ajahn's underling raised an eyebrow and looked at his watch. Gunnar settled in, hopeful that he would get a chance to present some of his questions.

Tawui continued. "We had a woman named Margaret stay here a year ago. She came from Germany and almost became a mae chee (nun) at the temple. She had the same green eyes as you Miss Kelly."

For the next forty minutes, the Ajahn and Kelly talked about everything from winter in Winnipeg to Kelly’s love of corn fritters. Meanwhile, Gunnar Ray sat quietly in the background. He began to have his doubts about the pale-faced monk before him. He certainly did not look the part of a wanderer. His muscles had atrophied. Skin drooped from his arms, his chin, anywhere the robe did not cover flesh.

A lull in their conversation allowed him to get a word in. "I'm interested in finding a monk who lives austerely in the forest,” he explained with sincerity. “I've read about practitioners who camp in forest graveyards and meditate on bones to reduce their worldly desires. That's the kind of monk I am looking for.”

He half-expected the Ajahn to smile at his idealism. But Tawui didn't smile. He stared at Gunnar with a blank expression. "Hmm . . . I’m afraid you're about thirty years too late," he said. "Thais are pretty particular about their bones these days. At this temple, we dedicate ourselves to studying Scripture, not bones."

Gunnar held fast to his romantic image. "That's not quite what I imagined,” he explained. “I want the forest to be part of my study."

Tawui ran a hand over his hollow cheekbones. "What exactly do you hope to find in the jungle aside from the bones of dead people?"

"I guess I am after the true essence of Nature," Gunnar answered innocently.

"Nature is everywhere, wouldn't you agree Kelly?" the Ajahn said smiling. "Look around this place. We've got different trees planted in the courtyard. There are probably hundreds of insects crawling around--though I don't care enough to count them. Coy swim in the water fountain. And there are certainly enough mangy dogs wandering around this place. There's enough nature here for you to understand Buddhism. Why do you think you have to go out in the forest?"

Gunnar thought the monk might be joking. He waited for a smile that did not come. “I have an image of forest monks meditating on mountains and near streams. I thought nature was key to understanding Buddhism.”

Gunnar's penchant for wilderness started to wear thin on Tawui. “The forest monks who take refuge in the forest are foolish,” the Pali scholar said on the verge of yelling. “Most of them are uneducated farm boys. You should take refuge in the Buddha, not the forest. The Buddha taught that all of nature is suffering. That is the first Noble Truth. You can see that truth in the city. It doesn’t matter where you go. The Buddha taught that you have to overcome nature to achieve Nibbana.”

The Ajahn’s words did not mesh with Gunnar's experience. Nearly all his meaningful life-experiences were linked to the forest. As a boy, his father took him into remote corners of Canada on fishing trips. In wild country a hundred miles from the nearest road, he tasted the origins of spirituality. He came to Thailand to fine-tune his forest practice and learn from monks with years of wandering.

“Have you heard of Samsara?” Tawui asked, stretching a leg.

Gunnar nodded. “The endless cycle of birth and death.”

“It’s more than that. It’s the wheel of existence driven by ignorance and craving. We are all trapped on this wheel: humans, animals, even trees and rocks. If you go into the forest, you will see that all is Samsara. Everything comes into being because of ignorance. I have been in the forest before. Animals eat other animals out there. I‘ve heard it myself. The Buddha taught that all composed things are doomed to fall apart: anicca, the reality of impermanence. Everything we see, hear, or smell, arises and passes away. Every person we love passes away. That is nature in Buddhism. All you see in the forest, all you see in the city, belong to this same nature--everything arises and passes away.”

Tawui's use of the word "nature" challenged Gunnar. After all, the monk's monastery sat smack in the middle in an Asian metropolis. The refuge was as far away from wilderness as Gunnar had ever been. The trees in the courtyard were an alien variety with roots in Peru, not Thailand; the coy in the fountain were oversized goldfish from Japan; as for the dogs, feces served as one of the four food groups--week-old trash, road kill, and handouts being the other three.

Gunnar Ray adjusted his posture and sought to reinstate the image of Buddhism that he came to Thailand with. “I saw a PBS documentary about Thai monks who live in the forest. They seemed in tune with nature--with the wilderness I admire.”

“Let me tell you something about those forest monks,” Tawui said in a combative tone. “Everybody nowadays is making such a big deal over them. There are even tour busses that take people from Bangkok to forest monasteries in Isan. People go just to get some kind of blessing. We give blessings here you know. But it’s popular these days to travel ten hours by bus to get your blessing. The truth about forest monks is that many have not even passed their exams. We have tests to make sure monks can read and write the Pali language--the ancient script of Buddhism. If you want to understand this religion, don’t bother with the forest monks. Learn from someone in the city who is well educated. Men with little knowledge have little to teach. Plus, some of those monks are attached to the forest. They forget that the goal in Buddhism is to escape nature. Some of the prominent farang monks in Thailand are guilty of this as well. They are devoted to the forest, not to Scripture. Ajahn Kanlayo up in Ubon Ratchathani is a case in point. We studied together in Bangkok years back. He quit the school before he finished his exams. Is that the kind of monk you want to study under? Many of these forest monks have an inadequate understanding of Scripture.”

Tawui turned back to more pertinent concerns: Kelly. Her zirconium ring caught his eye. The two spoke for twenty minutes about different gems and birthstones. Tawui called upon the knowledge passed down by his father to impress Gunnar's girlfriend. Kelly, for her part, adored the attention. A respected monk cared more about Canada than America, her ring over some imagined forest. She had found a cunning way to get back at Gunnar for calling her countrymen, "unarmed Americans with a health card." Gunnar watched with disdain as she reclined on the ground. She waved her arms up and down attempting to convey how a snow angel is made during the winter. The display delighted Tawui. To Gunnar, she looked more like a snow chicken.

A pause in the conversation allowed the seeker a chance to squeeze in one of the questions that brought him to Thailand. "I'm concerned," he began in a serious tone, hoping to convey the hours, days, and months of thought put into the muse, "about training the mind to always look inside. I've seen enough to know that the body contains a lot of anxiety. I'm worried that if I make it a habit to go inward, I will end up acutely aware of pain every day of my life."

The smile on Tawui's face faded as he shifted his attention from Kelly's flapping arms to Gunnar's notepad. He sighed and adjusted his robe. “Yes, there is a danger of too much meditation. Here at the temple we don’t even teach the practice. We teach the monks how to translate Scripture and chant in Pali. This would be a good temple for Kelly to come and study at don’t you think? We have a new Lexus sedan. She would be very comfortable wherever we travel.”

Gunnar stared back at the monk with growing distaste. What did a Lexus have to do with the Eight-fold Path? Kelly didn’t seem to mind, however. The answer delighted her. Tawui was definitely more interested in talking about snow chickens than eternal truth. With the afternoon heat pressing down upon the courtyard, Gunnar rose to his feet. Behind his back he heard Tawui proposition his girlfriend. “Kelly,” he whispered. “Will you be able to return on Friday?”

“Yes!” She said emphatically.

“Wonderful.”

As Kelly turned away, the monk's eyes followed her smooth legs into her cut-off shorts. Gunnar looked at the monk; the monk continued to look at his girlfriend.

Jealous.

Gunnar admitted it. He saw that special something that passed between them; how virtually every question the monk asked was directed toward his girlfriend. The pain was two-fold: Kelly had become the sought after student of an esteemed monk while Tawui had become the recipient of Kelly’s affection. She talked about him the entire taxi ride back to the hotel. She wrote letters to her Winnipeg friends about being asked to become a nun in Tawui’s monastery. A bald man who ate from a begging bowl had captured Kelly’s heart. Gunnar picked wildflowers for her, bought her cigars even though he didn't smoke, rubbed her back before going to sleep. None of those little "favors" earned him mention in any of her letters.

As for Tawui, Gunnar remained skeptical. One minute the monk spoke of renouncing the world, the next he gawked at his girlfriend's legs. Men will always be men he figured: the secular lie about penis size, the religious about the length of their spiritual attainments. In the Theravada tradition, a monk must never even touch a woman. Gunnar once saw a Burmese monk treat a playful seven-year-old girl like a poisonous snake when she unexpectedly hopped on his lap. That's how a Theravada monk should act.

With his head on the pillow, Gunnar raised the issue to Kelly. "So what do you think of the monk?"

"Ajahn Tawui . . . I think he's great! I can't believe how much he taught me about Buddhism."

"So you think he’s for real . . . that he has attained some level of spiritual awareness?"

"He is certainly well-studied. And he is a good listener as well."

"You don't think it's a little strange that he wants you to leave Canada to become a nun, but he didn’t ask me to be a monk?"

"I didn't notice. Maybe you are just paranoid."

"You know where I am going with this don’t you? I think Tawui has more than just your spiritual development on his mind. I saw how he looked at you. That's a man looking at you, not a monk. I know because that's how I look at you."

"Oh come on. It's his job to recruit people into the monastery. Just because he has an interest in teaching me Buddhism doesn't mean he wants me sexually. I do have a brain you know."

"I just think it's odd that I would shave my damn head and eyebrows off and Tawui spent most of the time talking about Canadian geography and your life. You remind him of that Margaret girl from Germany. You know . . . the one who lived in his temple for three months or something. I think the guy is lonely. And you know what they say about the kind of meat that lonely monks eat?"

"What kind?" she said innocently.

"Nun!"

Kelly slammed her hand down on the bed and headed for the door. "You're sick. And this conversation is over,” she yelled. “Go ahead and think your perverse little thoughts. Didn't you learn anything from what Maha Tawui said today?"

"You mean about how you would get to drive in his Lexus?"

"About how you are supposed to sacrifice your ego you idiot! This entire conversation is about you and not the Ajahn and me. It's about your quest to have someone important say you are special; teach you something you could open a damn book and read about."

Perhaps the "nun" joke upset her.

The next morning, Gunnar folded his unwashed clothes and filled his backpack. “Let’s get out of this city and go to the Northeast,” he lamented to Kelly. “I need to continue my inquiry into Buddhism elsewhere. You know how I feel about traffic congestion. And frankly, I've had it with this city monk. Let’s go to Ubon Ratchathani and meet with this Ajahn Kanlayo that Tawui talked about. He must be pretty serious if he dropped out of a Bangkok school to practice meditation in the forest. I bet he’s not driving a luxury car around the around the countryside anyway.”

Kelly remained unmoved in her desire to stay in Bangkok. “You know that I am taking a class in Thai cooking,” she explained. “I like Bangkok. I like all the shops and bars. I’m not going run away from the world. And you heard what Maha Tawui said about the forest monks. I don’t want to study with someone who can’t even pass his exams. I want to visit Ajahn Tawui on weekends. Buddhism is more interesting than I thought.”

The thought of losing his girlfriend to a city monk infuriated Gunnar. “Then I guess this is good-bye,” he said, regretfully. “I simply cannot remain in this metropolis. I will be in Ubon Ratchathani staying somewhere around the temple. I will wait for you there.”

Kelly’s eyes penetrated him first with anger, then with sorrow. For eight months they had worked out their urban/wilderness differences: sometimes quietly, other times in fits of rage. But with Tawui in the mix, there could be no compromise. That afternoon, Gunnar boarded an overnight train for Isan. For six months he spent his days studying with Ajahn Kanlayo and his forest monks. During the evenings, he practiced the Thai language with nearby villagers. The first few weeks without Kelly were the hardest. When the second month passed with no word from his girlfriend, he simply let go as the Buddhist Scriptures advised. But he would not forget her. And he would not forget Maha Tawui.

10

Two days after the elderly women departed, Ajahn Piko’s picture appeared in Sangha Times Magazine. A tabloid for the deeply religious, the periodical featured Piko with the caption: “Activist Monk Soars High Above Sua Yai Forest.” Two paragraphs in, claims that Ajahn Piko could fly (without a plane) elevated the monk to new heights.

Reporters arrived. Photos of the “Saffron Forest” appeared in the pages of the city's main newspapers. The rebel monk who defied the government and flew above the forest intrigued the southern provinces as well. His newfound attention was not lost on Bangkok’s power elite. A Lexus coupe, complete with smoked windows, alloy rims, and a paint job equal to the annual income of three Ban Nam Sai farmers, pulled to a halt in the village center. Men hovering over bowls of gwiitiew (noodle soup) ceased their conversations. Wary dogs hid behind chairs to avoid a lashing from new boots. Military? Forestry Officials? Mafia? Who would it be? Village gamblers had already placed bets on which branch of government would quell the uprising.

The arrival of Bangkok officials redefined social roles in the village. The headman became seen as an uneducated rice farmer, the shopkeeper, a peasant peddler, and village women became unemployed housewives. Doubt crept into the minds of all. The use of Buddhist robes to wrap ordinary trees . . . what were they thinking? What was their Ajahn thinking? General Kasem Rakthum had already issued the eviction notice. To defy him with sacred robes amounted to declaring a holy war. With a click that accompanies the opening of a precision automobile the driver emerged wearing a three-piece-suit and sunglasses. Without acknowledging the villagers, he placed a hand on the rear door. Another click. A slipper met the dusty earth. To their shock, the same saffron that covered the trees, wrapped the man before them. Maha Tawui. Villagers stood aghast as one of Thailand’s most-powerful monks greeted them. They bowed their heads in submission. At age fifty, Tawui had made a name for himself as a Pali scholar and ranking member of the Sangha Council. The Council served as the ruling body of Thai Buddhism. Tawui's authority reached the four corners of the Kingdom.

Santipap emerged from a nearby house. He collapsed and bowed three times, his head touching the dusty street with each submissive gesture.

“Noble One, how can we honor you,” the headman asked.

Tawui stretched his arms above his head. “I’ve come to see the ‘Saffron Forest’ as the people are calling it. I want to know why trees have been elevated to the status of monks? Can ordinary wood chant in the Pali language? I wish to see the completed exams required for all who wear the robe. I suppose your Ajahn knows more about this than you?”

Santipap stood humbled. Ashamed. And silent.

He escorted the monk toward Piko’s forest hermitage. Tawui cast a patronizing eye on the unimpressive houses lining either side of the dirt street. Built on stilts, constructed of windowless ply board, and covered by rusty corrugated metal, only the love of the villagers prevented theirs from being a shantytown. He passed by an elderly woman whose breasts sagged beneath her dress in a late life siesta. At her feet, a panting dog gnawed at a fresh scab. Until the arrival of the May rains, humid afternoons were passed in torpor. The dry season meant getting by: pastimes included distilling rice wine, gambling, and attending flea markets.

Past the village houses, Maha Tawui examined the aisles of tilled soil waiting for the May rains. A leaf-lined path led into the heart Sua Yai Forest. A white-rumped shama landed on a nearby mai baw tree and unleashed a melodic challenge to the newcomer. Cocking his head, the bird waited patiently for a reply. Maha Tawui ignored the challenge. The thrush unleashed another complex song. Three pedestrian “chirps” at the end dared the monk to reply. With the wave of a hand, Tawui sent the bird into flight. “What strange bird mistakes a man for his own species?” he asked the headman.

“Your Greatness,” Santipap replied, his hands pressed together in respect. “Your saffron robe fooled the shama into thinking you were one of Ajahn Piko’s forest monks. He has trained his disciples in birdsong. They call to the forest and the forest responds. The monks often challenge the thrush. Today, the thrush challenged you.”

Maha Tawui paused. “How ridiculous.”

A hundred yards down the forest path they encountered the first of the ordained trees. A massive ficus wrapped in a saffron robe stood proudly before them. Tawui ran his right hand over the cloth and shook his head in disapproval. “The Buddha taught that only humans become enlightened. It is in the Scriptures. I have translated it without error from the Pali Canon. One might as well wrap a mangy street dog in the robe: the insult to the path is the same.”

The headman did not respond. The tension increased as they passed by another robe-covered tree. Santipap recognized the knot as his own but maintained silence about his handy work. A mile into the forest Maha Tawui passed the first of the monk’s gouties. Resembling a child’s fort on stilts, the shelters provided four walls, a mosquito net, woven mat, and pink candles for the monk.

They met like gunfighters on opposite ends of the path. Tawui’s posture straightened as he puffed out his sagging chest. Piko’s foot met the trail with an ungraceful thud. It had been thirty-six years since the two had stood opposite each other. They first met as novice monks at Wat Pra Thong--Bangkok’s celebrated temple of higher learning for boys. Tawui entered the monkshood as the son of a Bangkok diamond exporter. His father’s wealth included a concubine of three mia nawy's (minor wives). Young Tawui dreamed of following his father’s diamonds to Hong Kong and Singapore. There, he would live next to the market and command a high price for the gems. When his father took ill and a fortuneteller proclaimed a lack of merit as the cause, young Tawui’s dream of running a diamond cartel ended. At his father's insistence, the boy entered the Sangha. The teenager began his study at Bangkok’s finest temple to earn merit for his ailing father. His Isan-born maids shared a rare alcoholic drink the day the young man left. From the age of thirteen, the virulent boy demanded their services in the bedroom: one in the morning before school, one in the afternoon upon his return. He held threats over their heads--fabrications that he would bring to his powerful father unless they performed daily. He stole from his father and presented both girls with "gifts" to keep them happy. The maids delighted in the irony that the boy who stained two sheets daily was now covered in a saffron robe. They wagered on what twisted outlet the monk would find: what poor laywoman or nun would fall victim to his cravings.

Parental pressure also played a role in Piko's choice to attend the temple. When he requested permission to ordain as a monk, his father relented on the condition that he study in Bangkok, and not wander the dangerous jungle. Malaria was rampant and man-eating tigers still roamed the forest. Young Piko knew little about Bangkok and even less about nation-state Buddhism. Amidst the exhaust of foreign cars he began his study. He hoped to practice the meditation he had learned from passing forest monks. Strangely, nobody at the Bangkok temple meditated. Instead, hours were spent learning the Pali language and preparing for exams on dogmatic rules and regulations.

Piko’s translated his love of the forest into tales of adventure. The wild center of Sua Yai Forest sparked the imagination of the lone Western monk at the temple, Pra Wanlop Kanlayo (a.k.a. Richard Wentworth). The twenty-year-old from northern England convinced Piko to take him to the Mountain of the Rains. The youngest farang monk in the Kingdom, Kanlayo had long dreamed of exploring the Thai jungle.

A wild idea of forcing the diamond exporter's son into the forest took hold among the monks. Bets were wagered as to whether Tawui would leave his books and take the challenge. Tawui relented. He could not endure the taunting.

The long journey to the Northeast took three days by bus, tractor, and foot. From the forest edge to Ban Nam Sai the monks crossed fourteen miles of dense jungle. En-route, macaque monkeys scattered at regular intervals. A great lora soared overhead toward the forest center. And the scat of barking deer covered the trail. They reached the small clearing at dusk. Rice fields, planted vegetables, caged goats, and water buffalo comprised Piko’s village.

The monks obliged the villagers with trumped up stories about life in the big city. At midnight, rice farmers staggered back to their houses in awe of the world beyond the forest. The next morning, they prepared to climb Fon Maak Mountain. A food drop off was arranged and the three bhikkus set out for the Cliffs of Kalipattu. At Tham Saam Pii (Cave of the Three Ghosts) they assumed meditation postures. Piko’s back remained straight as bamboo--just as the forest monks had taught him. His legs met in full lotus and he focused on the sounds of the forest. Kanlayo assumed the half lotus position, managing to bring one leg over the other. Meanwhile, Tawui lounged against a tree, his back crooked as a sickle, his pampered legs failing to lock.

They recited “Bud-dho" to bring their minds into focus. After two hours, Piko and Kanlayo emerged from their sitting. Tawui, however, had long since fallen asleep against a mai pado tree. Without his books, he could not focus his mind.

The first night passed without event--Piko and Kanlayo practiced meditation while Tawui unfolded his notebook and memorized test questions to prepare for an upcoming exam. The next day, as the sun disappeared beneath the mountain, Piko returned with forest news.

“There’s a tiger in the area,” he said gleefully. “Follow me and I will show you.” Digested bone and deer hair lay in an unattractive pile two hundred yards south of the cave.

As the monks meditated into the evening, twigs cracked in the nearby bush. The rancid smell of wet fur and deer kill filled the darkness.

“Can you smell him?” Piko whispered to the farang.

“What do you see?” Tawui interrupted, his voice trembling.

“We smell the tiger,” Kanlayo said.

The young monks scanned the darkness for a silhouette of the hunter. A low, steady, growl filled the cave entrance. In concert with the growl, a warm yellow stream flowed south from Tawui’s robe and collected on Piko’s leg.

“Don’t panic Tawui,” Piko whispered, dabbing the urine with his robe. “Keep quiet and wish the beast loving kindness.”

No book learning had prepared the son of a diamond exporter for the black moment upon him. He whimpered in the darkness.

“You must focus your mind,” Piko scolded him. But the city monk panicked. His whimpers turned into loud gasps for air. Tawui brought fear to the moment and that made the situation dangerous. “You MUST wish the beast loving kindness,” Piko insisted. “Show no concern for your own demise and stop your crying.”

His words did little to quell Tawui’s anxiety attack. Hiccups and wheezing pinpointed his exact location. The tiger answered the challenge with a growl that rose in pitch until the hair on Kanlayo’s arms stood on end. A powerful swipe connected with Tawui’s left temple. He collapsed in a heap on the granite floor.

The next morning, Tawui awoke to the sharp tissit, tissit, tissit of scarlet backed flowerpecker. No puncture wounds marred his flesh; no body-length scratches covered his torso; only a golf ball sized lump on his head remained.

“We’re alive!” he yelled, raising his arms to the sky. “We must have fought the tiger off and fallen asleep.”

Kanlayo pointed to the yellow stain on Tawui’s robe. “The tiger left on his own accord,” he said, working a needle and thread through his torn carry bag. “We wished him loving kindness and he disappeared to search for less wholesome prey.”

Tawui raised a hand to the bruise on his head. “If that is so,” he said sheepishly. “What then is the origin of my injury?”

Piko smiled. “Your fear of the tiger put your life in danger. Had the tiger attacked, he would have accumulated the bad kamma that goes with killing a monk. I had to prevent that.”

Tawui paused. He rubbed his lump with increased vigor. “If the tiger left, how is it that I am injured?”

“I delivered the blow to your head,” Piko answered. “Someone had to silence you. There was no other way.”

Tawui looked back in disbelief. The lump was significant. The pain would last a week. Embarrassed, he collected his thoughts. With the same wit that saw him master problem-solving questions on exams, he turned the tables on Piko. “You struck a fellow monk!” he yelled, his eyes bright with the accusation. “That is unpardonable by the vinaya. The rules are specific. A bhikku must never speak lowly about another monk, let alone deliver a blow to the head. This offense shall be reported to the Sangha Council. You should expect to be disrobed.”

Kanlayo smiled like a belly-scratched cat at the immature monk. Piko put his needle down and lifted a piece of sweet grass to his lips. “Yes. I too worried about that offense. However, Kanlayo duly informed me that the vinaya condones a blow to the head when a monk pisses himself and fails to issue loving kindness to a tiger.”

Piko’s words irritated Tawui all the more. “Your tongue is that of a fisherman, not a mendicant,” the monk snapped back. He rose to his feet. With his robe doubling as a diaper, he attempted to regain control. “Pack your things we shall depart for Bangkok at once.”

Piko placed his hands behind his head to rest. “We have two more days on Fon Maak Mountain. We shall stay and finish our meditation.”

“Then you are a fool garishly tempting a forest beast to ruin his kamma with an attack.”

The two monks let out a hearty chuckle, as though Tawui were the punch line of an on-going joke. “We have made peace with the tiger,” Kanlayo said, staring the junior monk in the eye. “We shall not run from the forest that has given us so much.”

Tawui struggled for the words to express his outrage. “A beast is a beast. You cannot make peace with it. And, less you forget, qualifying exams are five days away. Your mindless meditation will do little to help you pass.”

“I will not continue my residence in that cement fortress,” Piko responded. “The only tests I will take from here on are those administered by the mountain and the forest.”

Tawui looked to Kanlayo for support. The quiet farang shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. “I too will continue my training in the forest.”

“Very well . . . if you are not men enough to finish your exams then live and die like beasts in this wretched forest.”

Piko stood and pushed a begging bowl forcefully into Tawui’s stomach. He offered parting words to the boy who would one day become one of the most powerful monks in Thailand. “I am sorry to see you go. I hoped to use your soiled robe as a meditation on the foul!”

Kanlayo burst into laughter. Tawui turned away, unable to match the insult to his robe. He disappeared in silence down the path of the paved Buddha. And a cloud of insects followed him . . .

At Wat Sua Yai, Maha Tawui waited for Ajahn Piko to oblige him with three bows according to his high stature. Piko waited for the younger monk to bow three times owing to his seniority. Both stood unmoved. Neither offered the respect the other demanded.

“I see you passed your exams,” Piko said. A rush of adrenaline coursed through him. Once again he was the predator, the tiger whose stripes he wore in a past life. He welcomed the prey into his forest.

Maha Tawui, skin drooping from his arms, age spots marking either cheek, scanned the eyes before him. “Yes,” he answered with hesitation. “And I see you fulfilled your promise of not leaving the forest.”

Piko observed the rivulets, creases, and fallen skin of his fellow monk. The son of a diamond trader had become a tender old man. “I trust you have come to lend your protection to Sua Yai Forest. Are you are aware of the government’s plan to move the village and destroy the forest?”

“If you are referring to the Kau Jau Kau . . . yes, I am aware of the plan. It is a secular affair. It will be carried out as the state dictates. Of concern to the Sangha Council is your illegal presence in this forest and your use of sacred Buddhist robes to decorate trees.”

Piko crossed his arms. “So you have not come to protect the splendor of Sua Yai? To walk the paths as you once did as a boy?”

“I have come on behalf of the Council. The Pali Canon is specific about who can wear the robe. It is a garment for those within reach of Enlightenment. A tree is a simple product of cause and effect. It has no intelligence, no means to master the cravings of Samsara. The first rains will soil the garments and the insult to the path will be even greater.”

“How can you say that trees are not worthy of reverence?” Piko answered, the wrinkles on his forehead folding in warning. “The Buddha’s enlightenment is inseparable from trees. That is a historical fact. He was born a prince at base of a tree in Lumbini Vana Garden. He taught in the Sala Grove of Mallasin Pava. He encouraged his disciples to practice meditation in forests far from cities. And need I remind you that the Great One attained Nibbana under a bodhi tree?”

“So you would grant a mindless tree the same worth as a man?”

“Only a righteous man.”

“You will not remove the sacred robes?”

“I will not.”

“I must report you to the Sangha Council. Be assured, their action against you will be swift.”

Robes. The one on Piko’s back had faded to the point of warranting a new color to describe it. To the forest monk, a worn robe honored the Buddhist ideal of conservation. The Buddha outlined the full life of the garment as follows: “worn out robe to become a mattress cover; mattress cover to rug; rug to duster: duster to be kneaded with clay and used to repair cracked walls and floors.” To do otherwise in the Buddha’s day might earn one the title of “wood-apple eater:” a man who shakes a wood-apple tree and takes only the choicest fruit while allowing the others to rot on the ground. In contrast, Maha Tawui's brilliant robe had been designed by a renowned Bangkok tailor and custom fitted to the monk. He had a revolving closet of equally impressive robes. Were it not for his father’s illness, those robes might well have been three-piece suits and his reign would have been over Chinese traders and not forest monks.

Tawui continued. “The second grievance is your presence in a Forest Reserve. Sua Yai belongs to the Royal Forestry Department. You are trespassing. Your wat is not registered. Three years ago the Council ruled that all monks except those living in legal forest temples must leave the forest. We will not make an exception for you.”

The ruling Tawui spoke of helped pave the way for the Kau Jau Kau. Piko answered his accuser. “The Buddha achieved enlightenment without registering with the state. We, the monks of Sua Yai, follow his example. We trace our lineage to the streams and forests . . . to the Green Buddha.”

“How can you claim a lineage when not one of you has passed an exam? You have little training in the Pali language. Without that link to Scripture you can only follow the words of others.”

“Words? Who has time for words when there are entire mountains to read? The Buddha taught the monk to be a "Lamp unto Himself." The light that illumines our path is from the flame of experience. The exams we pass come from the forest. We are tested daily by our lifestyle. You read books; we read the forest and our minds.”

With Tawui’s mission revealed, Piko turned his back and continued his walking meditation. His heel met the earth, rolled slowly to the arch, and lifted at the metatarsals. “I have seen the forest monks pacified by the various Sangha Acts,” he said, his eyes unmoved from the earth beneath him. “Many strong wanderers are now fat and lazy . . . like domestic cattle grazing in village wats. Before, those wild wanderers ate one meal a day and were content to watch the passing clouds and listen to the birds of the forest. Now they smoke cigarettes and gamble away their wanderlust under corrugated metal roofs.”

Tawui positioned himself in Piko’s path. “Say what you will, the Forest Reserve belongs to the Kingdom and monasteries are governed by the Sangha Council. You are in violation. You are pra jorajat--a rebel monk breaking the law!”

A short twelve inches from Tawui’s face, Piko stared down at the monk. “Rattaban mai hen jai khon Isan.” he said sternly in his native Isan language. “Thaa attama gom hua hai khun gah ja yiap hua attama."

Tawui took a step back and turned away from Piko’s penetrating eyes. “Speak in Thai language . . . in the language of the state,” he responded, unable to discern Piko’s words. “Do not dishonor me with your village tongue.”

“I said ‘the state does not speak our language. She neglects the people of Isan. Why should we bow our heads before feet that will step on us?’”

“If you stay, you will disobey your government.”

“A monk does not bow to the state, the state bows to the monk. The Sangha Council has remained passive for too long while our forests have been destroyed. We must take a leadership role in the face of injustice. When the state is corrupt, the monk must lead the people to righteousness.”

Tawui shook his head in disapproval. Piko's tactics went against everything he had been taught in the city temple. "The duty of the monk is to devote himself to Scripture so that we can teach laypeople to let go of their attachments, give them words of wisdom, and steer them toward the right path. Monks should not lead revolts. They should stay in the background and defer to officials to help solve the problem."

"Passivity has not helped the one million farmers relocated by the Kau Jau Kau. And what of the forest? Thousands of acres have already been destroyed."

"Very well," Tawui said, digging his hand into his cloth carry-bag. "Before I leave you to the snakes and insects that you value more than the government, I will ask you three final questions.” With his left hand, he removed a document on government letterhead. In his right hand he produced a small tape recorder and pressed the record button. In a slow, deliberate, voice he read questions scripted by General Rakthum--the military officer in charge of enforcing the Kau Jau Kau.

"Ajahn Piko, are you now, or have you ever been a member, or sympathizer, of the Communist Party of Thailand?"

As the question met Piko’s ears, repressed images from the 1970's poured into consciousness. He saw the faces of the insurgents as though it were yesterday. He remembered the little things: the way they carried their rifles, how they pitched camp in the woods behind his own forest monastery.

“Should I repeat the question?” Tawui asked, forcing the tape recorder closer.

“I am a Buddhist monk,” Piko answered quietly. “I bow to no party, to no government.”

“That is not an acceptable answer.”

“That is my answer.”

Tawui again read from the script. "Did you and the villagers of Ban Nam Sai provide food and shelter to members of the communist party during the sixth month of 1976?"

Again the images. Tawui had it wrong. He did not know the full story. “I am a Buddhist monk,” he replied, his eyes focused on his accuser. “I bow to no party, no government.”

“That is no answer,” Tawui said scolding him.

“That is my answer,” Piko replied.

The inquiry continued. "Have you ever engaged in sexual intercourse with Suda Pakdee, a Laotian woman and former member of the Communist Party of Thailand?"

Piko ended the ridiculous conversation. “I am a Buddhist monk,” he said without emotion. “I have answered your questions, now I must return to my duties.”

“Wait!” Tawui commanded. “Your insolence is an admission of guilt.”

Piko raised a hand to the silence the monk. He then disappeared into the forest.

11

June, 1976

Weary travelers arrived to Ban Nam Sai: three men and one woman, each dressed in trail-worn clothes. Two spoke the language of Isan and had darker skin; the other two spoke with a Chinese accent. They smiled like traders, but carried no goods. Villagers offered them the abandoned house of Widow Mekaew for a night’s rest. Three days later, the uninvited guests remained. Polite conversation turned into an inquiry of village politics. When talk of neglect by the current government surfaced, a Chinese woman retrieved a manifesto in better shape than the hand delivering it. On the cover, a farmer embraced two smiling children. All gazed upon a prosperous rice paddy field with a solitary red star above and the promise of: "A New Way." After a lifetime of warnings, communist insurgents had finally infiltrated Sua Yai Forest.

To promote the communist agenda, Ho Chi Minh visited Isan in 1928. The pamphlet echoed his vision. It outlined Mao Tse Tung's mandate to have: "jungle to surround the village, villages to surround the town, and towns surround the city."

The woman again reached into her carry bag. This time she produced the photo of a Thai official. “Do you know this man?” she asked.

Villagers nodded. Two years earlier, the man in the photo had arrived in a starched government uniform and promised to bring their concerns back to Bangkok. He stayed for three weeks. For each evening meal he demanded the breast of a freshly killed chicken or the steak of water buffalo. He treated the headman like a servant and the villagers like worthless peasants. After he left, a maiden revealed that she had been violated. Ban Nam Sai had not forgotten.

“We can do better than this,” the communist leader said, placing the photo back into a pouch. “There is another form of government for you to consider. Leadership of the people, for the people.”

The villagers listened intently. Indeed, they did not smile like the people in the brochure. Their crops were not as shiny and healthy. Their children, not as fair skinned. And the sun that penetrated the core of their lives scarcely resembled the soft glow over the peasants in the photo. The next day, twelve armed soldiers: eight men and four women entered the heart of Sua Yai Forest. They by-passed Ban Nam Sai on an animal trail and set up a base camp three miles inland. The four messengers left their brochures in the village and joined their comrades in the forest. Within two days they had cleared land and established a headquarters. Just as quickly, they ran out of provisions. Men with guns spread across the mountain killing anything that moved: serow (wild goats), pigs, and even small birds. After the fourth day, their bellies hungered for rice and fruit, neither of which could be found in the forest. Hunting bush meat would be a full-time job. The insurgents came as soldiers, not hunters. They handled pistols as comfortably as the farmers’ wielded hoes. Many of their weapons had been lifted from the dead hands of upcountry Thai policemen.

The messengers returned to the village to ask for eggs: not a handful, but two baskets full. And rice. Lots of rice. Villagers stood puzzled as to how four people could eat so many eggs? Some mused that the digestive power of communists might far exceed their own. Ajahn Piko had a different theory. At nightfall, with two monks by his side, he followed a trail of broken vegetation until the scent of boiled eggs and campfire smoke led him to the communist camp. From behind tree cover, Piko counted sixteen insurgents. He could see the shadows of a man and woman embracing in a tent.

On his alms round the following day, the monk received only rice and a few meager vegetables in his begging bowl. Aunt Posarin's Wednesday custard was absent. And while a monk should not be attached to the food in his bowl, the insurgents were costing him his favorite dish—even if he did add water to mute out the taste.

Piko called for a village meeting.

“The men and women that you gave a week’s supply of eggs are sixteen strong.”

Was it a blessing? Or, had a new evil entered their lives?

“What shall we do Ajahn?” Pong Kompa, a village rice farmer asked. “The literature they gave us promises more than Bangkok has ever delivered. Should we support the cause?”

Piko rocked from side to side on his knees as he considered the question. "Liberation comes from the mind and having enough food to eat, not from men with rifles. A government exists for the sole purpose of governing. The insurgents are not fighting for peace, but for the chance to rule. Their victory will come at a cost. What we seek is independence from a life dependent on cash crops, central government, and broken promises. These men and women kill the sons of Isan. They cannot deliver what we want.”

A few village men objected under their breaths. They supported a more aggressive means of change. To overthrow a government that sought to force them into debt would be a worthy cause. Piko sensed the dissent. “If you want to know what kind of rulers the insurgents will be, deny them your eggs the next time they ask. If they behave kindly and move on, you will know they have your best interest at heart. If they threaten violence, you will be trading ineptitude for dictatorship.”

On the sixth night of occupation, with a half moon rising in the east, the insurgents followed an animal trail to the edge of the forest. One by one, armed men and women climbed into the back of a pick up truck. Two hours over country roads brought them to Sisaket Province. The truck coasted to a stop. They gathered around a hand drawn map that highlighted the location of a police outpost.

Policemen had long been the favored targets for insurgents. They wore the uniforms of the ruling government. They manned remote outposts and made for easy targets. As they plotted their attack, four lightly armed policemen sipped Mekong whiskey and played cards. The sons of Sisaket rice farmers, they stood "watch" over a dusty stretch of road to deter illegal immigration from the Laos side. Boon, twenty-three, had a four month old child. He was the oldest of the men on watch.

A few cicadas called from the stubble of abandoned rice fields. Boon shuffled the deck, but the insurgents now held the cards. They collapsed to the earth and crawled elbow over elbow toward the outpost. A transistor radio broadcast the uneven voice of a folk singer through the darkness. A watchdog, legs extended and head tilted to the stars, slept soundly in the middle of the road. The lead insurgent drew a blade from its sheath. He cusped the dog's mouth with his left hand and brought the sharp steel across its throat with his right. The metal sliced through the larynx before the dog could get out a single howl.

The killing men snaked closer. Drunken voices meshed with the guttural lam of the folk singer on the radio. Above the insurgents, the Royal Thai Flag hung lifeless under a clear and calm Isan sky. The leader raised a hand. When it fell, seven men and seven guns rose above the earth. Boon laid down a pair of Jacks. A blast of firepower. Bodies moved puppet-like as bone and cartilage shattered. Blood painted the walls in abstract images. A wounded deputy crawled toward the back door until a stream of metal climbed up his backbone. The insurgents filed back into the truck and returned to the forest. An Isan love song remained on the radio.

The next morning, Bangkok newspapers accustomed to the monthly assassinations by insurgents buried the event in an insignificant column. Still, news of the massacre reached Ban Nam Sai. Suspicion about the whereabouts of their backwoods communists grew. That afternoon, familiar faces returned with empty egg baskets. Santipap met them on the trail. "Ours is a poor village," he explained. "We can barely feed ourselves. We can no longer offer you eggs and rice as you request." The soldier flashed a look of contempt at the headman. He turned and headed back down the pathway. That afternoon, as Santipap’s wife gathered mushrooms, three men, each wearing a single red star on their caps, surrounded her. At gunpoint, they took her back to their camp. A CPT General calmly re-entered the village. With a gun strapped to his shoulder he informed Santipap that his wife would be staying with him now. She would be allowed to eat whatever food they could not finish. And since they had no food, she would go hungry soon.

Santipap fell to his knees and pleaded for the safe return of Somying. The General turned without acknowledging him and disappeared into the forest. That evening, the village prepared a feast for the insurgents. The days that followed saw the visitors eat well at every meal. Somying remained captive. As the communists grew fat, Ban Nam Sai children grew hungry. They survived on meager servings of rice. Santipap knocked on his brother's goutie. He rolled a crude cigarette and waited for Piko to emerge. "If we contact the Thai military, the communists might harm Somying. If we do nothing, we'll starve our own children."

Piko had been meditating on a possible solution. "The military will only replace our current problem with a new one. If they suspect communists are in the area, they will set up an outpost near the village. We will be subject to more bribes and extortion. Worse still, they could relocate us and take our land. No. These insurgents must leave on their own.”

Santipap, eyes swollen from lack of sleep, struggled to understand. “But how? They are determined to stay.”

Piko called a meeting with the village elders. He revealed a plan as potentially dangerous, as it was brilliant. Two years earlier the villagers had suffered a bout of dysentery that killed two children and emaciated half the population. The culprit: tua hi'a--a three-foot monitor lizard—had crawled into the village well, drowned, and decomposed in their drinking water. The toxins wreaked havoc on even the strongest of Ban Nam Sai stomachs. Village streets, house floors, and forest trails became pockmarked with the residue of watery bowels.

The next day, village hunters poured into Sua Yai Forest in search of a beast for the well. Near a stagnant freshwater pool, Santipap met his quarry. The headman fired a single bullet into the head of the tua hi'a. Villagers gathered around the old well as Maa Pii held a ceremony over the carcass. With a hand raised in the air, she called on great and horrible spirits to serve their cause. With communists eating them out of egg and home, the time had arrived for black magic.

For three days the beast hung over the well in direct sunlight. By day four, the smell of melting flesh, of all that is foul between death and decay, consumed a fifty-yard radius. The stench belonged to the age of the dinosaurs: too putrid for modern man to bear. At a greater distance than before, villagers again gathered around the well. Santipap raised a cane knife and brought the metal through the flesh of the animal’s belly. Collapsed organs fell to the well bottom. The scent increased ten-fold. Santipap next brought the blade through the beast’s tail and sent it plummeting to the bottom of the well. Splash! A few dry heaves and the ceremony was complete.

Village life continued at a nervous pace. Santipap had barely slept. He forgot to bathe and hardly changed his clothes. If the plan failed, he feared the worst for Somying. What would he tell Lek, his daughter in Bangkok, about what happened to her mother? He would be responsible.

Two days later Santipap drew the ceremonious first bucket of water from the well. A rancid, oily, residue covered the surface. Perfect. The headman called the village soup maker and presented him with three buckets of tua hi'a broth. "The smell is too obvious to serve it straight," he explained to Niphat. "Round up as much plaa raa (fermented fish) and add it to the well water to form a soup.” Awful as the broth smelled, plaa raa was more pungent. The fish had been salted and left to ferment for months. The soup maker added a touch of rosemary to make the broth potable and christened the batch: “Communist Stew.”

To escape retribution, villagers would have to hoodwink the insurgents. They would need to re-enact the terrible dysentery they experienced two years earlier. If the communists believed they suffered by their own hand, they might escape unharmed. With the stew ready, the ruse began. At 11:00 AM, three vats were carried to the base of Fon Maak Mountain. Hungry communists sat in wait near a streamside fire.

The scent arrived before the soup. “Plaa raa!” a Thai communist yelled with delight. His Chinese-born counterparts were less enthusiastic. They shook their heads with disdain at the smell . . . at the "crazy food" served up in Northeast Thailand. Two elder Thais stirred the broth as the others watched. The tester stared at the spoonful. He then lifted it to his mouth and poured the broth down his throat. The heart of Ban Nam Sai skipped a beat. The man looked at the soup bearers and cringed. “Rosemary? What Thai puts rosemary in plaa raa soup? A collective sigh. Moments later, communists filled their bowls with the meaty broth. The soup bearers circled the third vat, one containing an honest version of soup and dined away in full view of their counterparts. They ate quickly, unsure of the grace period between digestion and tua hi'a dysentery. After dinner they placed the empty vats on their shoulders and returned to Ban Nam Sai.

Back in the village, Farmer Kotama placed a finger down his throat and half-digested river fish hurled onto the living room floor. Tawan Pansari called her two young sons into the house. The night before, she had fed them a mountainous helping of papaya salad to ensure regularity. Near the threshold, her eldest son produced a healthy stool--useless for the chicanery at hand. She scooped it up and tossed it to a maa mai mii khon (dog without hair) to finish. To the delight of the family, their youngest child served up just the watery foul they hoped for. The small room filled with the scent of sour digestion. Two houses away, a similar ritual took place. A finger went down a throat and meat off roasted chicken feet and undigested corn emerged onto the living room floor. Meanwhile, four white sheets were transformed into nursing outfits. Two floppy hats bore red crosses sewn atop and “nurses” circulated to attend to the "sick." Villagers curled up in bed and placed towels on their heads. With no communists to speak of, skeptics expressed their doubts. "I tell you, that tua hi' a needed at least three more days in the sun before it was ripe enough to cause the dysentery we knew two years back." Another villager suggested that the healing power of fish might have counteracted the poison.

At 10:00 AM, two insurgents stormed into the village with guns in hand.

"Santipap!" Chinese General Fong Lee screamed as he kicked a dog in its rump. "Where is he! I've got thirteen puking soldiers curled up in agony on Fon Maak Mountain. The only ones who aren't shitting themselves are we Chinese who found your soup too disgusting to eat. Your headman will be the first to face our rifles unless he can explain why our men are in agony. The soup maker will be next."

Anan, a village pig farmer, escorted the armed men into Santipap's house. One of the mock nurses stood over the headman. The scent of watery stool and fish puke overwhelmed the General. He exited the house to regain his wits.

"The villagers also have the fever and loose bowels," Anan explained. "This time it's bad. Real bad."

"This time!" the General said on the verge of screaming. "Has this happened before?”

“Yes, just last month. Two children died during the last bout. The ghosts of Sua Yai Forest continue to punish us for disrespecting our ancestors.”

“Ghosts! It’s probably your water. You fools probably don’t know how to dig a proper well. Where is the soup maker!”

Anan pointed to Niphat's house. The moment of truth had arrived. As chef and architect of "Communist Stew," Niphat lay vulnerable to the red wrath that had descended upon the village. What value would such men place on the life of a lowly soup maker? If they thought him guilty, surely he would be dragged into the street and shot execution style.

The night before, with whiskey coursing through his veins, he fought back his emotions. His three friends, two rice farmers and Anan offered solace. "As long as they know you are poisoned by your own broth they will leave you alone," Anan said optimistically. His words, however, did little to calm Niphat's nerves. With his lifelong friend in a panic, Pitak rose from his chair and walked over to his house. He returned minutes later with a sealed jar in hand. The men studied what looked to be eggs floating in a greenish broth.

"What are they?"

"Pigeon eggs," Pitak answered, raising the jar for inspection.

"And?"

"It's a family recipe. They have been pickled and suspended in juice for eight months."

"We need answers," Anan said irritated. "Not midnight snacks."

Pitak smiled as he broke the seal. The scent of abortion in a jar rose toward the forest cover. Niphat, half-intoxicated, covered his mouth to prevent a premature exit of his fish soup. Plaa raa had finally met its match.

"Are you trying to make us puke?" Anan said, covering his mouth. "What kind of family do you come from to brew such a putrid thing?”

"They have medicinal value. These eggs can influence the gender of an unborn baby. If you eat them the night before intercourse you are guaranteed a son."

"Please tell me you do not kiss your wife after you eat those," Anan chuckled.

"Never mind that. If Niphat can finish eight of these eggs, I guarantee that come morning he will impress the insurgents with his depth of his ailment."

The biology seemed to make sense. Niphat put on his game face and raised his wine glass. Between his fingers he held the almond-sized egg with a bluish yolk and veins. As village soup maker, he had eaten, or sampled, the full array of edible insects and animal body parts known to Isan. Only the uncooked large intestine of a swine could compete with the egg before him. His mouth hung open as the yolk disintegrated on his tongue. He closed his eyes and swallowed. Howls of laughter erupted from his friends.

“Don’t bite them!” Pitak said, popping one in his mouth. “Just swallow it whole.”

Niphat chased egg after egg with rice wine until half the jar sat empty.

The soup maker reclined in his wood chair and let out a hearty burp. The stench caused his table of friends to evacuate. Niphat stumbled home to a wife whose love for her husband would soon be tested.

With a Chinese officer on the prowl, Niphat lay curled up in his bed trembling in fear. He listened to the conversations outside his doorway: shouts passing between villagers. When he heard his name called, every muscle tightened as though a centipede had leveled its bite. The General's voice grew closer. As Lee stepped into his home, the soup maker’s heart beat so violently as to shake him in his own bed.

“Niphat!” the General yelled, his hand resting on the handle of his gun. “What have you done to my men?”

The soup maker gently lowered the blanket to reveal his pale face. He could not get a single word out.

“I am here to decide whether you will receive the butt end of this gun, or a bullet for what you have done.”

As the General reached for his pistol, Niphat opened his bowels. For a blissful second he lay free from tension, anxiety, and all that he had eaten the night before. Liquid stool shot all the way to his knee. Like thunder before lightening, he waited sheepishly for the strike to follow. As the General took a step closer, he lifted the bed cover.

"I've got thirteen puking men at camp," Lee said with a thick Chinese accent. "Everyone who ate the vile concoction you call a soup is curled over in pain. There is a full round of bullets in this gun. Enough to kill every . . ." He stopped mid-sentence and licked the air like a green snake. Something bigger, more powerful than his threats, engulfed him. Niphat held tight to the blanket like a guilty child. The General blinked uncontrollably. The soup maker raised his eyebrows and smiled as only a Thai could. Fong Lee retrieved a bandana from his rear pocket. He covered his mouth and retreated from the fumes streaming off Niphat’s bedfellow. He struggled to find words to describe his horror. "You . . . you mangy dog," the General said through the cloth. "You deserve the same pain you have caused my men. You are no chef--you are a shit-eating dog."

It had worked. A monitor lizard and pickled eggs had saved Ban Nam Sai from the insurgents. The next morning, dehydrated and sickly soldiers filed out of forest in search of a more palatable base camp. Somying returned unharmed to Santipap's side.

12

March 1

News of Ajahn Piko ordaining the forest in Buddhist robes added a heightened sense of urgency to Gunnar’s trip to the Northeast. Outside Lek’s apartment, an infamous city klong (canal) reflected gray/green sludge. Empty aspirin bottles, used condoms, plastic straws, all lay trapped in muck until the rainy season flushed the toilet. Once the "Venice of the East," rampant development had seen that title go the way of the now extinct Schaumburg’s deer. Gunnar stepped into the tile hallway and promptly fell headfirst to the floor. "Damn shoes!" he yelled, loud enough to cause a stir in one of the rooms. The culprit: Thailand's latest fashion craze--an ordinary tennis shoe jacked up on three and a half inches of rubber. What the petite women of Thailand lacked in size, they made up for in sole.

Gunnar kicked the errant shoe into its proper place against the wall. The stylish footwear in the hallway hinted that he had stumbled on a safe-haven for bargirls. Another giveaway: 11:00 A.M. and most remained sleeping. He knocked on room #103 and waited for his translator to appear. A less glamorous version of Lek poked her small head out the door. “Minute please,” she said.

Through the opening, Gunnar noticed two girls squeezed under a single sheet in a queen-sized bed. On the floor, a third girl slept soundly. In Thailand, the arrangement was called: "sharing an apartment with friends." Lek emerged in plaid pants and an unassuming Hello Kitty T-shirt. The blue eyeliner and gold sparkles that reflected off neon lights the night before were absent; so too the ruby painted lips. She had delivered on her promise . . . she indeed looked quite ordinary. Still, the curves of her figure, visible through her oversized shirt did not go unnoticed by the reporter.

With Lek in tow he hailed a cross-town taxi.

"I have a stop before we go to Isan Mr. Gunnar," Lek said, leaning forward to address the cab driver. “We leaving so fast that I have not finish all my business.” The taxi made a left turn and came to a halt in front of an indistinct building with the words "Woman Power" atop the front door. Gunnar had heard good things about the non-profit organization that helped prostitutes become more self-sufficient. But Lek wasn't a prostitute. At least Gunnar didn't think so. Or maybe? He wasn't sure.

“Lek!” a blond woman with a German accent smiled as she opened the door. “Who's your friend?"

The eyes of fourteen bargirls turned in Gunnar's direction. “This is Mr. Gunnar Ray . . . from America.” Lek said in her native Isan tongue.

Without further introduction she disappeared down the hallway leaving Gunnar the center of attention.

On a nearby table he gazed down at foreign currency. "What are you studying?"

A girl with a dragon tattooed on her left shoulder winked at him. "Different cultures."

Ms. Reinhold elaborated. “Today's lesson is on what foreign money looks like and equals in Thai baht."

Gunnar nodded. It made sense. If you know a man's money you are less likely to get ripped off.

“What state are you from?” a student asked, pointing to an atlas at the front of the room.

Gunnar thumbed through the pages to locate the Midwest. Ms. Reinhold had book-marked Japan, Germany, and Hong Kong: three countries where Thai prostitutes often traveled. “I'm from Michigan!" he said, homing in on rural Madison County. "The state where American automobiles are made.”

A woman with dyed red hair smiled at him. “Is there snowing at your home?”

“Yes. Lot’s of snow. And it can get so cold in January that if you spit, the water freezes before it hits the ground.”

The girl’s face took on a look of wonderment. She swiveled her chair to consult with a friend about the possibility. The woman with the dragon tattoo spoke next. “In your state, have so many ghosts like Thailand?”

Gunnar waited for the laughter to cease before answering. “We have windigos,” he said, scanning the room to make sure he had the attention of all gathered. “Thirty-foot ice monsters that thirst for human flesh when temperatures reach below zero.”

“Ohhh!" she said with exaggeration. "Same as pii bawp?”

“Worse! In the old days, some American Indians became possessed by the awful spirit and ate their own children.”

“Oh my God!” she said, shocked by the assertion. “I gonna find a Japanese man . . . I not want to go to your ghost country.”

The class laughed and even Ms. Reinhold offered a smile. With the lesson complete, the women, a couple with young children by their side, filed past the reporter to apply their newfound knowledge.

“I expected to hear a lecture about the evils of prostitution and oppression of women,” Gunnar said in private, a bit surprised by the lesson plan.

The German native tucked chairs around a table. “Empty talk is not going to feed hungry families. Our main goal is to educate these women so they can make decisions for themselves.”

“So you’re not out to rid Thailand of prostitution?”

“Ahhh. That's what a lot of farang men think--and they resent us for of it. No. We can't get rid of their precious pastime. Prostitution is part of the culture here. It’s a legacy inherited from India that has been going on for at least 600 years. In the old days, prostitutes worked as kwai girls. The kwai girls traveled with the buffalo herds rented by farmers. Prostitution in Thailand is not just some neon-lit blow job bar. All that shiny stuff is just the tip of the iceberg. The majority of women still service Thai men. You don’t see them, but they are everywhere. If you want to get rid of it, you have to change the culture. It’s the Thai men and their attitudes toward women that have created the monster. They think of women as “good girls” or “bad girls. If a woman is divorced and raises a child on her own, she is virtually worthless. That's why so many enter the trade. The same is true for women who have been with several different partners before marriage. In the Thai mind, they’re only a step above prostitutes. So that’s what a lot of them become.”

“What about AIDS? I guess I expected you to be handing out condoms or something. I heard that half the prostitutes in Thailand have the virus.”

"In some places that's true. Mostly up north."

"What about here."

Ms. Reinhold folded the atlas. "It has declined some now that the girls have been educated on condom use. But it is still bad. Right now I am counseling a woman with HIV. It is a real tragedy. She is the sweetest girl. She just made some poor choices. We try to make sure they know the risks. But you can only talk about HIV for so long. Many of these women don’t have any other options."

"So what exactly is your goal?”

“Respect. We’re here to build these women’s self-esteem. Not all cultures look down on their prostitutes you know. In ancient Greece, women offered their bodies to unknown men as a form of religious ritual with the money earned going to the temple. In India during the Buddha's day, sopehnii literally meant a "woman who belongs to the city." In Thailand, that same word is a semi-rude reference. We try to instill a sense of self-respect and give them the tools they need to break out of the profession.”

Lek returned from a backroom with a small knapsack filled with English-language books. She tugged Gunnar by the shoulder and ushered him back into the Bangkok heat.

A short taxi ride delivered them to Thammaasat University, one of the most prestigious campuses in Thailand. For Gunnar's purposes, the library housed an impressive collection of English research books. He hoped to secure some background reading on Buddhism and ecology before meeting with Ajahn Piko.

They walked through a courtyard that had seen student bloodshed in several of the nation's most contentious uprisings. In 1973, 10,000 students and concerned citizens rallied to protest the military-led government and their repressive policies. A few months later, a subsequent protest resulted in over a hundred deaths. The horror repeated itself in 1976. More unarmed protestors were shot down when they railed against government policies.

Dozens of smiling students crowded the hallway as Lek and Gunnar began their ascent. On the third floor he turned to ask his guide a question. Somewhere between entering the building and his current locale, she had disappeared. A sea of university students--black hair, white school uniforms--filed past him. As he retraced his steps, he spotted Lek standing outside the building.

“Mr. Gunnar,” she explained under the shade of a fig tree. “I never travel with farang man to this kind of place. I only go with man to places that have other bargirls. Everybody looking at us when we walk together. You see them looking at us? I feel their eyeballs on my body. You know, I only finish grade five, then no more school. Paa and Mae don't have so much money to send me to school. This college take only the smart and rich kind of people. When they look me, I know they thinking I am bad kind of person. They thinking I am prostitute girl.”

Lek’s Hello Kitty shirt did stand out a bit, not for its originality, but because it varied from the school uniforms. Gunnar looked at her without sympathy. “But Lek,” he lamented. “You work in a bar frequented by prostitutes. That’s a fact.”

“What Lek is, is not important,” she said frowning. “What's important is what people think Lek to be.”

Her insightful statement made the reporter pause. People were staring at her, at Gunnar, and then at each other. He knew their partnership would draw attention. Only, he thought it would be himself, not Lek, who it bothered most.

“I wait for you outside okay.” She propped herself on a cement table in the courtyard. “When you finish looking for book, then you come find me.”

“This is going to happen again," Gunnar explained. "People are going to stare at us. You can’t run away every time, especially if I need your help in translating.”

“I understand. It is only university school that makes me feel bad. When I was young girl, I dream I would study business at university. When people look at me here, they know I not live my dream.”

Gunnar thought she might be overreacting a bit. They could legitimately be boyfriend and girlfriend for all people knew . . . even a married couple: not that such an arrangement would prevent the wanton stares. “Maybe they think you are my girlfriend and I am a teacher at the university?”

“No,” she said with assurance. “I know that look in their face.”

Gunnar returned to the library. As he climbed the stairs, he considered the class system inherent in Thai society. If Lek were a central Thai with pale skin, he doubted she would harbor such insecurity. In Bangkok, people from Isan are under appreciated. Popular television shows and movies are quick to cast the women of Isan as maids and other subservient roles. In the Go-Go bars that cater to farangs, Isan women work the fire poles. In the sweatshops that pay $5.00 a day for ten hours of work, Isan provides the labor.

With books in hand, he returned to Lek in the courtyard. He watched from afar as she tried to fend off a flock of pigeons that had gathered around her feet. He took a moment to admire her transformation: bargirl to Hello Kitty. Her bronze skin reflected the midday sun as a slight breeze blew through her wavy black hair. He looked around to confirm his suspicion: she was truly the most beautiful woman on campus.

“So what do the pigeons have to say?” he asked, placing his books on the stone table.

Lek smiled. “I only translate Thai language for you, not pigeon-talk.”

“So are you feeling better now?”

“Yes, better. Nobody bother me here. Only the pigeon birds.”

13

At Bangkok's Central Station they boarded the train for Khorat--the provincial city that doubled as the gateway to Isan. In a second-class coach, they stored their gear and settled in for the six-hour ride. Gunnar opened one of the titles he picked up from the library. He found a passage that spoke to his journey.

As the train chugged northwards I peered into the untouched forests which reared up twenty meters from the tracks. I could not see them, but I knew that a kilometer or less from the kluk-kluk of the metal, wild elephants, sambar, banteng and tiger were roaming undisturbed in the forest clearings.

Boonsong Lekagul

The year was 1938.

Gunnar Ray stared out the train window at a very different landscape. Dr. Lekagul’s twenty-meter trees had given way to rice fields and shantytowns. With the laying of tracks came the settling of the masses. Lekagul, Thailand's foremost environmentalist in the mid-20th century, helped establish the Thai National Park System. As the author of Southeast Asia’s definitive bird identification book, he knew wild Thailand in intimate terms.

To Lekagul, Park boundaries were sacred. When corrupt officials and poachers were allowed to cross the line and destroy protected wilderness, he lost faith. His final protest mirrored that of Seab Nakhasathien, the Superintendent of Huay Kha Khaeng National Park. He placed a gun to his head and lost the war.

The rhythmic meeting of metal wheels over wood track caused Lek’s eyes to close. Her small head fell gently upon Gunnar's shoulder. Her long black hair unfolded as perfume rose into the reporter's world. He closed his eyes and embraced the scent of his guide. He pushed her hair back until her breath met his neck. For a moment in time, he sat complete. Meanwhile, the train rolled toward Isan: toward a confrontation that would change their lives forever.

An hour before Khorat, Lek opened her eyes and looked out the window to get her bearings. “The sound of a train always make me sleep you know,” she said stretching her arms.

“Yes. You were out for two hours. I’ve been wondering, does your village look like the ones I see outside the train window? I am trying to imagine where you live.”

Lek took in the trackside settlements. “These villages just come up like the mushroom after the fire. They have not been here long. My village has been in the Sua Yai Forest since before my great, great grandmother was alive. Before, most people in Isan live in the forest village like us. But now, we are one of the last.”

“What about electricity?”

“No. Many villages have it, but Ban Nam Sai still does not. And that okay. My Uncle warned us that the government follows the wires and the paved roads. We like to rely on ourselves. That keeps the extra taxes out of our life. Happiness comes from inside, not from a refrigerator. That what Ajahn Piko always tell us. Before I think we kinda poor. But after I live in Bangkok, now I know I am very rich girl. I have the river and I have my family.”

“What about radio or television.”

“We get one radio station from the Cambodia side. Sometime they have someone speak in Isan language and tell us to respect com-u-nit. But we know that just nonsense. They are too poor to come across the border now and try to fight with us now.”

With bags secured, Gunnar and Lek stepped into the steamy city and searched for a ride to the village. In the back of a songthau (a covered pick-up truck) they slid to the end of the hard bench seat. Moments before departure a familiar face stepped on board.

“Ahhhh! Lek! You’ve come back! It’s been eight months but finally you’ve returned.”

Lek’s face lit up as Dao, a childhood friend, took a seat across from her. She answered in her native tongue. “I promised I would return! I’m tired of city life. I missed swimming in the river.”

Dao's eyes shifted to the reporter. “I’m Gunnar Ray from America,” he said, anticipating the question. “I’m a student of your culture and Lek is one of my teachers.”

Dao looked to Lek to confirm the seeming impossibility.

“Don’t let him fool you,” she answered, nudging Gunnar in the shoulder. “He’s a reporter from the Bangkok Times. I work for him. He hired me to be his translator.”

“Mai chai fan lahhh?” The girl smiled and raised an eyebrow at Gunnar.

“No. He’s not my boyfriend,” Lek interrupted. “Just my boss.”

Gunnar smiled back, hiding his regret at Lek’s answer.

With her index finger raised, Dao proclaimed: “America number one!”

The two girls laughed and giggled. An elderly woman sitting next to them joined in the fun. “America number one!” she said in broken English. “So you don’t have Thai girlfriend?”

“Not yet,” Gunnar said, leaning back into Lek’s shoulder.

“You have an American wife and children?”

“No.”

“Hmmm.”

Having discerned Gunnar's marital status, the conversation turned to the crises at hand. “Why did you come back Lek?” Dao asked. “Didn’t you hear about the military? They’re going to relocate us to a place with no river and no trees. The men traveled to this land to see what great promise the government has made. There is nothing Lek. And the place is thick with weeds. It will require clearing before the rice can be planted.”

Lek’s eyes filled with tears. She tried to imagine life without a home to return to. How many nights had she dreamed about sleeping in her own bed and swimming with friends in the nearby stream during the rainy season? Two hours later, the transport turned off the paved road and onto a dirt street. Roadside shops and family farms gave way to 1,200 hundred acres of eucalyptus and cassava (tapioca root) plantations. The site of the planted landscape disheartened Gunnar.

A glimmer of hope returned as Fon Maak Mountain appeared in the distance. The truck passed by a massive greenhouse and a mile later came to a halt at the forest edge. “Where’s the village?” he asked, trying to get situated.

Lek pointed to a small dirt road that led into the forest. “One and a half kilometers. We walk from here.”

Dao went on ahead as Lek paused at a small painted house elevated on a single wood pillar.

“Wait here,” she ordered Gunnar. “I need to make peace with pii before entering the village.” The reporter stood motionless as Lek knelt before the spirit house. She lit an incense stick and mumbled some inaudible phrases.

"I feeling nervous,” she confessed to Gunnar, finished in her offerings.

“About the ghosts?”

“No. About seeing family and other villagers. Too many eyes will be on me. Too much thinking about what I am doing in Bangkok.”

She extended a hand to Gunnar. His heart skipped a beat as he took hold of her soft skin. Their fingers locked. He did not know what to make of the gesture. For a brief moment, however, his world felt complete. The most beautiful girl in Isan held him by the hand. Gunnar pointed out familiar birds and plants if only to prolong their time alone. On either side they passed by trees ordained with Buddhist robes. Gunnar removed his sketchpad and captured the image on paper. He had never seen such a display: never heard of ordaining trees as a means to protect a forest. Brilliant. As they neared the village, Lek released her grip. Teenage boys enjoyed a game of dagraw at a tattered net. Played like volleyball with the body and feet instead of the hands, the sport served as a national pastime. Canadian towns have their hockey rinks; Isan villages have their dagraw courts.

The “pinks” and “panks” of metal roofs expanding in the midday heat became the village voice. Even in remote Ban Nam Sai, thatched dwellings had given way to aluminum during the Vietnam War. Noisy as hell in a rainstorm, a virtual oven in the tropical heat: progress? A case of nerves overcame the reporter as Lek pointed to her house in the distance. In a way, he felt like he was being taken home to “meet the parents.” He would live with Paa and Mae until Ajahn Piko’s protest--in whatever form it may take--had come to fruition. His thoughts alternated between the upcoming events and how far away from Lek’s room he would sleep.

Between houses, jackfruit and papaya trees bore ripe fruit. Atop a canvas cloth, chili peppers dried in the sunlight. Small pens housed ducks and chickens. One entrepreneurial soul raised caterpillars that bore silk cocoons. The village seemed almost edible.

“Leeeek! Leeeek!” a shopkeeper called out with a fly swatter in hand. “You’ve come back to us. You’re home.”

The woman’s eyes strayed from Lek’s smiling face to Gunnar’s sweaty body. “Sawatdi,” he said coolly.

“Sa-wat-di,” the shopkeeper answered with extended politeness.

A mangy dog rose from a shadow and trotted toward them. Lek gave it a kick--the traditional Isan greeting for a village dog. It stumbled back into the shadows, content to have been acknowledged. A heavy woman in a sundress called out to the village beauty. Lek smiled and greeted her with a wai. Gunnar’s eyes locked on the ruby red scar tissue on the right side of her face. The folds and rivulets of burnt skin disappeared beneath her shirt collar. A ten-year old boy lifted his head from the woman’s lap. Painted by the same cruel artist, the boy’s face likewise bore deep scars. He sensed Gunnar's stare and put his head back down on his mother’s lap.

“What happened to them?" Gunnar whispered out of earshot. "Their faces . . .”

“Fah lahp,” Lek said without emotion. “Come during the monsoon season and you will know what happen.”

“Lightening?”

“Yes. The cool air on the mountain get mixed with the hot air off the flat land. Very much fah lahp hit this area every year. That family sleeping upstairs when the light hit their roof. Everything that touch the house get the burn. That why the right side of their body look like red mushroom skin--they sleeping on that side. Before they have little girl too. But she lying on her stomach when it hit. Her whole body burn. She dying and nobody can help her.”

Santipap emerged from the doorway and greeted his daughter with a proud smile. Gunnar bowed his head in respect. He introduced himself. "Ake" and "Chart”--Lek’s younger brothers—shook his hand. “Nok,” her seventeen-year-old sister, bowed politely. Somying, Lek’s mother, laid a cloth on the living room floor. The men talked about everything save the crisis that faced the village. Mae emerged from the kitchen and placed a large pot of tom luet moo (pig's blood soup) on the cloth’s center. Lek filled oversized bowls with large helpings.

Gunnar dipped his spoon into the broth. When he had finished, lemon grass and chunks of congealed blood remained in his bowl. Lek cast an angry glare at him for insulting her mother by not finishing his soup. Gunnar looked into Lek's soft eyes and then at the empty bowls on either side of him. With a forced smile, he reluctantly reached for his spoon. Lek’s family watched with anticipation as the gelatinous chunks slid down his throat. He tried to close off his nose to avoid the musky scent, but blood was blood. As he swallowed, he remembered a childhood fieldtrip to an African exhibit at a Michigan museum. While images of large cats and gorillas fascinated his classmates, young Gunnar stood in awe of a Bantu tribesman sucking the blood out of his cattle for a midday meal. To the suburban nine-year-old, nothing could be more exotic or unpalatable. He swallowed the last chunk and pushed his empty bowl onto the center of the cloth. Lek smiled. Her approval helped calm his stomach.

With the meal finished, Gunnar watched how a Thai family re-united. Conversations remained on the pleasant, or superficially unpleasant, aspects of Lek's life: the joys of shopping at a night market versus the daily grind of facing Bangkok heat and traffic. Male / female roles kept the exchange between Lek and her brothers distant, though pleasant. Obligation defined the exchange. What a Westerner would call a shallow happiness, the family before him called custom. In some ways, Gunnar knew more about Lek than her parents did. He saw the beer maid where they saw the faithful daughter. He saw the tears where they saw the smiles.

The money she sent home was never discussed. And Gunnar heard no questions about her place of employment. The principal of mai pen rai (don’t make it a problem) applied. The exchange differed dramatically from the psychoanalyses he endured upon returning home from college. To probe the inner life of a family member would be tortuous to both parties in Thailand. A faithful daughter showed respect by not imposing her problems. So that where the Westerner seeks happiness by wading through a child's muck, the Thai lays down a ground cloth and makes a picnic of it all.

Between Nok and Lek lay the differences between exposure to village of two hundred and life in a city of six million. Nok looked at the world through her parents’ expectations and village mores. She remained single and innocent in the ways beyond Ban Nam Sai. Nok was the soft clay that a city like Bangkok hardened into something shaped like a man’s toy. How many thousand “Nok’s”--birds of a feather--had left Isan and a life defined by tradition for the global economy of Bangkok? While the West knew well of Lek and the women of Thailand who dressed in a maid’s outfits to serve men with a smile, it was Nok who embodied the essential Isan. Village traditions, expectations, and décor defined her existence. She avoided single men in favor of working alongside the village women. She did not drink alcohol--a man’s beverage. She never dreamed of smoking, or even swearing for that matter. At seventeen, she yet asked permission to leave the house for any duration. In short, Nok was a puuying baan (woman of the house). She would harvest rice come October and pound papaya thrice weekly for som tom (spicy salad).

As the afternoon turned into evening, Santipap reached for a bottle of lao khao. The rice wine poured like soymilk with an attitude. Over the strong drink, the headman and reporter exchanged stories. Santipap delighted in Gunnar's vivid account of being caught in a kayak on Lake Michigan in a freak October snowstorm. The reporter, for his part, took notes on the headman's yarn about coming face to face with an immobile gnuu luem (anaconda) in a remote corner of the forest. The bulge in the snake’s mid-section gave the appearance that it had mistakenly swallowed a student’s desk. The headman severed it with a machete. The skin retracted and an undigested pig emerged like a breach birth from the hole. The following day, the family enjoyed ham hocks for breakfast and snake meat for dinner.

Gunnar and Santipap sipped the sour mash late into the evening. When the reporter saw two headmen instead of one, he waved for Lek's assistance. She slipped a pillow under his head. He passed out on the dining room floor turned guestroom. Santipap hobbled up the wood stairs and slept in a small room opposite Lek, Nok, and her two brothers. Woven mats served as mattresses for all.

The following morning, as Gunnar slept off the lao khao, village elders made their way down the shaded path toward Ajahn Piko’s forest temple. On either side of the procession, saffron robes covered mai rang trees. En-route, they disturbed a pair of blue-throated flycatchers. The alarm calls spooked a variable squirrel. As the squirrel sprinted for cover, a large billed crow erupted from a tree limb. The frantic crow spooked a barking deer that promptly awoke the usually nocturnal Asian barred owl. The owl let out a series of descending calls. Ajahn Piko heard those calls from his goutie. He stretched his back and calmly exited his residence. He lit a small fire to boil water. Five minutes later, the village men arrived to six ceramic cups on individual placemats. The elders had long resigned themselves to the mystical ways of the forest monk. Piko poured the boiling water into their cups. As expected, Toothless Dannatalo placed a container of Ovaltine powder in front of him. Piko slid a fingernail across the dotted line of a sweepstakes offer. He then returned the prize to the luckiest man in Ban Nam Sai.

“Elder Dannatalo," the monk said with a hint of disdain. "Each time you bring Ovaltine, you bring a new problem to solve. It is starting to ruin the sweet taste of the drink!”

Dannatalo flashed a crooked grin. Indeed. The elders had come to discuss the mother of all problems. Santipap spoke on behalf of the Council. “Young Paeow reported that two more bulldozers have arrived to Poor Man’s Slough. That makes a total of six."

Piko clenched his teeth but tried not to show his alarm. He added a scoop of chocolate delight to the hot water. “This is the same tactic the government used in Roi Et District six months ago. They brought in the heavy equipment. Village houses were destroyed. After that, they burned the forest and re-planted it with eucalyptus. They are heartless, but effective. And nobody has found a way to stop them yet.”

The Ajahn’s words brought despair to the faces of the elders. “So what is our next move?" Pontip asked. "How can we stop the entire military? We are but a small village. And Burriram is a forgotten province.”

“We must become the aggressor,” Piko said forcefully. “The nation must know our plight to save Sua Yai Forest and Ban Nam Sai Village. To place robes on trees is not enough. It is defensive. We must be offensive. We need to create an event that will capture the imagination of the masses. Only then will the village have a chance of survival. Tomorrow is Sunday . . . a good day to strike.”

The monk called for a protest of historic proportions. The idea had been in the works for some time, but only as a last resort. With the eviction notice served and the arrival of new earthmovers, the time to act had come. Ajahn Piko dismissed the elders and followed his brother back to the village to meet Gunnar Ray. At the sight of her uncle, Lek prostrated three times in respect and emerged with a broad smile. Piko held a special place in his heart for her and she knew it. Although she was a village girl, he had taught her the basics of meditation at a young age. In a real way, she was the child he would never have.

Lek waited for the expected scolding for disregarding his instructions. Piko smiled at her and shook his head. She had grown into a mature woman. Two years had past since they had last spoken in person. On her previous visit, the monk was on retreat in northern Thailand. The sound of Lek's voice woke Gunnar from his sleep. With lao khao seeping out his pours and a headache for the ages, he rose to greet the monk. Piko looked at his disheveled state and cast a look of incrimination toward his brother. Santipap smiled and winked. After a polite introduction, Gunnar excused himself to the bathroom. He dipped a plastic bowl into a large ceramic container and poured warm water over his body. The Thai style bath improved his scent, if not his senses. With notepad in hand, he followed the monk down the forest path and into the eucalyptus plantation.

"I expected someone older," Piko said, glancing back at Gunnar.

"I'm twenty-six," the reporter answered unapologetically. "I started writing for the Times three years ago. If you do not mind my asking Ajahn, how did you come to call on me?"

Piko paused and faced the reporter. "Ajahn Nantisan, a monk from Kanchanburi province, suggested that I contact you. We spent a rains retreat together once and he knows that Ban Nam Sai is facing relocation by the Kau Jau Kau. The village that you wrote about in your campaign to shut down the gold mine . . . the one effected by strychnine poisoning—is where he goes on bin ta bat (alms rounds). You are a hero to the villagers. That mine had connections to the mafia. They were powerless until you arrived. Your articles and the public support you generated helped to shut it down.”

Gunnar looked to the ground, embarrassed by the praise. His work with the villagers had earned him an award from the Environmental Protection League of Thailand. "I guess that was a success story,” he conceded. “But there are a hundred failures to every as triumph you know."

"Yes. But in a nation like Thailand, one small victory can change the course of history. Still, it is dangerous to take on the big corporations--especially ones with ties to the mafia. Are you aware of the risks?"

Gunnar stopped mid-step and turned to face the monk. "Are you talking about the trend of assassinating activists?”

“Yes.” Piko frowned.

The image of Sarawat's headless body flashed through his mind. "Yes, Ajahn," he said quietly. "I am afraid.”

At the edge of the forest they stared out on a horizon of 40,000 knee-high saplings. Planted in cornrows, the September colors of the eucalyptus, pleasant in a painting or on a California hillside, made for a harsh backdrop under the Thailand sun. Piko placed a hand on an immature tree and peeled the bark like the sunburned skin of a tourist. For the monk, the plantation was as foreign a country as he had ever visited. On a boyhood hunt, he once hid behind a dense patch of mai thonglang trees near this same spot. The rains were late and the crops had failed. For a helpless two months, villagers subsisted almost wholly on the wild gifts of the forest. They were surviving, but Piko’s mother cried in the darkness when she could not fill the bellies of her children. The boy excused himself from the morning meal and dipped a blow dart in yang nong--the most deadly of poisons. He walked into the thick jungle that extended an additional twenty-one miles from where the planted trees now grew. As he waited for his prey, he admired the meeting of branches overhead. The patterns of light and dark, space and solid, captivated him. The macaque monkeys returned. Imagination gave way to a primordial rush. He watched as a mother groomed her young twenty feet from his hideout. Beside her, two males reclined in a mai intaninbog tree. For a moment, he forgot that he was a hunter. The monkeys seemed like little people going about their daily lives above the ground. But his mother cried in the evenings . . . and the people of the trees had hair where he had smooth brown skin. He raised a plu bong (blow pipe) to his mouth and unleashed a burst of air that sent a dart whizzing. The point penetrated a male monkey in the breast. The animal gazed down upon his wound. Blood trickled over his fur, onto the leaf cover. Seconds later, broken flesh met the earth.

Young Piko had never killed such a large animal.

Squirrels. Yes. Green snakes. An animal that so closely resembled himself--no, never. The monkey convulsed as the poison inched toward its heart. The boy watched helplessly as it grimaced in pain. Its convoluted face reminded him of his own father’s after a bottle of whiskey. He reached down and lifted the animal’s hand. How vivid the image. The monkey grasped onto his finger and then released just as quickly as the life force dissipated. When monsoon rains came on time, monkeys in the shadow of the village had always been spared. They were idle entertainment to adults, forest friends for the children. The boy shouldered the kill back to the village. That evening, the women opened the skull and boiled the brain. They boiled the arms, legs, and even the genitals. As the meat circulated, the young hunter refused. He ate rice and vegetables. Four years later, he donned the robe of a Buddhist monk vowing never to kill a wild animal again.

Piko reached down and picked up a splintered shovel. He lifted it above his head and brought it down hard at the base of a young eucalyptus tree. The parched earth responded with a defiant “clank.” “Do you see what this tree has done to our land?” he said with emotion. “It has turned soil into concrete. Where once grew a forest with thousands of species, now stands a field of weeds. The insignificant branches do not deny the penetrating sun. Soon the winds will sweep the topsoil into the heavens. Isan will become a cloud of dust that bares no fruit. People will suffer in ways that Bangkok cannot imagine. Because this one species grows faster and produces better pulp than a native forest, all must suffer.”

The monk led the reporter to a pit the size of an Olympic swimming pool. He gazed with longing into the dusty bottom scattered with eucalyptus leaves. “It took nearly three months for the villagers to create this fish pond. It was part of a plan I enacted to help curb their reliance on forest animals. The fish they harvested ensured them a healthy diet. When the government cleared the forest and planted eucalyptus, we begged them to spare the pond. They agreed. But as you can see, they planted the trees on either side. Now the pond is dead. At first it seemed the water and trees could co-exist. As they matured, leaves blew into the water. All the fish died. No leaf from the Sua Yai forest poisons a pond. Something in the resin of eucalyptus denies all others life. Look around. No native birds nest in the eucalyptus. At first, the villagers did not understand the connection between the death of the fish and the presence of the trees. They thought an angry spirit was punishing them.

We devised a system to keep the leaves out but it proved worthless. As the trees grew, the pond drained. The root system of the eucalyptus is selfish like no other. The trees drink the land. Nothing can compete. There is more diversity growing in the cracks of a Bangkok sidewalk than under a mature plantation. Once they have been harvested, it takes heavy equipment or chemicals to remove the roots. The government tells the nation that they are "re-foresting Isan." They brag to the populous that they are planting thousands of tress to combat deforestation. What you are witnessing is a catastrophe unequaled in the history of Thailand.

Without the fishpond, the flesh of wild animals returned to my begging bowl. I invited an NGO (non-government organization) from Bangkok to teach the villagers how to raise ducks and cultivate silkworms. They also established gardens for cinnamon, nutmeg, and other herbs to sell at the market. Our goal is to remain self-sufficient. We do not want to rely on the forest animals. And we do not want to cultivate cash crops for the government. Bangkok would like nothing more than to offer us a loan and put us into their debt. When villagers go into debt, it makes it easier for officials to take the land. And land is what this battle is all about."

Gunnar nodded. "So what is your dream for the forest and your people," he asked with notepad in hand. "I'm here to listen. I apologize for not covering the ‘Saffron Forest' story, but I'm here now. I support your cause and you can count on me to publicize your protest in whatever form it may take."

Piko turned his hand into a visor to block the glare. He stared into a hazy horizon over planted fields. "If you look closely, you can see the faint outline of Khao Yai National Park.”

Gunnar sighted the distant mountains. Piko continued. “Khao Yai has ten mating pairs of tigers and a healthy heard of gwaang. It is the oldest and grandest National Park in Thailand. In contrast, Fon Maak Mountain and Sua Yai Forest have a single mating pair of tigers. A few marbled cats dwell in the remote highlands. Both species are doomed to extinction in this forest. The gene pool is not large enough to sustain them. My dream is a corridor of forest that links Khao Yai and Sua Yai together. Through that green space, animals would migrate and exchange their genes as they did for centuries. I have walked the length of this unbroken stretch in my sleep. But it is only a dream. The population of Isan has tripled since I was born. There are too many people and not enough dreamers to turn the two forests into one.”

Gunnar kicked at the dry dirt before him. He regretted being born fifty-years too late to enjoy the full splendor of the Thai jungle. “So if you cannot realize your dream, what is left?”

Piko stopped in his tracks and stared the reporter in the eye. “Reality is left. I fight for Sua Yai Forest to become a National Park. As long as it is a forest reserve it will always be threatened. The only way to ensure the protection and the long-term survival of the ecosystem is Park status. I champion a buffer zone of community forest where Ban Nam Sai and other responsible villagers can live and manage the land in a sustainable way. This would also allow for grassroots protection against poachers. When villagers feel like they own the forest, they fight to protect it from outsiders. Beyond the rim of community forest I envision Fon Maak Mountain protected as National Park land and patrolled by rangers and forest monks alike. The sacred center of the province must not be compromised by poachers and logging. This is not a dream. This is a fight to the death."

The monk and reporter walked in silence toward the forest cover. En-route, Gunnar Ray reflected on a trip to Melbourne, Australia that he took two years earlier. Behind the coastal city, eucalyptus trees towered high above the earth for hundreds of miles. Koala bears fed on the same leaves that poisoned the fishpond. Kangaroos raised Joey’s in their shadows. He saw an ecosystem appropriate to the arid climate: a eucalyptus wilderness. In Isan, the same species achieved only one-third the stature of its native cousins. And while it took thirty years for eucalyptus to reach maturity in Australia, in Thailand, the same tree was harvested after seven years. The victim of it all was the soil. An inch of life-giving ground took decades to produce and but only a few seasons to blow away. Somewhere in Bangkok this all made sense. But to those who remembered a wild Isan, who knew the value of shade and the spirit of the forest, the planted trees were a foreign army marching across Thailand.

Back in the rainforest, Ajahn Piko paused at the base of a mai pakluad tree. "Place your ear on the bark," he instructed Gunnar. “An entire colony of ants lives in this tree, yet the species does not kill its host. There is more diversity in this trunk than in a rai of eucalyptus. And see here, this mai deng tree blew down two years ago when monsoon winds caused many trees to fall. See how in death the giant yet gives birth to life?"

From the deadfall, no less than eighteen species of plants grew in tight communities. Piko reached down and caressed a species of laurifolia. "The plants that grow out of this tree are a virtual medicine chest. This vine can be mashed to form a tea that works as a detoxification agent.”

The monk looked up at the reporter and caught sight of a familiar friend just over his shoulder. He rose to his feet and placed a hand against crateva magna—a light-colored tree about fifty feet high. “And see here . . . the roots of this tree help reduce fever. When I was a boy, my mother used the bark to cure me of guinea worm.” Piko raised a hand to his shiny scalp. “And believe it or not, this same tree can help cure baldness . . . or so I have heard.”

Gunnar appreciated both the lesson and the humor of the man before him. He rubbed his stomach. “Any chance you have a laxative in this forest?”

Piko waved for the reporter to follow him down the pathway. As they neared the village, he paused at a species of ebenaceae and picked a small ripe fruit. “Chew on this . . . but make sure you are near a toilet when you do.”

Gunnar smiled.

With the village in sight, Piko pointed out more inconspicuous trees, with conspicuous uses. “My mother comes from a long line of medicine women. Her grandmother planted many of the shrubs surrounding the village for easy picking. We are far from a hospital here. If there is an emergency, the medicinal plants are close by to help with injuries. The government does not understand this. They belong to a market economy; Ban Nam Sai belongs to the forest and the plants that heal her.”

The reporter shook his head in amazement. Eucalyptus did not simply destroy a forest--it replaced a culture. Without the native trees, the knowledge of healing plants would be lost forever. Every illness, every need or want, would drive the villagers closer to Bangkok: closer to sweatshops, prostitution, and a poverty of spirit.

14

At a service station off the main highway to Khorat, the reporter slipped rusty coins into a pay phone. "Steve," he said blocking out the din of passing traffic. " Gunnar Ray calling from Burriram."

"Gunnar!" Steve answered with surprise. "Didn't think I would hear from you so soon. Are you tired of eating bugs?”

"Listen. I just met with Ajahn Piko. All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. I need a photographer up here before sunset. Put him on a plane."

"What's up?"

"Can't say. I'm sworn to secrecy until it happens. Covering trees with Buddhist robes was just the beginning. Piko wants a professional to capture his latest protest on film. He is trying to summon the publicity needed to save his village and the forest."

"You got it,” Steve answered. “I'll put Boonthep on an afternoon flight. Look for him this evening."

"Great. And, by the way, you were right about the eggs. I made the mistake of sitting on a Khorat sidewalk while waiting for a taxi. I’m still recovering."

Gunnar returned to a village on high alert. Men knelt on the hot dirt honing their sickles with a wet stone. A farmer had a village pig skewered and roasting over an open fire. Meanwhile, Lek worked beside her mother pulverizing green papaya into som tom (spicy salad). An hour before sunset the feast began. More than just nourishment, the meal served as a celebration. By tomorrow morning, the innocence and welcomed obscurity would be lost forever.

The sun dipped below the horizon and a full April moon began its ascent. Moonlight played a key factor in Piko choosing this, the third Sunday of the month. Boonthep, twenty-four and the son of a prominent Bangkok exporter, entered the village with camera in hand.

Ajahn Piko took to the platform. “Family and friends. We have reached the time for desperate measures. Your government will not stop its terror until the people rise up against it. When we are finished tonight, the nation will know of our plight. If we do nothing, we are guaranteed a site with barely farmable land, no school, no well, and great hardship for young and old alike. Only the concern of your fellow countrymen can save the forest from the ax and Ban Nam Sai from relocation. I must warn you, however: do not join this protest unless you are willing to make the supreme sacrifice for your children and the forest.”

Santipap pushed through the crowd and joined his brother on the podium. “Our Ajahn is right! If we do nothing, we lose our roots. We become dust blown into a hostile land. At least a jail cell provides shelter. You will know where your next meal is coming from. The ruined earth of the relocation site might not yield crops. We may be forced to beg like cripples from other villages. Nothing will be our own.”

A rumble of excitement filled the night’s sky. Villagers turned and spoke briefly to one another. Heads nodded in agreement. The two brothers joined hands and raised their locked arms to the sky. A rush of emotion swept over Farmer Anan. He let out a primordial scream. The crowd responded with a deafening roar that drifted into the fields of eucalyptus. Dogs barked. Children wiped their eyes. And Ban Nam Sai declared war.

Men and women filed down the dark dirt road toward the eucalyptus plantation. As they entered the clearing, moonlight reflected off the metal of their sickles. Conversations ceased. Only the sound of feet meeting the earth remained. Santipap towered above a defiant sapling. Villagers waited for instructions. The headman spoke with the blade: he raised the metal above his head and brought it fast and clean through the base of a two-foot tree. The small trunk fell to the earth. Seconds later, men and women filed into the rows and attacked foreign weeds with a vengeance. Metal hitting wood made for a stadium sound: batting practice on a summer’s night. The most determined toppled fifteen trees per minute. In their wake, empty orbs remained where a million dollar industry once grew. Ajahn Piko watched as friends and relatives pushed into the battlefield. He could hardly catch his breath.

Gunnar Ray and Boonthep followed the path of destruction. The reporter paused briefly to capture in frenzied words the furor of the men and women around him. Boonthep circled behind the villagers and snapped photos. He imagined each image on the front page of a foreign newspaper. Broken limbs from the hapless trees lay scattered like cattle death in the desert. As the hands of the farmers blistered, Piko sat confined to the sidelines. His passivity turned into feelings of guilt. Though proud of the precepts he upheld, the robe made him a beggar. His food came from the villager’s sweat and hardship. His vision for saving the forest depended on their risking a prison sentence to destroy the fields. Seldom had he known such a passion to break free of the vinaya. Could the nation accept a monk who violated ahimsa--the most sacred of all Buddhist precepts? He had killed the cat in private, outside the scrutiny of public opinion. Killing trees would be a public event. It would put his interpretation of Buddhism, his distinction between native and non-native species, on trial.

"Pra jorojat." Piko heard the biting words of Maha Tawui ring in his head. He picked up an abandoned sickle, gripped the smooth handle, and took a practice swing. “Whoooshiss.” Air from the swipe hissed at the four monks. With blade in hand he felt the power of ngarn--work and celebration. His teeth clenched as he brought the blade to the earth. It circled through the darkness until the sweet spot of the metal met the first tree with a “pink.” A second tree followed. As their Ajahn joined the battle, the monks sprinted back to the village to fetch any blade strong enough to sever the alien weed. Even Pra Phuttana kept pace, his old legs jumping over fallen trees. Through the lens of his camera, Boonthep captured a timeless photo of monks sprinting through the moonlight. Absorbed in the slaughter, Piko did not see them go. How long had it been since he had indulged in vengeance . . . the alignment of force to achieve one's desired ends? The clarity intoxicated him. The brute force of using one's own hands to kill over and over again made him vibrate with a passion that he had never known. But was he a warrior or a monk? He had killed the cat . . . but he had remained impassionate in its demise. The loveless trees ignited a fury within.

The monks filed alongside their Master. Two held sickles, one managed a machete, and poor Phuttana wielded a dull hoe. With robed wingmen on either side Piko saw his strength of purpose multiply four-fold. Taniro and Visalo yelled outright as they unleashed their anger against the immigrants. In the heat of battle, Piko lowered his weapon. He had managed his breath for so many seasons that the simple habit of checking in--knowing thyself--made it nearly impossible for him to surrender completely to emotion. He sank to the ground as his monks shouted in midnight rapture.

Vengeance in the dark would turn to regret in the light. Piko knew this. Dhamma--the laws of nature--applied to human retribution. He placed his blade on the earth and followed his rapid breath until he was once again became aware of the moonlight on his face. The flames of emotion danced like an aurora borealis in his inner sky. “Bud-dho.” He looked past the color show and focused on the dark center.

Emptiness. Always emptiness.

“Look at that one,” Boonthep said. Gunnar watched as Lek brought a cane knife through the base of a small tree. “She’s beautiful . . . and she's as fast as the men.”

In spite of missing consecutive rice harvests while in Bangkok, Lek had not forgotten how to wield a cane knife. The soft moonlight made her every motion as much a dance, as an act of destruction. Where the other women of her age flocked together--Lek attacked the field in solitude. With each pass of metal through stalk, she exacted revenge on all who threatened her village.

She paused and brought a handkerchief to her forehead. She then stared over the broken trees at the reporter. Gunnar felt his stomach tighten as though he were a teenager. For a man who lived life one cause to the next, the woman before him embodied the perfect union of beauty with purpose. She inspired him. The many faces she wore mystified him as well. The contrast between life in the village and survival in a metropolis had given her a breadth of experience. Worldly wisdom.

Lek again raised her weapon. The reporter reached for his notepad.

He sketched her outward beauty and inward resolution. She thrust the blade into another sapling. With villagers behind, and bats circling overhead, she moved alone, but not by herself.

Piko raised a hand and called in his monks. They arrived panting, consumed with the glory of being fully human. “Take a seat and close your eyes,” he said in a soothing voice. “Look inward and see the colors that killing instills.” One by one they turned their attention from the slaughter to their inner beings. Piko spoke as they watched their breath. “We must enter this fight with our passion in check. To kill an alien species that violates the Integrity of the forest is not a baap. Indulging in passion, however, will surely follow us into future lives. Let us meditate. Be mindful of the night air and the cicadas in song. If you become oblivious to the moonlight that follows your every step, you will have succumbed to passion. Recite “Bud-dho” in this circle until you achieve an inner peace. When you are able to kill without passion, resume your duty.”

Piko stood above the circle and placed the sickle back on his shoulder. Trees fell at the same steady pace, except now he moved with precision, not passion. With each swing he reflected on the life he took. Somewhere on this planet, eucalyptus contributed to diversity. In his native Isan, however, the weeds had to go.

Three hours before daybreak, 40,000 saplings lay broken and twisted by hurricane man. The moon that began its journey in the east now rested high in the western sky. With exhausted villagers kneeling around him, Piko conducted a headcount. “Have there been any injuries?” he asked, his sweaty face illumined by a torch.

“Nisa was been bitten by a centipede,” Santipap answered. “She has gone to see Maa Pii for the proper herbs.”

“Have there been any lacerations?”

“Yes,” Surachai added. His eyes watered from the scent of toppled eucalyptus. “Pong severed the skin on his leg. He too is waking Maa Pii.”

“Very well. Let us dedicate our triumph to the injured. And let us wish loving kindness to the one million Thai lives uprooted and the forests destroyed by the Kau Jau Kau. We are a village of the forest and a temple of tigers. We have acted in darkness but to capture the attention of the nation we must come into the light.”

Gunnar recorded the monk’s impassioned plea in his notepad. Boonthep circulated among the crowd searching for the best angle to photograph the monk. The faint outline of the greenhouse loomed in the distance. Piko homed in on what would be his shot heard round the world. “The greenhouse is the hammer that fires the gun of deforestation,” he yelled above the crowd. “As long as it stands, the gun is loaded. If the greenhouse burns, the smoke will carry our cause beyond Isan.”

Exhausted villagers looked back at the monk with concern. The greenhouse was a quarter of a million dollar structure. Its destruction was tantamount to bombing a government office. “Gunnar Ray,” Piko said, locating the reporter through the wavy torchlight. “If we, the villagers and monks of Sua Yai Forest sever the hand that brings destruction, will you take our cause to the world? We need more than just a reporter; we need a champion of our cause. You must put us in the international spotlight. The government can silence the Thai newspapers--but not the world. Without your help, some of us could spend the rest of our lives in prison while the forest is destroyed. Gunnar Ray, you must become a leader in our cause. Take our plight to the Thai people and beyond. The world must know what is happening to Thailand's forests and her villages.”

The eyes of Ban Nam Sai focused on Gunnar Ray. He felt his character plunge into submarine depths. Did they know what they were asking? This wasn’t even his country. At best, he was a half-baked expatriate; a part-time Buddhist; and an environmentalist who didn’t have time to recycle. Sure he supported their cause, but what of his own freedom? He considered it an unalienable right to walk to his apartment without the fear of being assassinated.

He surveyed the sweat-stained faces before him and struggled for an answer. Lek. Leaning against her mother, her once combed hair stuck in clumps and spirals to her forehead. Never was she more attractive. “I will publicize your cause,” he said, inspired by the face before him. “I will write your story and take the plight of Sua Yai Forest and Ban Nam Sai Village to the world.”

“Gunnar Ray has spoken!” Piko yelled as he raised an arm to the sky.

“Burn the greenhouse to the ground!” Santipap demanded.

“Destroy the nest, or the bees will return!” the village carpenter agreed.

Gunnar raised his arm in support of the cause. He only hoped his bravery would last beyond first light. Ten of the strongest village men returned to Ban Nam Sai to retrieve a barrel of gasoline. Lynch mob. In a dark patch of Isan, the sins of Bangkok would burn bright as a comet for the nation to see. The men arrived and placed the gasoline near the face of the massive building. “Let one person set the fire,” Santipap yelled out. “I am your headman. I shall own the destruction. If the government points a finger, let the hand fall on me.”

Piko looked at his brother with a pride of kin. Theirs could have been a contest for power in the village; instead, they always found a way to cooperate. Both knew the slow roll of life in the village was over. Santipap stared into the curved glass of the greenhouse. Seedlings in tidy rows lined the hut from one end to the next. The technology astounded. It had caused both fear and awe since its erection. When Ban Nam Sai filed for assistance to build a proper septic system, the request took seven years to process. DENIED. The approval to plant eucalyptus over their community forest took three weeks to approve and a single stamp from the Royal Forestry Department to set into motion. Pencils and writing tablets ordered for the village school took nine months. The cement foundation for the greenhouse was laid in six days. The request for assistance to dig a well deep enough to prevent dysentery took two years and three trips by Santipap to Khorat. DENIED. The greenhouse was erected and operational within sixty-two days. A ping-pong table arrived seventy-two hours thereafter at the request of a maintenance man.

Santipap dipped a bucket into the vat of gasoline. The headman’s eyes watered as the scent of fuel joined the waft of eucalyptus. As he lifted the bucket, he felt a hand squeeze his shoulder. Piko placed the bucket on the ground. "I must chant for the forest, the villagers, and the future.”

The monk chanted with emotion. He called for strength of purpose and a successful mission. Santipap bowed his head in submission. When finished, Piko reached for the bucket of fuel. “Return to your family, Santipap," he said forcefully. “A jail cell waits for whoever brings fire to the greenhouse. You are a husband to Somying and a father to Ake, Chart, Lek, and Nok. They are the family I never had. You are the center of this family . . . you are the center of this village. Step back brother. You cannot help anyone from behind bars."

Santipap looked up with a hint of nostalgia. He remembered the lone fistfight he had with his older brother. When the seven year old refused to take him hunting with the older boys, he reached up and clipped him on the chin. Instead of returning the jab, young Piko took the boy by the hand and spent the rest of the day with him.

The headman stared back toward the distant crowd. He caught sight of Lek. Finally she had returned to the village. He believed she might be ready to choose a man and bare grandchildren. Somying had long entertained mothers with sons of marriageable age. All wanted to know when, and if, her beautiful daughter would return. Though he could not tell her outright, the money she sent home had helped to keep the family in good standing. The thought of not seeing his grandchildren grow up weakened him. He loosened his grip on the bucket, turned away from his brother, and walked toward his villagers.

The monk stood alone in the field, a torch in his right hand, a bucket of gasoline in his left. Boonthep reached into his saddlebag to retrieve a 300 mm lens. "This shot will make us famous," he said, zooming in on the torch-wielding monk. “If I can capture his expression when he sets the fire, we'll have the photo of the year."

Gunnar Ray reached up and twisted the high power addition off the camera. An orb remained where an award-winning photo had been promised. "What the hell are you doing?” the photographer said.

"Put your camera down. It's too damning a shot. It will turn the moderates against him. Let him complete the act in solitude. This will not go in our story."

"We are here to cover the facts," an angry Boonthep protested. “Our job is to document history."

"No." Gunnar said on the verge of yelling. "I have pledged to take the Piko's cause to the nation. That is my job now. No photos of the monk near the greenhouse will go in our story."

Piko stood in quiet contemplation of a structure more valuable to the Thai government than Isan lives. He thumbed at the rust and tree fibers on the dull surface of a sickle blade. He looked back one last time at the villagers and the fields destroyed by their own hands. With a mighty hurl, he sent the metal into flight. An eight-foot panel of glass exploded. A greenhouse siren started to scream. Dogs in nearby villages answered. He hurled another sickle toward a wall of glass. Explosion. Like spectators at a sporting event, villagers applauded each blow. With the breaking of the second panel, two greenhouse workers burst like bottle rockets out the rear exit. In their drunken stupor, they had slept through the felling of eucalyptus. Exploding glass served as a powerful alarm clock. The mob cheered and the chase began. Village children with panting dogs darted after the men. They screamed every foul word in their fathers’ vocabulary until the terrified workers reached the road to Ban Posai.

Piko hurled a stream of gasoline onto the exposed seedlings. The siren screamed louder than before, as if aware of the hell to follow. Villagers moved back for safety. The monk doused another wall with fuel. He returned for the torch and pondered one of his teacher’s favorite sayings: “See life as a flame: burning brightly one moment; disappearing the next. Wisdom is learning to let go.” The monk hurled the torch skyward. As he jogged back toward the villagers, a sheet of flames engulfed a support beam. The fire jumped into the heart of the greenhouse. Like a screaming child gasping for breath, a momentary silence ensued. The explosion that followed shook the earth like a magnitude five earthquake. The oxygen tank detonated like a bomb. Wood and glass erupted in a fire fountain that mushroomed high above Isan.

A fiery silhouette of men, women, and dogs appeared on the road. Fifteen minutes later, the villagers of Ban Posai arrived. “We thought the spaceship that Palia saw three months ago had landed,” Elder Teerakorn said in a panic-stricken voice. “We brought our hoes to fend off an attack.”

“There is no spaceship,” Santipap said as he wiped the sweat out of his eyes. “The government’s pride has exploded. We have burned the greenhouse.”

“And the broken trees?”

“Those fell to our sickles.”

Teerakorn turned back to face his own villagers. He lifted his weapon and let out a joyful holler: “Ban Nam Sai has set fire to the greenhouse to defy the Kau Kau Jau! And they have cut the trees that drink the land!”

A wave of cheers erupted as the mob inched toward the greenhouse. When villagers from Ban Hoi Sin and Ban Rai Rawy arrived, some 350 men, women, and children encircled the flames. Teenagers hurled cut eucalyptus into the center to keep the fire burning. Isan, the neglected stepchild of Thailand had found its fiery voice. A year before, a Chiang Rai village held a hunger strike to protest the Kau Jau Kau. It went unnoticed and ended, not surprisingly, because of hunger. A sit in was later held in Sisaket on the steps of the Royal Forestry Department. The military arrived and people were standing in less than an hour. For a moment in space and time however, the villagers once again ruled the land.

Ajahn Piko elevated himself on a broken table and addressed the crowd. “The villagers of Ban Nam Sai and monks of Wat Sua Yai reclaim this land for the Sua Yai Forest!” The crowd cheered as dogs barked with renewed fervor. “This is not terrorism: this is liberation. Later this morning, the nation will know what we have done. Soon, the military will arrive. Men with machine guns will attempt to intimidate you. Say nothing and do not raise a fist. Many are the sons of Isan brainwashed by a government not fully their own. Gunnar Ray will take our story and our cause to the world. Once our plight is common knowledge, the Thai papers will pick up the story. The eyes of the nation will shine on our small corner of Burriram. Sua Yai Forest will become a familiar name. If you have come to warm yourselves by the fire, that will serve no one but you. If you cheer for what we have done in the darkness, then join us in the light for a protest march at 10:00 AM. We will walk from village to village to gather support for Sua Yai Forest and the right for Ban Nam Sai villagers to remain on the land. Heed my words. The government will not be content to remove Ban Nam Sai alone. They will target other villages on the forest border. And when they are finished here, the tyranny will continue into the other forest reserves. All of Isan is at risk. A million villagers from the Northeast are slated for eviction. This is your fight. This is the fight for Isan.”

Cheers of support met Piko’s words. His standing army of four monks stood on the verge of multiplying a thousand-fold. As he spoke, the eastern sky filled with the first hint of the orange morning. Come afternoon, a bloodless sun would burn their romanticism to cinders, but for now, celebration.

15

At 6:30 AM, the women of Ban Nam Sai started their daily tasks: sweeping the kitchen, feeding the chickens, dressing the children. The men slept. Life went on as usual save for the fact that they had just perpetrated one of the greatest acts of domestic violence against the government ever recorded on Thai soil. At 8:00 AM, young Tak skidded to a stop in front of the soup shop. “It’s the greenhouse men! They have returned!” Seconds later, the villagers made their way to the forest edge. Four former greenhouse keepers paced frantically in front of their smoldering careers. One by one they picked and prodded at the burn. For three years they had served as the government’s watchdog for the next generation of soil robbers.

In the daylight, the thousands of toppled trees looked more like an Act of God than the work of villagers. One of the men pointed in the direction of Ban Nam Sai. Their voices unheard, but all knew what they were saying. The car doors opened and the men disappeared. Villagers knew well, however, that big fish follow the little fish.

“I’ll wager a $1.20 that the military arrives at 1:00 PM,” Anan yelled out, breaking the tension of the moment.

“I say two hours from now!” answered farmer Jaiman, smiling, as only a Thai would under the circumstances.

“You credit them with too much efficiency. I say we eat our soup unmolested for two full days!” Weera concluded.

Within minutes, a pool of $22.00 was collected. The mean betting time for the military’s arrival: 1:30 PM. Even in the face of calamity, they kept theirs a Land of Smiles. Two hours later, a fierce sun burned the remaining shadows off the land. Tension in the village became feverish. Nattra scolded her son Raa for not feeding the goat. Sasima beat the dog with a belt for sniffing a container of sticky rice. Pornpan washed, and then re-washed, three perfectly clean sheets.

Piko emerged from the forest into an angst-filled village. “We must stay calm and act with deliberation. Do not turn against each other . . . or against the village dogs. You have acted with bravery. Now gather water and follow me on a march to celebrate the Sua Yai Forest."

Every able-bodied adult followed the monk down the road, into an unknown future. Nira covered her head with a wet rag. In the hot season, the mid-morning heat could be more unbearable than midday. The lack of circulation made even the rocks sweat. The powerful scent of eucalyptus met the marchers as they entered the clearing. Eyes watered and sweat poured off bodies. No one knew for sure how the military would suppress them; they only knew that the soldiers would indeed come.

Two miles into the march, thunder ripped across the sky. After a hundred and forty-three days without cloud cover, some believed their evening chants had finally been heard. The black cloud that descended promised confrontation, not relief. Straw hats blew in four directions as the turbo prop of the armed helicopter blasted loose soil into the eyes of the protesters. Ajahn Piko’s faded robe whipped furiously as he faced the machine. The helicopter landed and a rotating blade blocked the road to Ban Posai.

Two smoked glass doors opened. General Rakthum--the aged war veteran and ranking officer in charge of enforcing the Kau Jau Kau, stepped onto the dust-blown street. Maha Tawui followed close behind. The loose skin on his arms whipped back and forth under the force of the blade. With a Desert Eagle pistol strapped to his belt and an AK-47 over his shoulder, Rakthum approached. “Ajahn Piko,” he said without introduction. “You are under arrest for trespassing on government lands, destruction of government property, and for your membership in the Communist Party with the intent to overthrow the government of Thailand.”

Tawui followed close behind. In the shadow of Rakthum, he handed Piko a sealed plastic bag with khaki pants and a button-down shirt. “The Sangha Council will rule on whether to defrock you. Save your nation the embarrassment of having a monk behind bars. You are pra jorojat. Accept your punishment as a civilian.”

In the eight hundred year history of Buddhist Thailand, no monk wearing a sacred robe had ever been imprisoned. Bad men who happened to be monks had, in the course of history, perpetrated heinous crimes, been defrocked and jailed. However, no righteous monk wearing a robe had ever spent time behind bars. Piko cast a vacant stare upon the civilian pants and button-up shirt. He felt light-headed. Santipap placed a warm hand on his brother's shoulder. The monk closed his eyes. From the recesses of memory, he recalled the words of Ajahn Waen. During the Vietnam War era, Waen had faced a similar accusation by the Thai military. At gunpoint, he met his accusers with a series of questions.

Piko borrowed Waen’s insightful response to turn the tables on General Rakthum. “Please answer me this," he said with forced politeness. "Just what is a communist like?”

General Rakthum squinted. He shifted his gaze from Piko to the faces of the villagers behind him. “Communists want all to be equal. They pray for communal property. They are enemies of state religion.”

Piko tilted his head. He looked quizzically at his brother. “And what kind of clothes do these communists wear?"

“They dress like regular people. It is their hearts that are evil."

"Do they have a wives and children?"

"Of course they have families."

"Do they eat enjoy three meals a day?"

"They hunger like ordinary men. But that does not change the fact that they support a murderous government."

“Do they shave their heads?”

“As I said, they live like you and me. They have hair as sure as they have guns."

Piko looked turned back to face the villagers and shrugged his shoulders. “Unlike the communists of your description, I carry no gun. My head is shaved. I have neither wife, nor children. I eat only once a day. And I have no interest in owning property communal or otherwise.”

The villagers burst into laughter at Piko’s wit. The stars on Rakthum’s shoulder could not shield him from embarrassment. He gripped his machine gun firmly with both hands. "Are you the village headman?" he asked Santipap.

The headman’s grin gave way to a look of anticipation. "I am."

Rakthum turned the butt end toward him and thrust it into his ribcage. Santipap crumpled to the ground, gasping for air at the General's feet. Villagers screamed as their leader lay wheezing in the dirt with two cracked ribs. Rakthum handcuffed him and called in one of his soldiers from the helicopter.

“Drag him away like the dog he is.”

As the headman trembled in pain, Gunnar Ray and Boonthep pushed through the startled crowd. Before Rakthum could raise his gun to another villager, the reporter spoke out. "General Rakthum. My name is Gunnar Ray, Features Writer for the Bangkok Times. I am here to tell you that every action of force that you take against these villagers will be front page news tomorrow morning."

The General's eyes widened as he stared down the farang.

Piko looked up at the American and nodded in appreciation.

Maha Tawui moved in front of the General. "Pra jorajat is going to jail!" he insisted.

Gunnar’s eyes shifted to the monk in a pressed saffron robe. He squinted to make out the face. His heart skipped a beat as recognition set in. TAWUI. All the hurt, all the anguish of losing Kelly returned in a flash. Snow chickens. Canadian hockey. The thought of his girlfriend choosing the city monk over his search for the Green Buddha made him tremble with anger. Five years had not melted his jealousy. Gunnar took a step forward; Tawui took a step back.

"Take his picture," Gunnar ordered Boonthep. "His face will sell tomorrow’s newspapers.”

Like a deer in headlights, Boonthep stood frozen. Gunnar repeated his order. Boonthep could not move. A smile came to Tawui’s face. Gunnar grabbed the camera and yanked it toward his own chest. Boonthep's head--bound by the strap--followed. The reporter turned the photographer’s skull into a tripod. Through a 35mm lens, he stared down the monk. His pounding heart made the camera shake. Gunnar turned the lens until Tawui’s pasty white face came into focus. The monk bit his lower lip like a caught child. "I'll send this one off to Kelly," he said to the monk. "It will be on the front page of tomorrow's newspaper." He pushed the button so hard that the camera left a bruise on poor Boonthep's head. He next turned the lens toward Santipap and took three photos of the headman as he lay curled up in agony.

Rakthum reached for the camera to destroy the evidence. With his hand inches from Boonthep’s neck, the photographer broke free and disappeared behind the villagers. Rakthum ordered a soldier to haul Santipap's broken body to the helicopter. The sight of their headman under siege transformed village men into warriors. In seconds, Rakthum and Tawui were surrounded. The General raised his pistol. Twenty men raised hoes and knives. In his years of executing the Kau Jau Kau, no rice farmer had ever laid a hand on him. He spun around to face men approaching on all sides. Santipap, Piko and Gunnar Ray disappeared behind the front line. As the General’s finger moved toward the trigger, three hoes lifted above his head. He spun around feverishly. Tawui's leg started to tremble. Side by side they backpedaled toward the helicopter whose blades had once again started to spin.

The skids rose above the earth. Rakthum leaned out a window and yelled parting words to the villagers who dared to oppose him. With derogative pronouns reserved for dogs, cattle, and unruly children he chastised the mob. “You deserve the relocation site we have reserved for you. May your children become whores and your elderly die slowly under the sun. By the end of the day you will know the full strength of your military.”

Tears streamed down the cheeks of women with daughters. Rakthum’s words were more than an insult--they were a certainty of things to come. Villagers concocted a makeshift stretcher of bamboo and cloth as Santipap gasped for air. They lifted him to their shoulders and whisked him toward Maa Pii.

With Piko in the lead, the march continued with a heightened sense of urgency. Ten minutes later, they arrived at Ban Posai. Temperatures soared above ninety-five degrees as the sun continued its rise above the equator. Three elders ended their journey. The rest accepted water and kept moving. Forty-five new marchers joined them. On either side of the road, the scenery alternated between tapioca plantations and eucalyptus. Amidst a sea of cash crops, a few blackened tree trunks towered above the fields as vague reminders of a jungle that once extended to Burma. Thirty minutes later, they reached Ban Puu Din. Once a small village of seventy-five rice farmers, the population had swollen to 350 with the addition of Kau Jau Kau resettlement victims. Infighting between established villagers and new residents had resulted in two unsolved murders. Eighty new marchers joined the swelling mass. Their final destination, Ban Moo Tawp remained three miles away. There, Ajahn Piko had arranged for a celebration. The same Bangkok supporter that provided the robes for the forest, also arranged for food and drink for the villagers.

A cloud of dust rose above the horizon. In ancient times, an elephant herd on the rampage might have been suspect. Ajahn Piko raised his hand and 300 villagers came to a halt. The sound of engines navigating man-sized potholes warned of things to come. Villagers pressed up against one another for reassurance. Piko calmly lifted his robe and settled into a meditative posture. Men and women collapsed to the ground to ensure their heads remained below that of the esteemed monk. Through the squeal of Army vehicles Piko focused on his breath. He closed his eyes to the human drama and entered a meditative state. Meanwhile, the marchers neared a panic. “Bud-dho.” The soldiers, most from the same Isan soil they now trampled over, approached the marchers with guns in hand. Piko alternated between sending warm rays of peaceful light in their direction and a fiery resolution to defend his people.

“Bud-dho.” Soldiers filed past on either side. As Gunnar forced his way to the front line a hand reached out and grabbed him by the hair. Seconds later he was thrown to the ground. A soldier’s boot pressed his cheek against the rocky street. Pinned to the earth, he listened as the military separated Ban Nam Sai villagers from the rest of the pack. Machine guns fired into the air. When the burst of firepower had ended, only Ban Nam Sai, the midday sun, and men with automatic weapons remained.

General Rakthum passed by Piko with a smirk on his face. He homed in on some of the men who dared surround him near Ban Posai. He locked eyes with Anan. Without warning, he slammed the butt end of his rifle into the front of the man's knee. Anan collapsed in pain. Foot soldiers dragged him across the gravel road. Four more men received blows and kicks until they too were dragged into the back of a wagon.

“Bud-dho.” Piko did not raise his eyes to witness the violence. Loving kindness no longer poured from his heart center. Empty. Vacant. General Rakthum towered above him. The only thing standing between him and the butt end of a rifle was his faded Buddhist robe.

“Stand up and face the charges against you.” Wassup commanded. “Do not make me repeat myself.”

Piko did not respond. He followed the out breath with an air of indifference. “The men in the wagon do not have to arrive to Bangkok alive. If you do not come peacefully, I will exact my anger on their skulls.”

“Bud-dho.” Ajahn Piko repeated his mantra. Maha Tawui slapped the monk on the head with a letter. “The Sangha Council will meet to determine your fate as a monk. You do not deserve of the title of Ajahn.” Tawui turned to ensure the eyes of the soldiers were upon him in his moment of triumph. “You are pra jorojat. And soon you will not be able to hide behind the Buddhist robe. Change your clothes and accept your actions as the criminal you are.”

Tawui waited for a response. "Answer me!” he yelled.

Piko shifted his gaze from the earth below to the eyes of monk. “Bud-dho,” he responded. “Bud-dho.”

Village women wailed. Piko calmly adjusted his robe, stood, and with eyes fixed on the road, moved toward the wagon. The trunk door slammed shut as eight armed soldiers filed in opposite the monk. He placed a hand on one of the injured men beneath him. “Do you know what you have done?” he said, looking at the soldiers. “Do you understand the laws of kamma?”

The soldiers looked away from the monk.

“The universe is indifferent to the uniforms you wear. The hell realms await those who perpetrate such acts. Look at you. With rifles you threaten beaten men and a Buddhist monk. Do you not have mothers from Isan? Are you not ashamed?”

Spinning tires cast loose stones into the crowd. And, for the first time in Thai history, a Buddhist monk was going to prison.

16

“Steve, all hell has broken loose up here!” Gunnar’s voice trembled as he wiped the imprint of the soldier's boot off his face.

“Talk to me. What do you have?”

“We’re looking at one of the most destructive protests in Thai history. And Ajahn Piko is headed to jail while wearing the robe.”

“Give me the facts. I’m writing as you speak.”

“Last night, the villagers of Ban Nam Sai ransacked 40,000 eucalyptus trees and torched a massive greenhouse. This morning, the military interrupted a protest march and arrested Ajahn Piko and four village men. Things got bloody. Some men are in bad shape.”

Steve interrupted. “An entire plantation and a greenhouse destroyed . . . and a monk behind bars! Crazy!”

“Right. I need column space. And I need the phone numbers for the BBC in London and Associated Press in New York. We have to move quickly or the army will raze the village and start the logging before there is a national outcry.”

“You got photos?”

“Plenty.”

“Write it up and fax me the story from the airport. Bring the film down on the first flight. If you are here by 8:00 PM, the photos will make the story.”

“Look for that fax at 5:00 PM.”

Gunnar hung up the shopkeeper’s phone. He spent the next hour writing a story that would reach his High School baseball coach via the Associated Press. The events of the past twenty-four hours poured out with surprising alacrity. He did a quick edit of his 600-word piece--replacing the word “pussy hound monk” with Tawui's proper title. He climbed aboard the shopkeeper’s motorcycle, wrapped his arms around a smiling man, and instructed him to “drive like a teenager.” In the airport lobby he placed $20.00 on a reservation agent's desk and requested the use of her fax machine. The amount equaled two day's pay for five minutes of her time. Three handwritten pages coiled through the machine.

Gunnar offered a tense smile. "Can I make a three-minute call to New York?”

The agent's face froze as she tried to do the math on the per-minute charge for an overseas call. Gunnar slapped down $50.00. Her arithmetic suddenly improved. Moments later, the New Your Times’ foreign correspondent connected him to the Associated Press. With AP on the line, Gunnar provided a synopsis of the showdown at Ban Nam Sai. Twenty dollars later, his story again curled through the fax machine, this time to the USA.

“You know?” the agent smiled, stashing the extra money beneath her padded bra. “I’m still a single girl.”

“Really!” Gunnar said with mock interest. “Have you ever called London?”

Her eyes shifted back to Gunnar’s wallet. Thirty dollars later, she twirled her hair with a finger as she listened to a British operator connect the call to the BBC. Another fax. Another $20.00. Gunnar boarded his plane and delivered the film in time for the morning paper.

Part Three

17

Reuan Jaam Montip (Prison), Bangkok.

As the prison door locked, Ajahn Piko moved silently to the far corner of his eight by ten-foot cage. He lifted a tattered towel that hung from a nail in the concrete and wiped the dust from the wrinkles of his face. Exhausted, he sank down on the urine-stained ground. Minutes turned into hours with no water. His tongue became so dry that he had to pry it loose from the top of his mouth.

At 7:00 PM, a guard slid a glass through the bars. The water kept his body alive but it could not allay the thirst that remained. On a floor littered with dead insects and chipped paint, he closed his eyes and watched the night pass without sleep. In the dark he tried to solve other people’s problems. He enacted countless scenarios of things to come: most ending with the destruction of the village and the burning of the forest. And what of the other men arrested? Solitary confinement was a luxury compared to the crowded cells he passed by en-route to his cage. Would they be released in a week, or in twenty years? He did not know.

Food arrived on a tray the next morning: a half-rotten apple, rice, and some form of jelly that looked to be a hybrid of meat and gravy. Given the texture of the food, the monk opted not to add water. There seemed little chance he would become attached to the taste. The day passed with no interaction with other prisoners, no hint of the world beyond his cell.

The nation awoke to two very different accounts of the protest. The government-controlled Thai language papers painted the incident as one of villagers under a cult-like trance of a communist monk. Eucalyptus trees somehow became transformed into a "shade-giving forest" cut down by crazed activists. In contrast, Gunnar’s article showcased Maha Tawui--his face twisted with anger--standing above Santipap’s broken body. The reporter’s headline: Kau Jau Kau: The New Face of Evil. Tawui’s role in putting the first monk in Thailand’s history behind bars was duly noted.

Maha Tawui had hardly opened the morning paper before the Sangha Council had called an emergency meeting to discuss his newfound fame as “The New Face of Evil.” In spite of his powerful position, ranking members castigated him for being caught on film in a compromising position. The Council dismissed him with a warning. Tawui left as embarrassed as he was enraged. He slipped into the back seat of his Lexus and ordered his cousin and loyal chauffeur to take him to his private house. Using temple funds, the monk had purchased a clandestine residence with a locked gate on the west end of town. He slipped out of his robe and into a pair of designer slacks and a collared shirt. His cousin mixed him a glass of Johnny Walker Red Label and soda. The monk turned man plotted his revenge against the reporter.

Tawui had followed Gunnar’s rise at the Times with disdain. The idea of a Westerner writing about Thai Buddhism infuriated him. He knew well that five year’s earlier Gunnar had left his temple for Ajahn Kanlayo’s hermitage. With a single photograph, the reporter had tainted his most glorious moment. Tawui trembled with anger.

His cousin took a seat across from him. He poured more whiskey into his glass. “Find where the reporter’s heart lies and destroy whatever he loves,” he explained. “That is the surest way to break a man.”

Tawui nodded and downed the drink. “Starting tomorrow, I want you to follow Gunnar Ray. Find his weakness. Return to me with news of where the arrow will hurt most.”

Outside the prison, great social transformations were occurring; in Piko’s cell, the florescent light came on at 5:30 in the morning and turned off at 10:00 in the evening. The cage forced a man to stare into his own biology, into his own mind. For most, there could be no worse punishment. In principal, the monk had resigned himself to imprisonment. As the reality of the lock up set in, however, he realized that everything dear remained outside those bars: his forest, his monks, his elderly mother, and his village. Each, in their own way, depended on his leadership to save them from horrible fates.

As the first imprisoned monk in Thai history, he expected more fanfare. Three days passed with the guard as his only visitor. Could he be so easily forgotten? In the opposite wing of the prison, four Ban Nam Sai men with bruised bodies leaned against a prison wall. Two strangers from distant provinces joined them in the crowded cell. When things seemed their worse, Pontip, a villager with thirty-two ducks to his name, shared the story of his Uncle's one-time confinement across the Laos border. Sentenced to the infamous Koo-ki-Gai Prison, the man lived with twelve others in a single cell. The heat and proximity of other men made the confinement miserable. But close quarters were to be expected. What made the Kook Ki Gai legendary was the behavior of the inmates living just above their heads. In Laotion, kook=confinement / ki=shit / gai=chicken. Dozens of filthy chickens went about their daily existence: eating, drinking, pecking, and shitting above the heads of the prisoners. The porous wire allowed anything digested to fall onto the head’s of the men below.

March 9

During his sixth day behind bars, Piko's discursive mind began to wear down. The guilt that made him toss and turn in search of answers gave way to torpor. In the forest, he had only to position himself within earshot of a rippling stream, or in view of Fon Maak Mountain to find inner peace. The rising and setting sun, cicadas in chorus, the trickle of water over ancient granites, all contributed to his mental stability. In the cell, nothing changed. The florescent light cast no long shadows at dusk. The guard’s uniform remained drab olive from one day to the next. White cement, the scent of urine, and an interrogating florescent light bulb became his world.

The light. The bulb wore on the monk. The heightened awareness he had developed in the forest magnified the intensity of its wavelengths. It led to morning headaches and afternoon angst. In the forest, he could walk the same pathway twice a day and see a hundred things change. In the cell, he paced the same gray cement without revelation. Confinement had put him into harm's way of the Second Noble Truth: trsna (craving). He had food, water, and protection from the elements, but that was not enough. He craved more. And that craving, as the Buddha predicated, became his greatest anguish. The monk had never considered himself attached to nature. Separated from the forest, however, the depths of his loss could not be greater. On the afternoon of his ninth day he paced the cell for hours. After meeting the wall for the thousandth time since his incarceration, a cockroach entered his cage. What the monk saw as an artificial cell, the roach experienced as a “natural” environment. He chose to be there. A Third World prison provided the same delight and comfort that Piko knew in the forest. The Triassic insect sat unconcerned, indifferent to the vibration of the light. Piko lay down on his belly, his face inches from his cellmate. Cockroach envy. It had come to that. Part of his suffering, he determined, must be attitude: preconditioned ideas about where he was . . . about what "nature" is. His tenure behind bars could go on for years. He would have to transform his vision of nature if he wanted to survive . . . if he wanted to progress on the Buddhist path. Piko weighed his anguish against the seeming contentment of the insect. "If you, a lowly cockroach, can achieve harmony in this cell, why must a practiced monk suffer so?"

Cockroach waved an antenna in response.

That evening, as pulsating light gave way to darkness, Piko's thoughts turned to Elder Cittagutta. The bhikku he had chastised as a potato bug in front of Pra Ripansa for spending his life in a cave, he now considered with curiosity, if not admiration. How could Cittagutta and monks like him find peace while isolated from the world of nature that Piko loved so dearly? He took the question as a challenge.

As the monk turned within, the villagers and Gunnar Ray battled without. A firestorm of protests raged in support of Piko's release. Three hundred college students and Piko suporters waved signs outside the prison entrance. “Free the tiger from his cage!” someone screamed at a guard. Gunnar’s inspirational articles had roused the faithful to action. Thai University newspapers picked up the story and the Associated Press carried the monk's plight from Boston to Los Angeles. Not to be outdone, the BBC sent a reporter from London to Bangkok to cover the events. In Gunnar’s hometown of Clover, Michigan, Christian corn farmers debated the best way to help a hometown boy free a jailed Buddhist monk and save a monsoon rainforest some 8,500 miles away.

Maa Pii arrived at the rally to cheers from supporters. Escorted by Lek, she pushed her way to the front of the gathering. With the eyes of policemen upon her, she sat village-style and thumbed through her talisman’s pouch. She mixed two powders and a jelly-like substance together. Prison guards looked down from the watchtower with curiosity. Maa Pii added water to the mix to achieve an oatmeal-like consistency. She rolled her creation into a ball, closed her eyes, and called on the most powerful of spirits. She then raised her arm and hurled the purple mash onto the prison wall. The crowd let out a tremendous cheer. Wary of the woman's saksit, the police let the mash stand. It remained affixed throughout the rally.

The trial of public opinion continued in the media. The government-backed newspapers mounted a smear campaign. They sensationalized claims that Ajahn Piko was active in the communist party. Other reports portrayed him as a squatter on Department of Forestry land. Accounts that he had fathered the child of a Laotian woman likewise received column space. Not all falsehoods worked against the monk, however. Support for Piko’s release increased when Sangha Watch Magazine published their version of his plight. The monthly tabloid with a penchant for gossip and mysticism reported the following:

Flying Monk Jailed for his Supernatural Love of the Forest

Ajahn Piko, savior of Burriram’s Sua Yai Forest, was imprisoned this week for, among other charges, burning down a government greenhouse. In the long history of the Kingdom he is the first monk to wear the robe behind bars. A reliable source claims that officials have targeted Ajahn Piko primarily because they are afraid he may use supernatural powers to overthrow the government.

As a result of years of meditation practice in the deep jungle, the monk can fly above the trees powered by the saksit of his Buddhist robe. As any temple-loving Thai can attest, monks with the ability to fly are growing all the more rare these days. To have such a monk imprisoned is a great loss to the Buddhist faithful. Ajahn Piko could be blessing our amulets and bringing us good fortune. Instead, he is sitting behind bars. Rallies are being held daily in front of Montip Kook Prison.

March 16

After days of confinement, Piko prepared to penetrate the jhanic states of consciousness lauded by Jains, Hindus, and cave-dwelling Buddhists alike. In the forest, he followed the out-breath into the birdsong, scent of the land, and patterns of shadow and light on the forest floor. In the cell, with no wildness to bond with save a well-examined cockroach, he followed the in-breath into the cavern of mind. He met immediate resistance. To deny the environment felt awkward: like walking the earth with shoes on the wrong feet. Worse still, going inward heightened his awareness of the anxiety that burned bright within. His first serious attempt to enter a jhanic state ended in sleep.

The florescent light clicked on with a whine. Piko once again assumed the lotus posture. He closed his eyes and followed the breath. The vibration of the light would not be denied. The short wavelengths crawled beneath his skin and made him shiver in spite of the sweltering heat of the cell. He broke his posture and again paced the cage like a nervous cat. The “clippet” of the guard’s shoes announced his morning meal. The tray had barely touched the ground before Piko plunged his fork into creamed cassava. In the forest, he observed each bite with mindfulness. In his restless state, he downed the food like the hungry prisoner he was. As he scraped metal, he turned his head as if called by a Higher Power. Cockroach: the Higher Power stared back from the center of the cell. Piko chewed madly. The insect sat calmly.

“Yes, I see you watching me,” Piko said, speaking to the bug as though he were a small man with semi-useless wings. “You are content in this place of anti-nature. You have mastered the florescent light and eat your food with deliberation. Have you conquered Samsara as well? Have you transcended the squeaky wheel of existence to become an enlightened being?”

A hiccup of laughter interrupted the exchange. The prison guard reached for Piko's empty tray with a smile. For a man caught in mid-conversation with an insect, Piko seemed remarkably unperturbed. He unleashed his discontent on the guard. “Are you so wise that you cannot learn from a creature a million times your senior? I am here out of obligation. You are here by choice. Which one of us is the fool?”

The guard turned away as Piko continued his interrogation of the bug. “So how is it that you have achieved peace in this cell while I pace like a nervous cat?”

Cockroach did not answer.

“Very well. I will try again to penetrate the depths of craving.”

The insect turned 180 degrees and scurried back into the hole in the wall he called a home. Piko settled into a meditation posture. He alternated between observing, and being, his thoughts. Ten minutes into his sitting he saw an image of his helpless mother sleeping on the parched earth of the relocation site. He opened his eyes with a start. Without the forest, he simply could not find his center. Elder Cittagutta could not mourn what he did not know. Behind bars, Piko's passion for the animals and trees had become his greatest adversary. A single tear formed in his eye. Too proud to fall, it sat poised like a warbler on a tree limb. “What good is a monk,” he thought to himself, “who cannot control his emotions; who cannot tame the fires of existential suffering?”

The cold, moisture, heat, and wind that challenged him on Fon Maak Mountain caused pain, but not the dull ache that he knew in this cage. He began to consider the unthinkable. “Perhaps,” he thought aloud. “It is time for me to turn in this robe for prison clothes. I am not a worthy monk. Without the forest, I am a prisoner in the truest sense of the word." He straightened his legs and bowed his head in defeat. The tear that had formed, released. For the first time since his father's death when he was seventeen, he wept openly.

That evening, as he reclined against the prison wall, the monk felt a presence upon his robe. He opened his eyes to the darkness. Tiny footsteps came to a halt just above his stomach. The monk had long turned his back on the world of the spirits. His heart raced as he slid his hand slowly down his robe to discern whether the visitor had physical form or not. The sterile light he once condemned, he now wished for. He swallowed as his finger made contact with the uninvited guest.

Cockroach!

He let out a sigh of relief as he caressed the folded wings of his prison friend. Cockroach remained stoic, unmoved. Perhaps he was a Bodhisattva. Mahayana Buddhists believed in beings that delayed their entry into Nibbana to bring the whole of existence along with them. Cockroach . . . a Mahayana Buddhist? He did not scamper away as an ordinary mite-eating bug would when handled. Instead, he seemed content to sit near Piko’s beating heart. The monk brought his legs back into a lotus position. With Cockroach on board, he resolved to penetrate the depths of mind. The insect rose and fell with each calculated breath. “Like Cockroach, I have food, I have water, and I have shelter,” Piko said to himself. “I can be as composed as an insect. I can make progress on the inward path. This cage is a mountain whose peak lies within. I have struggled before on journeys: survived malaria and pneumonia in the rainy season. Endured snake bites. This is just another struggle. I can overcome craving: always wanting things to be different than they are.”

Be it Cockroach’s presence, or the release of emotion, the internal landscape seemed less daunting to the meditating monk. “Let being be,” Piko whispered as he followed the inhaled breath into the body. After a half hour of sitting, he lost track of time altogether. A field of emptiness remained. Colors, sounds, bodily sensations--all flickered and gyrated: coming, going, rising, and flowing. "Is this how the oceans and mountains experience existence?" He could not say.

18

Gunnar Ray met Lek outside her old apartment. In Thai-fashion, her ex-roommates had welcomed her back with open arms. One more body on the floor seemed of little consequence.

“Are you ready for a surprise trip?” Lek asked with wide eyes.

“I go where the news is. If you think you have a story for my column, of course I will investigate.” On the mountain, Lek hinted that she knew a story that might interest the reporter. Given his growing infatuation with her, she could have led him to a cockfight and he would have publicized it. He treasured each moment with her. He had become accustomed to having her by his side. The days that passed in her absence left him empty.

Gunnar looked on with surprise as their taxi pulled up to Ban Paranee Orphanage. Lek opened the door to the shelter. Seconds later, twenty young children pulled on her side. “Lek . . . Lek . . .” they yelled with excitement as they fought to hold of her. Gunnar looked on in amazement. He knew little of her life outside the bar.

“Hello . . . What your name . . . Thank you very much.” A bold young man approached Gunnar and unleashed his full knowledge of the English language.

“Your welcome, Gunnar Ray, hello,” the reporter answered in reverse, smiling.

The Director pushed through the mass of children to greet Lek. She bowed her head in respect and issued a polite Sa-wa-tdi. “Everybody misses you Lek,” he lamented. “All the children ask about you. When are you coming back.”

Lek smiled at the praise. She had only volunteered for four months. Still, few staff members had as many admirers. After speaking with the Director, she took the reporter by the hand and pulled him into another wing of the orphanage. Fourteen young boys and girls descended on Lek and filled the small room with screams of joy. Excitement bounced off the walls as they circled Lek and her farang guest. “Quiet . . . quiet,” she said in Thai, lowering her hands. “Don’t scare the farang away. He is a newspaper writer . . . a quiet man. He cannot handle the noise.”

“Where did you go Lek?” The young girl grasped at the tattered ear of stuffed rabbit. Her face changed from excitement to sadness. “One day I woke up and you were gone. There was no one to read to me in the afternoon.”

Lek smiled. Behind the facade she ached. “It was time for Lek to go,” she answered. “But I did not forget you.”

Gunnar picked up a small boy wearing a T-shirt that featured the Manchester United soccer team. “So you like Man U?” he asked, bouncing the boy on his side. The child looked to the older boys to find an answer to the seemingly obvious question.

“Go Manchester,” an eight-year-old answered. The children cheered at his bravery for addressing the farang in English. The child in Gunnar’s arms smiled.

Lek and Gunnar spent the next hour telling stories about peculiar places that the children in the room would never see. They read books: Lek in Thai, Gunnar in English, and played card games when they tired of hearing stories. As evening approached, Lek rose to her feet and pushed toward the door. Children followed: many in tears. The emotion in the room tugged at the reporter.

Outside the orphanage a melancholic Gunnar Ray tried to make sense of the whirlwind of emotion that passed through him. “Those cushions on the wall, are those for sleeping on as well?”

“Yes,” Lek answered. “That is their bedroom and their play room.”

“You can’t keep children penned up like that. You shouldn’t play and sleep in the same room. That’s basic child psychology. Those kids should be going on fieldtrips. They should be outside playing with the others.”

Lek looked up at the reporter with sadness in her eyes. “That room have the HIV children, Gunnar. They get the disease from their parents and they just gonna live a short life in the orphanage. Nobody caring enough to take them around the city. They just have each other.”

A look of horror overcame Gunnar’s face. What of the shy boy he held in his arms? “Why didn’t you tell me,” he said with anguish in his voice. “They all looked so healthy. Are you sure the boy I played with has the disease.”

Lek looked back with pain equal to his own. “Yes. Even the boy. Everyone in the room have the disease. I start to volunteer maybe four month ago. Sometime bar life can be very selfish you know. I decide that I want to help somebody else other than farang who want ice in his beer.”

The taxi ride back to Lek’s apartment passed in silence. Gunnar revisited each smiling face and their shared destiny. At the Times, he had become numb to the statistics of HIV. The children were the face behind the disease. They made the numbers all the more tragic. He left his guide at her apartment door. Two of Lek’s socially curious roommates stuck their heads out to evaluate her escort. Gunnar felt remorse. Why did he have to leave her in such a crowded room? Now more than ever he wanted her. He tried to summon the nerve to ask her back to his apartment. He had lived by himself long enough. Still, something did not feel quite right. She wasn’t ready. He could feel it. She had extended her hand to him, but nothing more. It took time to court a Thai woman. The ordeal with her village had to remain central to both of their lives. He knew this. Their budding relationship would have to wait. Still, he could no longer close his eyes at night without seeing Lek’s face.

Gunnar returned to the Times to sketch different public relations ideas to free Ajahn Piko and generate support for Lek’s village. Rallies in front of the prison gate were not enough to overcome a multi-million dollar paper industry. Government officials financed their foreign automobiles with the money they received from kickbacks. Plus, the amount of propaganda they had circulated about Piko would mean a tremendous loss of face should he be set free. Support for the cause would have to increase a thousand-fold to defeat the Kau Jau Kau. Gunnar needed a nationwide call to action. Liberty, the right of the individual, and the intrinsic worth of nature were values low on the Thai totem pole. They competed with the obligations of hierarchy, familial piety, and the importance of non-confrontation. Mai pen rai--accepting things as they are—yet held sway over the Thai heart.

The following day, he took an extended lunch hour to get a much-needed haircut. In the barber's vinyl chair, Gunnar stared at walls that showcased the three ‘R’s’ that governed Thai society: Religion, Royalty, and Raunchiness. Elevated above the heads of passers by, he identified the first ‘R’ . . . Religion. A framed poster of an elderly monk commanded the highest respect. The second 'R' in the triumvirate of Thai loyalties came in the image of reigning King Bhumipol. Placed slightly below the head of the esteemed monk, but still above the tallest of patrons, its position hinted that in Thailand, even the King bows to a monk. Completing the trio, a glossy poster of a naked woman hung at waste-level for easy viewing. The nymph pressed her unusually large Thai breasts against a new television set.

As Gunnar considered the essentials of Thai society, the haircutter sized up the farang’s three-day whiskers. The sound of metal passing over a whetting stone put the reporter on alert. The haircutter splashed watered-down shave cream atop his face. Gunnar’s eyes remained fixed on the blade. As it neared his chin, he lifted a hand in protest.

“What the matter?” the surprised barber asked.

Gunnar’s stomach swirled with apprehension. “Is that a new blade?” he said, glimpsing the rust on the handle.

The barber tilted his head. He glanced at the blade. “You worry about HIV right?” he answered.

In the steel of the blade, Gunnar saw the faces of orphaned children. He raised his eyebrows to acknowledge the correct guess. “I’ll pay extra if you change the blade. I will sleep better tonight.”

The man broke into a hearty laugh. He announced Gunnar’s request to the other barbers and everyone began laughing. To the reporter, the request was anything but funny. Still, for reasons he did not fully understand, he too began laughing. Land of Smiles . . . sometimes for no good reason.

To Gunnar's relief, the barber put a fresh blade in the sling. In times of warfare and plague, caution remained the better part of valor. If he were to catch the virus whose initials had become a postal abbreviation for Thailand, he damn sure wanted the source to look more like the girl in the poster, than the man wielding the razor.

“So which monk is that?” Gunnar pointed to the poster near the ceiling. The transition from HIV to religion was an easy one.

“Lumpah Sing,” the barber answered. The sharp blade mowed down the whiskers in a single swipe.

“Oh yes!” Gunnar said with excitement. "I have heard about this monk. He's the one known for predicting the future."

“Yes. Back in 1974 he predicted the lottery numbers for a man on the condition that all winnings go to a hospital. Since then, he has gained a huge following."

"Right. I have seen his image on amulets."

"He’s from Chiang Mai originally," the haircutter continued. "Lot's of people on tour busses go and ask for his blessing now. He presides over Wat Khit Ra Tan in the Khao Thep Hills.”

Gunnar’s skin tingled as the last row of cream collected on the razor. “Now you look like a movie star,” the barber said, loud enough for his colleagues to hear.

“And before . . .” Gunnar smiled.

“Before you looked like a bandit!”

More laughter from the cohorts with a sharp ear for wit. The barber wiped the blade with a towel. He removed a pendant from his neck and placed the warm metal in Gunnar’s open palm. The monk in the poster also graced the metal of the amulet. In a half-circle below his likeness were the words: Samsung Electronics

Gunnar’s eyes lit up in surprise.

Lumpah Samsung?

“How did Samsung get on your amulet?” he asked, curious as to whether the barber indeed worshipped a multi-national corporation.

“These amulets were produced by Samsung and blessed by Lumpah Sing in an all day ceremony. The amulets were presented as gifts to the employees. An additional 10,000 were produced and sold to the public. My father purchased one on a pilgrimage to Lumpah Sing's temple. He died of cancer last year. Now the amulet is mine. It is quite rare and valuable.”

Gunnar shifted his gaze to the poster of the naked model. The brand of television she coddled with her breasts: Samsung. The radio on the barber’s windowsill: Samsung. Hmm. “So in supporting this monk, you also support Samsung products?"

"Right."

"So if Lumpah Sing lent his name to a threatened forest instead of an electronics company, would you support the forest and the animals that live within it?"

"Of course. If I didn't, the amulet might lose some of its saksit.”

“Wonderful,” Gunnar said with a devious smile. “Wonderful.”

19

A centipede entered Piko’s cell through a crack in the ceiling. It crawled over chipped paint and settled into a hole in the wall. As Centipede moved in, Cockroach moved out. Focused on the inward breath, Piko did not notice. That evening, the insect left its hideaway and marched toward the warm spot in the cell. It crawled over Piko's saffron robe until the first of its legs met the flesh on his neck. The monk opened his eyes with a start. Friend or foe? Centipede answered the question by sinking two fangs deep into his skin. He let out a groan as searing pain followed the poison. Content to have established himself as the king of the cage, Centipede returned to his hole in the wall.

Piko immediately knew the source of his agony. Not even the bite of a green snake could compare with the violence of a centipede's poison. To counteract the pain, he imbedded a fingernail next to the bite. Prison food moved into his throat. He rose to his feet and paced the small cell. Poison coursed down his shoulders and inched toward his heart. “There is a lesson here,” he said, grimacing. “I have mastered the awareness of the senses. I know each animal that breaks a twig or calls to a mate in Sua Yai forest. And I have now experienced a jhanic state wherein the body becomes a clot of earth while the spirit merges with all things. Neither awareness, nor absorption has delivered me from suffering. I experience pain the same now as when I was a young hunter stung for the first time by a scorpion. What has changed? I am vulnerable.” He released his hand from his neck, took a breath and endured the full brunt of the bite. There would be no sleep, only a marathon of pain until the florescent light clicked on. Polished shoes delivered the morning meal. Piko hobbled over and made quick work of the rice and chicken. Blood rushed from his head to his stomach and he fell asleep.

With a clean-shaven face and a newfound spring to his step, Gunnar called Lek and asked her to meet him in Sanam Luang Park. In a valley surrounded by skyscrapers, the park served as one of the few green spaces in Bangkok. At dusk, white-collar workers poured in like ants returning to the nest. Collectively, they gave a new definition to the term "power walk." In a clockwise direction, around small ponds and planted trees, the masses came as close to nature as the city of six million would allow. Lek laid a ground cloth down near a family of ducks. She stretched out with a magazine and thumbed through the latest Betty Boop fashions worn by ivory-skinned models. Gunnar opened his sketchpad and began to draw. After ninety minutes and four drafts, he nodded his head in approval. He placed his pad in front of Lek's magazine and waited for her reaction.

“Wow!” Lek said, staring down at the image. “You never tell me you are a drawing man. This look just like Uncle. What is it for?”

Before Gunnar answered, he flipped the page and revealed three more images. On the top, he had sketched Fon Maak Mountain, its peak obscured by passing clouds. The mountain signified the sacred forest in need of protection. To the lower left, he added a nok kahaa (great hornbill), the king of Thailand’s forest birds. The hornbill represented Thailand’s endangered animals. Opposite the bird, he had drawn a mai baw tree wrapped in a Buddhist robe. The tree spoke of the need to protect the forest by all who called themselves Buddhists. Arching above the three images were the optimistic words: Sua Yai National Park.

“Do you get it?” he asked Lek, studying her face for a reaction. “I’m designing an Ajahn Piko amulet. Your Uncle’s face will be on one side, the forest images and National Park decree on the other. I want to produce 30,000 amulets to summon support for Ajahn Piko, your village, and Sua Yai Forest!”

Lek tilted her head, and then leaned back to gain perspective.

“Well. . .” Gunnar said anxiously. “What do you think?”

She glared through his impatience. “I think you make good enough picture of Uncle to insult him by putting it on ground.” She lifted the image from the earth and placed it on a nearby bench.

With hands on her chin, she studied the images. “Gunnar,” she said softly. “You a farang, but you really understanding a Thai lady’s heart you know that?”

Gunnar smiled, ingratiated by her praise. “I’m a reporter,” he said in an authoritative tone. “It’s my job to make sense out of your culture.”

“I tell you what it all mean okay?”

“Sure . . .” Gunnar said, expecting a repeat of his interpretation.

“The cloud over the mountain meaning big life problem that hangs over person’s head. The bird with open wings is the dream that a girl can fly away from her problem. And the robe around the tree meaning that if you believing in Buddha, the ghosts will stay in the tree and not become another cloud over the mountain.”

Gunnar leaned over the sketch. He placed his hand gently on Lek's back until he felt her warmth. “Yes . . . Lek,” he said quietly. “You have understood the meaning. You are very wise.”

March 23

Three days later, the visitor returned. Piko sat in meditation, his attention focused on the breath. As the legs of the intruder touched the skin on his back, he opened his eyes with a start. Sentient being or not, he would not endure the agony of another unprovoked bite. Piko thrust himself violently against the cement wall. The insect crackled on impact. The monk drew a sigh of relief as no painful bite followed.

Green ooze trickled down his spine. "Oh no!" He knew right away. A friend had fallen victim to his rage. He peeled the broken body of Cockroach off his back and placed his one-time confidant gently on the prison floor. “Why didn’t you announce yourself?” he said mournfully. Cockroach lay in a heap: a mash of broken wings and green intestines. “You did not deserve such a death . . . at the hands of a monk no less.”

Once again, Piko sat alone. For a dark moment, the depths of his confinement returned. He felt a swirl of anguish as he confronted his solitude. The last messenger of wildness lay in a mash on the prison floor. Just as suddenly, however, his remorse gave way to a slight chuckle. Tawdry laughter followed. Laughter on laughter. It was the first time he had laughed since being imprisoned. The irony of it all. The tragedy. If one could not laugh in the face of Samsara, at the accidental death of a cockroach, madness would surely follow. So the monk chose to smile . . . if for no other reason than because it helped.

In spite of appearances from the cell, Piko had not been forgotten. Public pressure forced the government to set a court date to bring the monk to justice. In thirty days, his fate and the future of the Sua Yai Forest would be decided. The court likewise granted the monk visitation rights: be it an attorney, or a friend, twice a week until the trial.

As Gunnar proofread his latest article protesting Ajahn Piko’s confinement, he received a phone call from the Kingdom's lawyer. The monk had chosen to represent himself at his own trial. Further, he had selected the reporter as his one regular visitor. Gunnar felt honored. He, alone, would serve as the voice of the monk until the trial started.

March 25

The guard opened the gate and Gunnar Ray entered the confines of his first Thai prison. He passed by small cells housing four prisoners each. Body heat and humidity. Gray walls and broken spirits. The scent of incarcerated men overwhelmed him. The guard escorted the reporter to a solitary wing on the far side of anything human. He found Ajahn Piko sitting in meditation. The gate opened and the reporter prostrated himself three times. “I am honored to see you again Ajahn.”

Prison life had aged the monk. The strong muscles that carried him over forest pathways had atrophied. The healthy bronze of his skin had faded to yellow. Piko smiled, delighted to have a human visitor after twenty-two days of confinement.

“Do you know what has happened since your imprisonment?”

The monk stared back with apprehension, fearing the worst. “Yours is the first voice I have heard since I arrived. I know nothing of the outside world.”

“The village still stands and Sua Yai has not yet been cut down.”

“And the village men that were arrested?”

“They remain imprisoned. The guard told me they are in the east wing still recovering from their injuries.”

Piko smiled slightly, relieved that the most dreadful of scenarios had not yet come to pass.

“And my mother?”

“She is fine. She has come to stay in Bangkok with your Aunt. Lek is here also."

“So what is the delay? Why have they not razed the village?”

“Protests. The story of your confinement and the plight of Sua Yai Forest have been picked up by the newspapers. Students in Bangkok have been promoting your cause. They are demanding a hearing before any action is taken against the villagers and the forest. It is something of a national crisis having a monk wearing the robe behind bars. People either want you free from prison, or defrocked and to remain in prison. The Associated Press in America even ran the story. In my hometown, people know about you. So there is some international pressure mounting as well.”

The monk shook his head in disbelief. He had resigned himself to being a forgotten man. The news that his cause had reached foreign soils heartened him. He stared at the pattern of decay on the walls with a new sense of hope. Gunnar reached into his pocket to retrieve a prototype of the amulet that he had minted in his honor.

“I will represent myself at the trial," Piko explained. "They will have made their minds up about my sentencing before the hearing even begins. It will be an exercise for the public.”

“Yes, Gunnar agreed. “Public outcry will determine what happens. Unfortunately, it will take more people than we have mobilized to derail the Kau Jau Kau. The government stands to lose millions. What we have is a cause. What we need is a movement. If we can mobilize the masses we have a chance at saving Sua Yai.”

Gunnar rolled the amulet over in his sweaty palm. What if the monk rejected his idea? He had no alternatives. He opened his hand to reveal the brass image of the monk. Piko took the metal and examined his likeness with a quizzical expression. He groaned slightly. Gunnar studied the Ajahn’s face, waiting . . . hoping, for a gesture of approval.”

“Eyebrows,” Piko said dryly.

“Eyebrows?” Gunnar mused.

“Yes. Eyebrows. A Thai monk does not wear eyebrows. See here, the monk in your sketch has eyebrows.”

Gunnar nodded, disappointed that he did not receive praise for his work. But if eyebrows were the monk's only objection, the plan could move forward.

“Do you recognize the image?”

Piko tilted his head, but did not respond.

“It’s you. The amulet is of you!”

“Well of course it is. I have looked at this face for my entire life. But how is a trinket going to save the forest and the villagers?”

“Try 30,000 trinkets. That’s how many--without eyebrows--I am proposing that we mint. My idea is to turn you into a celebrity monk. People who own the amulets will have an obligation to support you and the Sua Yai Forest. It’s the best chance we have to capture the imagination of the masses.”

Piko offered no response. With amulet in hand he walked to the opposite side of the cage. “Do you know what you are asking of me?” he said, turning back to face the reporter. “I have no interest in appearing on posters in car repair stations. The Buddhism I teach faces the forest: it does not face the teacher. All I have ever wanted is for the people to respect nature. Amulets will be received as a fetish. People will look to me as a magic man. They will ask me to bless all kinds of crazy things.”

“Yes. Ajahn. But it is too late to appeal to Right Understanding. The earthmovers are in position. Time is running out. If Sua Yai is to be saved, it will have to be done in Samsara. Sua Yai does not have waterfalls. It is too far for day tourists from Bangkok to visit. It is in Isan. It does not have an established road system to allow visitors to spotlight animals at night. And a grand total of three Thais in the entire country enjoy backcountry camping so there is no demand for that. The forest needs a human face if it is to be saved. It has to be useful to the people in a real and definable way. You must be the talisman. What people want is a place for you to stay and generate the saksit you need to help them. If you are in Sua Yai, they will benefit from your blessing.”

“There will be a spotlight on me for years to come!" Piko's face wrinkled at the thought. "All my actions will be watched. You have seen my liberal interpretation of the vinaya. One wrong move is a scandal in the making. I have sacrificed my “self” to the forest. If immortalized on metal, that “self”--illusory or not--could be re-born: solidified.”

“If there is a better plan, I am unaware of it.”

“I need time to think this over Gunnar. At least in a jail cell I have my privacy and a place to work through my kamma. If you turn me into a celebrity monk it could result in untold additional lifetimes of suffering. It is the Integrity of the forest that should be worshipped: not an amulet or even a monk for that matter.”

Gunnar shook his head and raised his voice. “I am telling you, there is no time left. There are four new earthmovers in place. They have already begun to replant eucalyptus in the fields ransacked by the villagers.”

“What about the money it will take to produce and distribute the amulets? You are talking about big business here.”

“I’ve got it covered. The Bangkok Times has a donor who has agreed to front the costs. I just need your approval. And I need you to bless the amulets when we are finished. I promise you, these amulets will make people owners of Sua Yai Forest. People defend what they own.”

“Very well. But I will tell you this Gunnar Ray: in Samsara the raft may reach the other side of the river, but not even the most enlightened of men can predict where or when. When Right Understanding is by-passed you surrender the outcome to a kammic complexity that the human mind cannot fathom. If tragedy occurs, do not look back. Your heart was in the right place.”

20

First stop: Revlon Headquarters, Dusitani Street, Bangkok. The reporter rode the elevator to the eighteenth floor. In a space-age office, a receptionist wearing half the products that her company produced filed her nails.

“I’m here to see Khun Taktan,” Gunnar smiled, pretending that speaking to the most recognized sports figure in Thailand was his birthright.

The receptionist’s glare suggested that he had a better chance of seeing Thai royalty. "Khun Taktan is not available to the public at this time,” she said.

“I’m with the Bangkok Times,” Gunnar answered, flashing his credentials.

“I’m sorry, Khun Taktan only speaks to the press in news conferences . . . I’m sure you understand.”

The reporter placed his hands on her marble desk and entered her secretarial space. “I’m pretty sure he’ll see me. Please ring the next rung on the ladder and inform them that Gunnar Ray requests to speak to Khun Taktan right away.”

Rolling her eyes, the secretary pressed line one, spoke for twenty seconds and then pressed line two. She rattled off line one’s instructions, listened, hung up on one, put two on hold and pressed line three. She then hung up on two and connected three to one. She repeated yes eight times and ended the call. “Khun Taktan will see you. Go through the double doors at the end of the hall. Security will escort you from there.”

“Khap khun khrap.” Gunnar gave the secretary a wink. In a land where security guards grow bigger and meaner than on first floors, Gunnar was frisked from head to toe. At the end of the hall, two more doors splashed with the Revlon insignia stood between the reporter and the toughest woman on the planet. Via walkie-talkie, a guard announced Gunnar's arrival. Ten seconds later, the doors opened and a model wrapped in a white lace dinner gown met the reporter.

“What do you think?” she said in a raspy voice casting her hips to the side.

Gunnar surveyed the muscular calves and protruding veins in the woman's neck. “Very attractive, but I’m looking for Taktan: Revlon’s newest supermodel.”

“It’s me you silly,” Taktan said, extending his arms to the reporter. “It’s Taktan!”

Gunnar placed his hands to his mouth in feigned surprise. “You look just like a magazine cover!”

Taktan ushered the reporter past the camera crews to a seat on a velvet sofa decorated with rose petals. “Did you notice something different about me?”

Gunnar scanned the full contours of a man dressed up as a woman. “Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “You added hair extensions. They work well with your face.”

Taktan twirled around, revealing her muscular buttocks under the tight fabric. “Not the hair, silly boy. Look again.”

Gunnar paused. She still looked very much like a kickboxer dressed up as woman. Taktan waved to a set boy and whispered some unknown instruction. Moments later, the boy returned with a sealed jar covered by a silk red cloth.

“Give it to Gunnar,” he instructed the boy.

With a single swipe, Taktan whisked the cloth free.

“GOOD LORD!” Gunnar yelled, loud enough to turn the head of the set director. “You really did it. You cut you’re your penis clean off.”

Taktan’s severed penis hovered in solution.

“I asked them to preserve it as a “hard on” so I could impress my friends. But as you can see, the penis had a sixth sense and shriveled up when the knife approached. It was my last male response thankfully.”

“Ouch . . . I mean Wow!” Gunnar said in shock, this being the first time he had handled a man’s penis, severed or otherwise. “You looked so much like a woman that I forgot you even had one of these things.”

“Well, I recommend the operation to everyone. I’m a lot more patient and caring these days. I tell you, they should make you pass some kind of test before you get one of those evil things. They’re dangerous you know. That cock helped me put that poor fighter from Loei Province in a 24-hour coma last year.”

“That was your right elbow from what I saw of the replay.”

“Yeah, well, that cock inspired my bitterness. I imagined that boy as a penis that needed to be whacked off.”

“Well, you won the battle. You have successfully killed a defenseless penis.”

“Defenseless? That’s a criminal in there.”

Taktan spun the jar like a top. The penis circled in solution to the delight of its captor. Gunnar looked on in amazement. As the flesh rotated, he asked the million-dollar question. “What about the pain? You experienced the single most feared event in most men’s lives. Just how much agony was there?”

Taktan took a deep breath. She reflected on the ordeal endured for the sake of womanhood. “The first five days were horrid. That I admit. I took orange pills in the morning, red ones in the afternoon, and blue ones in the evening. I tell you, I pissed a rainbow out my new vagina. And nightmares . . . I dreamt I was a soldier who lost his gun in battle. People were shooting off rounds all around me but all I could do is search for my gun. I had the dream three times--that's an auspicious number in Thai cosmology you know. I asked a temple monk to interpret it for me. He said the gun was the Buddha and that I was searching for the spiritual path.”

“The Buddha eh?” Gunnar chuckled, preferring the Freudian interpretation.

“Yeah, but I can still feel it you know . . . it still itches sometimes. But when I reach down to scratch: nothing.”

“Ghost limb,” Gunnar said without expression. “Talk to some war veterans about that.”

“Next month I’m going to get some hips put on this body as well. You know, plastic inserts. And the hormones are just now kicking in. Finally I will have some damn nipples.”

“Your dream is why I am here,” Gunnar said, improvising. “I am here to help you find the Buddha.”

“Well, I’m all about religion now.”

“At the same time your penis forced you to give your last opponent a concussion, a monk in Burriram ordained a forest with Buddhist robes. This same monk led a village uprising against the Kau Jau Kau reforestation plan that aimed to relocate a village and cut down the Sua Yai Forest.”

“Oh yes! You mean the monk they call ‘Ajahn Firefly.’ Is it true about his being able to fly and all? When I was a boy, my Grandmother told me stories about flying monks. She said the ancients had more saksit than monks of today.”

“The ancients had forests filled with tigers and other animals to perfect their wisdom. As for Ajahn Piko, he neither confirms, nor denies that he has flown. He responds as the Scriptures dictate. Anyway, we are trying to counteract the government’s smear campaign by promoting Piko’s love for the forest. We have to work quickly. Their quislings are publishing false things in the newspapers. If the government, or big business, or whoever is pulling the strings can convince the public that Piko has no saksit, they will face little resistance in cutting down the forest. I have a plan to win public support for the monk and the forest.”

“How? I have read the paper. They say Ajahn Firefly is a communist who uses the forest to harbor political enemies.”

“That’s just plain nonsense. They are throwing that out to alarm the masses.”

“So what’s your plan? How can I help save the forest?”

“You’ve got to follow the monk’s advice . . . you need to find your weapon. Only then can you help us.”

“But I have a modeling career now. I’m not nun material if that's what you are asking. And forget about the white robes they wear. Not even an expensive pair of heels could make that outfit fashionable.”

“You don’t have to become a nun. I need you to be the celebrity you are. As a celebrity, I want you to endorse our cause . . . support the Green Buddha.”

“But I’m just one girl. What can I possibly do?”

Gunnar reached over to Taktan's powdered neck and slid his hand under her shirt. Past a few rebel hairs and a swollen nipple, he took hold of a thin chain. He lifted a warm glass-covered amulet onto Khun Taktan's chest. “You’re more than just a pretty face Taktan,” he said, releasing the image of Lumpah Khun. “You’re the brightest personality in Thailand. You affect the masses with every word you say.”

The reporter took a deep breath. He reached into his own pocket to reveal the brass image of Ajahn Piko. “I’ve come to ask you to change your necklace Taktan. We are minting Ajahn Piko amulets and I want you to wear one in public.”

Taktan put his chin to his chest and stared down at his protector. He then looked at the brass in Gunnar’s hand.

“Gunnar Ray! Do you know what you are asking?”

“I am asking on behalf of the villagers, Ajahn Piko and the forest.”

“Yes. But why the amulet? Anything else and you know I would help. Lumpah Khun helped me endure the pain of the operation. He walked away unhurt from a terrible car wreck and now he is helping to protect me from infection. Do you realize how much saksit he has? Do you know what you are asking me to surrender? Ajahn Piko does not have the same track record. His amulet will be untested.”

“I know the Ajahn. I can attest to his power and strength. He will bless the amulet himself.”

“That is not enough.”

“Well, why not just wear Lumpah Khun on the inside and Ajahn Piko on the outside?”

“No way! That might upset the power balance. If Ajahn Piko is dangling around my neck and poor Lumpah Khun is trapped behind my bra, I might lose his favor.”

“You can always say no. That is an option. But if you wear this amulet we have a chance at saving a sacred mountain. Ban Nam Sai Village could remain on its ancestral lands and the monks of Wat Sua Yai could keep their monastery. Without you, I don’t think we can generate the publicity we need to pull this off. I realize you are still under the stress of losing your penis, but I need you to rise to the occasion.”

Tears formed in the corner of Taktan’s eyes. She shook her head at the thought of losing her protector. The rejection spawned an idea in Gunnar. Without thinking through the ramifications in full, he unleashed an addendum to his plan. “How about if I take the amulets north and have Lumpah Tet and Ajahn Kanlayo bless them? With three blessings, that would give the amulet more saksit than should be legal for one supermodel to have.”

Taktan thought through the metaphysics of it all. A fresh blessing from three of the leading monks in Thailand and Laos might provide the insurance he needed for his continued health. Gunnar had studied with Ajahn Kanlayo on his first trip to Thailand. The chances were good that he would support the cause. Lumpah Tet, on the other hand, would be more of a wildcard.

“All right Gunnar, I’ll make the switch. I’ll wear your amulet and support your cause if you can get Lumpah Tet and Ajahn Kanlayo to bless the amulet. But if you want me to wear one of those things, it has to be gold. Brass has never touched this body. It’s just not my metal. I would go soapstone before I went brass.”

“Gold it is!” Gunnar said.

“Fine. Some day I might want to visit Sua Yai forest and see a waterfall anyway.”

“There are no waterfalls.”

“Well no wonder why I have never heard of the place. Still, if I can help the villagers, then it will be worthwhile. Bring your amulet to my press conference on Wednesday. I’ll wear it when I announce my new modeling career. Every newspaperman and TV reporter in Bangkok will be there . . . all will see your amulet. I’m traveling to Europe the next day for a fashion show. Don‘t be late.”

As Gunnar emerged into the heat of the city a wave of guilt passed over him. He felt like a Baptist missionary smacking a non-believer on the head with a Bible. What if Ajahn Piko’s amulet didn’t contain saksit? What if the monk’s violations of the vinyaya rendered the amulet useless? Also, what would happen to the collective spirit field of Thailand with the addition of 30,000 new amulets? All were questions the agnostic reporter failed to consider. The idea of having two of the most respected monks in Thailand and Laos bless the amulets now seemed strangely reassuring. From a business standpoint, it would increase the marketability ten-fold.

21

“Truck! We need a truck!” Gunnar yelled over the din of power tools. “Redneck Jim,” a Vietnam veteran with a service station off Khritapol Street lifted his welding mask and extinguished the blue flame of his torch. “Jim’s Place” was the only shop in Bangkok that specialized servicing in older American-made trucks. On weekends, the station used to double as an opium bar to the ex-patriot community. Jim was a kinder, gentler, mechanic before the American-backed war on drugs. In spite of his declining disposition, the two couches in his office often hosted some of Bangkok's most colorful characters and as well as some of her most beautiful prostitutes.

“Gunnar Ray!” The mechanic extended a grease-covered hand. “Have you come to write that feature on my 1968 Ford flatbed?”

The reporter surveyed Jim’s cherry-red prize in the corner of the shop. “Actually, I need a truck that can haul a heavy load all the way up to Beung Kan. I have 30,000 amulets that need to go to the Laos border.”

The mechanic bit down on the stub of an unlit cigar. He raised it with his tongue and freed up the bidness side of his mouth. “Ain’t got no Jap trucks if that’s what you’re looking for.” Jim led Gunnar to the back of the shop. He pulled a tan cloth off a beat to hell 1956 Chevy. In faded black letters were the ominous words: Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory. Red opened the door to reveal steering wheels (plural), as well as gas and brake pedals on either side of the vehicle.

“Looks a little confusing in there Jim.”

“You mean the steering?”

“And the braking.”

“Don’t mind that. I just didn’t have the heart to rip the cock and balls out of her and place them on the commie side. Those cables work just fine. It all matches up. Bet you won’t notice a thing.”

“Why not just drive it on the left?”

“Tried that. Even made a donation to the Police Department. Them little bastards kept pulling me over just the same. They don’t like it when something big and American pulls up next to them. Makes them feel small.”

“Can it haul a heavy load?”

Jim smiled. He walked over and pulled the latch on the hood. Dual chrome carburetors promised ample horsepower and bad gas mileage. With a turn of the key, the rumble of the engine filled the garage. Lek pushed up against Gunnar for protection. “She’ll go for you Gunnar. Plenty of giddy up and go.”

The reporter opened the "commie side" door for Lek. He adjusted his seat and put his hand on the three-to-the-tree gearbox. “Pay you when I get back?”

“Fine.”

“Does it have insurance?”

“Thirty years ago.”

“See you on Wednesday.”

In Bangkok traffic the Gray Ghost remained as unapologetically loud and American as a crew of drunken sailors in port. Thai drivers stared up in awe and fear as the engine popped and rumbled under the hood. Gunnar winked at the driver in the car next to him. He pretended that operating the oldest, loudest, truck in Bangkok was a daily event.

He downshifted. The howl of combustion consumed the city street. Even amphetamine-popping taxi drivers parted for the Gray Ghost.

“I feel embarrassed,” Lek said, shrinking down into the cracked vinyl. “Nobody have truck look like this in Thailand. I not want people to see my face.”

Gunnar popped the clutch and Lek’s small head bounced off the seat. She glared at the grinning face in the cockpit. “This is American culture Lek,” he said smiling. “This is as close to North Dakota as you will ever get. Just imagine rolling down a country road with hay bails in the back and a shotgun rack over our heads. That’s rural America.”

“So you a cowman now?”

“You mean cowboy?”

“I see movie once that have American cowman driving truck like this and some kind of alien from a different planet land next to him.”

“Oh yeah. Happens all the time in the country. Spaceships land, cows disappear, people get their brains sucked out; yep, all part of the adventure that goes with driving a truck.”

“Same in Thailand you know. Mostly villager, not city person, see space car. Bangkok is too busy for space man I think.”

Gunnar pulled around back of a smoke-stained brick building. He thrust his shoulder into the heavy door and jogged toward an open-air office. Around him, Isan women toiled in the mechanics of noise and low pay. Lek remained in the Ghost.

“They’re minted, but not boxed,” the foreman said without apology. “Box man won’t be here until Friday.”

“Friday! We can’t wait until Friday.”

“Well, Friday is when the box man comes.”

Gunnar stared over at the rusty bed of the pick up truck. “Can we just dump them in the back? We have no time. Really.”

Minutes later he had the truck backed up against the loading ramp. A forklift delivered a man-sized pile of medallions to the edge of the concrete. Lek’s mouth opened in disbelief. She poked Gunnar sternly in the ribs. “That a monk’s face on the amulet. You cannot throw a monk’s face on bottom of an American truck.”

“Lek. We have no choice. The box man won’t be here until Friday. The amulets need to be back here by Wednesday.”

“But what about Uncle’s face?”

“The amulets aren’t blessed yet. Can’t we just call it ordinary metal until they are blessed?”

Lek folded her arms in disapproval. “After they bless, they still gonna be a in dirty Gray Ghost.”

Gunnar paused. He searched for a response to satisfy her. “I guess we’ll just have Lumpah Tet and Ajahn Kanlayo bless the whole damn truck!”

Lek stared blankly at Gunnar. She returned to the front seat and sat in silence. Brass on steel thundered like a train wreck. The shock absorbers let out a sigh. An hour and twenty minutes later they reached the city limits. Traffic. Always traffic.

Pastures and rice paddies in fallow replaced heavy industry as scenery. An hour and a half later, they rolled past Ayuthaya, the ancient capital of Siam. In the 15th century the city had become one of the most impressive in all of Asia. That reign ended in 1765 when Burmese invaders destroyed the sacred center of the monarchy. Seventeen years later, a new capital arose in Bangkok. Traffic jams followed.

Gunnar popped an eight-track cassette into a deck held together with duct tape. The cab filled with Country Gold Hits. Lek wrinkled her nose as a banjo twang reverberated off the windows.

“What the hell you calling this kind music?” she said with alarm.

Gunnar tapped his hands on the leather wrap of the steering wheel. “Country and Western. This is what my father listens to.”

The tape switched tracks and a manly voice in stormy rhythm told a story.

Every morning at the mine you could see him arrive. He stood 6’ 6” and weighed 245. Kinda broad at the shoulder and narrow at the hip, and everybody knew you didn’t give no lip to Big John . . . Big Bad John.

Lek nodded her head in slight approval. “So who is this Big John they singing about?”

Gunnar looked over his shoulder, shifted lanes, and forced the rusty handle into high gear. “Big John? Some old coal miner who saved a bunch of workers during a cave in.”

“This sound better than the last song.”

Then came the day from the bottom of the mine when a timber cracked and men started crying. Miners were praying and hearts beat fast and everybody thought that they had breathed their last except John . . . Big Bad John.

Lek listened to the rest of the song in silence. When Jimmy Dean finished his tale she ejected the tape and then looked over at her driver. “So he died huh? He saved the other miner but did not come out.”

“Yep. I suppose so.”

Lek placed her hand affectionately on Gunnar’s shoulder. “But if he do such a good thing why they keep calling him ‘bad’ . . . 'Big Bad John'.”

“Sometimes bad means good in English.”

“I think his family will like it better if they just saying “Big Good John.”

“I’ll talk to the singer when I get back to America.”

“Thank you.”

At 9:00 PM, thirty miles into rural Khon Kaen, Gunnar downshifted and turned down an unmarked dirt road. “How about we camp under the stars tonight,” he said, weary, dusty, and stiff from the long drive. “I’ve had it.”

“What about taking shower?”

“We can bathe in the starlight.”

“What about toilet?”

“Just do as the water buffalo do.”

“I not want poetry man, I want hot water.”

“I’m about to drive off the road I’m so tired.”

“But I’ve never camped before.”

“It’s simple. We put the wool blanket on the ground, I lie down on one side, you lay down on the other, and we fall asleep to the sounds of bats and cicadas. That’s camping.”

“You not afraid of wild animal?”

“In a cow patch? I’m worried about putting my head in a pile of buffalo crap.”

“What about ghost?”

“We’ve got a truck full of amulets. We are saksit on wheels.”

“Ohh yeah. That right. But I wish amulet not just lying on truck.”

“Yes. You told me.”

“So you tired.”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

Above, the equatorial sky revealed a faint outline of the Milky Way. A cowbell rang in the distance. Lek’s thoughts turned to her village . . . about harvesting rice and spending time with her family in the fields. Gunnar took hold of a ball of hard soil and crumpled it to dust. One day in November, after six months of life giving rain, the sun rose in a clear sky. No one in Isan had seen a cloud since.

A shooting star coursed through Capricorn. Lek mumbled something under her breath and then spoke with excitement. “Kham kwat!”

“Yes! I saw it too," Gunnar said. "Time to make a wish.”

“You too late," she said, shaking her head. "You have to make prayer as the star is falling. Not after."

"Well that explains it."

"What?"

"Why the Detroit Tigers baseball team haven't won the World Series in my lifetime."

"That your wish? Silly baseball kind of game?"

"Well what did you wish for?"

Lek paused. "Good health."

"That's kind of basic isn't it?"

She stared into the night's sky without answering. Finally she spoke. “Think about how unhappy you will be if you get sick. What if you know you gonna die."

"I guess I am too busy to think about that."

“But it sad you know. Life is much better if you don’t know when you going to die. If a bus hit you and you dead . . . that not so bad. But if a person knowing they going to die, that is the worst kind of punishment.”

March 29

After eleven driving hours and 450 miles, the dusty trip neared an end. Mekong: Mother of Water, gift of the Himalaya Mountains, snaked across the land like a mythical serpent. The serious season of drought had reduced the springtime leviathan into a navigable stream. In spite of its reduced width, beneath the ripples and crests lay a canyon of water. Gunnar laid his head against a rock and listened as river conversed with land. On the opposite bank lay the essence of foreignness: "Laos." The word conjured images of the great unknown for the reporter. "Laos." Isolation, neglect of modernity. "Laos." Where the wild things fled when the Thais burned their forests. "Laos," relocated hill tribes in a Los Angeles suburb. "Laos." Do they have a national soccer team? "Laos." A side dish for Vietnam. Did they fight against the Americans in the war? Gunnar really didn't know. "Laos." Name one famous Laotian? "Laos." The people who perfected ant eggs as a side dish.

Exciting.

For Gunnar, the river separated the raw from the cooked. Years of human habitation had weeded the fangs and claws from the Thai side. The catchwords of overpopulation to include: “management area,” “wilderness,” “wildlife reserve” . . . defined Thai nature. Across the border, wilderness flourished for the reason that humans had yet to organize, modernize, and capitalize in full on the landscape. Roads remained few and the few roads rough. The reporter reflected on the politics of preservation. Capitalism and democracy, the one/two punch of American soothsayers, had reduced forest cover by 40% in forty years in Thailand. Communist Laos, in contrast, had done well by its forests. Its sheer inefficiency, failing currency, closed borders and rejection of western medicine, ideas, and tourism had resulted in a balance between humans and their environment. Life was shorter, a bit dusty: but widespread prostitution rings and urban slums were few. Laos served as a safe haven for large predatory animals. And healthy forests made for tolerable weather patterns.

The next morning, Gunnar and Lek left the Gray Ghost and 30,000 amulets at the village of Ban Nam Long for safekeeping. They made their way to the riverbank and boarded a long boat to cross the river. Their shallow craft, born of plank boards and resin, sliced through current under the power of a screaming motor that resembled an over-sized eggbeater.

Gunnar stared into the water. With his chin on the boat's side, he contemplated Heraclites' timeless observation that: "a man can never step in the same river twice." Lek, for her part, quietly assessed the best place to avoid direct sunlight. She tucked her legs and arms beneath an oversized T-shirt and imitated a hermit crab.

“What you thinking about," she demanded.

Gunnar sat quiet. Pensive. He did not want to resurface from the depths for idle talk. Lek prodded him gently. “Tell me what you see in the river?”

“Different things,” Gunnar mumbled, reluctant to give up his meditation.

“Like what?”

He shifted his gaze from the river to the soft eyes upon him. “Look around. There hasn’t been a drop of rain for four months and here we are floating down a massive river. It's kind of spooky really. Snow fell long ago in the highest mountains on earth and now we are crossing over that same snowfall as it rushes toward a saltwater sea.”

Lek shook her head in dismay. “So what. That kind of obvious isn’t it?”

Her pointed response caught the reporter off guard. “Maybe. I mean no. Well . . . it’s just kind of mysterious to me.”

“So that all you got? Anymore big philosophy?”

Gunnar hesitated. He searched for a meaningful response that would convey his love of the river and the thoughts it inspired. “The Japanese Master Dogen once said: First there is firewood; and then there is ash.”

"So what does that mean?"

"It means that all of existence is complete unto itself. Spring does not become the summer. First there is spring; and then there is summer."

"That's it! That what you worry about? Spring become the summer? Nature does not need you worrying about it. Spring is gonna become summer just like last year. Why you not worry about going to Laos without a visa? That’s what I think when I looking at the river."

"I’ll consider that when I hit the shoreline. For now, I’m contemplating whether the river is continuous, or just a series of punctuated events; whether time has a beginning and ending."

Lek remained unimpressed by the 300-level philosophy lesson. “Maybe you think too much. That your problem. Uncle says looking at a bird is a hundred times better than thinking about a bird.”

Gunnar turned back and faced the water. “Yeah, well, it's more than just thinking. It’s about how we feel about ourselves . . . how we experience life. I feel time as flowing forward like the river to the sea. The ocean is death for fresh water. And death is a problem for me . . . at least the idea of death anyway. It’s what makes everything feel like such a rush. Death is a stopwatch.”

“This kind of talking just make me hungry you know.”

“Good. Because this is food for thought. Dogen's view means that every moment is unique and locked in the present. Birth is an expression complete in this moment. Death is an expression complete in this moment. They are like winter and spring. You do not winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring. It’s a catastrophe for our ordinary perception of time. There is no meaningful beginning or ending. You defeat death by changing your idea about it. According to Dogen, Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is vast and far reaching, the whole moon may be reflected in a single dewdrop.”

“So you really believing that?”

“What I think and what I feel are different.”

“Is that good?”

“No. It means I'm a reporter, not a mystic.” To illustrate his point, Gunnar spread his feet and braced himself on either side of the narrow boat. As they motored along, he began to rock violently back and forth. Waves emerged from either side and drifted in tight formation toward the riverbank. “You see . . .” he said, pointing at the water. "It’s a question of origins. Conventional wisdom says the waves were born when the boat started rocking and will die (or end) when they reach the shoreline. But that interpretation ignores the larger reality of the river and the fact that it has flowed for thousands of years with no way to pinpoint the origin. So in reality, the waves could not really be born since the river already was. When they reach the shore they do not really "die," they just return to the river. You can apply that to the human life as well. You see, nothing is really born and nothing really dies. Paticcasamupadda. Dependent origination.”

As if to reinforce his point about the cyclical nature of existence, the boat began to turn in a tight circle. The engine roared as Lek slid from one side of the seat to the next.

“The boatman!” she yelled in a panic. “Nobody is steering the boat!”

Gunnar turned back to find a motor without an operator. Downstream, swimming for his life, Lek caught sight of the driver. “You threw the boatman into the water when you making the wave!”

Gunnar scrambled to take control of the motor. Lek continued her tirade. “Quickly! Save the boatman. Look what your big philosophy has done. Who will believe you were trying to explain birth and death by throwing the boatman in the river? Save him before he tell everybody in Laos that a crazy American is coming.”

Embarrassed, Gunnar Ray pointed the boat downstream. He lifted the engine and coasted alongside the river-soaked man.

“Hop in!” he yelled, extending a hand.

The terrified boatman yelled back in his native tongue. “I will take my chance with the river. You are a crazy man: baa baa bo bo.”

Gunnar shrugged his shoulders. He avoided Lek’s scorn-filled eyes and turned the boat upstream. He thought of Ajahn Piko’s jail cell admonition: "In Samsara, the raft may reach the other side of the river, but not even the most enlightened of men can predict where or when." Certainly, a soggy boatman would agree.

The sound of river gravel beneath the boat brought the adventure to an end. Gunnar pulled the skiff onto the rocky shoreline. In the distance, a barely visible boatman crawled onto the bank. He lay exhausted on a granite boulder.

“Remind me to give that fellow a tip,” Gunnar said with a chuckle.

Lek did not smile. She hopped angrily out of the boat and walked toward the trail to Ban Pah Dam Village.

“It was an accident Lek,” Gunnar pleaded as he jogged up next to her. “I was trying to explain interdependence, not dunk our driver.”

Lek turned her head toward the forest. With a mad boatman on the loose, the reporter began to question his decision to cross the border without the proper papers. “Seriously Lek. Is it safe for me to be over here without a visa?”

“You already ask me that.”

“Well, I guess I want some reassurance.”

“I safe. Isan girl, Lao girl, almost the same. But maybe you should not tell the villager that you are an American.”

“Why?”

“Maybe com-u-nit want to jaap (arrest) you.”

“Right!" Gunnar saw her point. He removed his Detroit Tigers hat from his head and held it up for inspection. Fortunately the copyright violators in Asia did not market last place teams. There seemed little chance that a Laotian rice farmer would make the connection between a tiger and America's Motor City. Still, the reporter did not want to take chances. He reached into his knapsack and fished through the crumbs of past travels. He returned with an embroidered patch with a bright red maple leaf. Beneath the leaf were the not so subtle words: “Canadians Love Canada.” He unfastened a safety pin and tacked it clumsily over the Tigers emblem. "Today I will pay homage to my Canadian-born grandmother. This patch is a traveler’s best friend.”

Lek looked quizzically at the maple leaf. “They still going to think you are a 007." She increased her pace. "Maybe they right? Maybe you are a Jim Bond guy?”

“James Bond.”

“Whatever.”

“Nope. Just an experienced traveler. Everybody loves a Canadian. I was in Central America last year and that little patch came in mighty handy when crossing opium fields. Now its part of my survival gear. I’ve even mastered a Canadian accent. Pretty good idea eh.”

“Yeah. Maybe that is a good idea. Laos person still angry about the war you know. Grandmother tell me that American planes empty their bombs on the border before returning to Thailand. You not even fighting Laos but you drop bombs to have safe landing. You kill many Lao villager.”

Gunnar felt his stomach tighten. Damn military. “I was only eight Lek,” he pleaded. “I was playing Little League baseball during the war, not dropping bombs on your ancestors.”

“Well, you still American. That all a Lao person going to care about.”

"Canadian," he corrected her.

Dense jungle lay on either side of them. Gunnar once believed that international borders were fictions of the human mind. The difference between forest cover on the Laos side, versus denuded lands on the Thai side, made him think otherwise.

A student of Ajahn Mun, Lumpah Tet had once been a long distance wanderer--a nomad who changed monasteries with each rains retreat. As with the others, he ran out of forest on the Thai side. Rumors circulated about his involvement with communist insurgents as well. The government wanted to turn him into a city monk where they could keep an eye on him. Amidst communists who looked a hell of a lot like poor pig farmers, he established Wat Khao Khiew.

Lek and Gunnar followed a rough dirt track over rolling hills. At the village spirit house they took a brief rest. Unlike the ghost condos in the backyards of the Bangkok elite, the Lao version was fashioned of hand-stripped plank boards and mounted on a severed tree trunk. Inside, crude images carved out of wood, with dots for eyes and '0's' for mouths stared back. Lek pulled Gunnar away from the house.

“This is Laos," she whispered into his ear. "Pii even stronger over here. If a ghost see you stare at him, maybe he going to follow us back to Thailand."

"Right," Gunnar whispered back. "That makes sense. I think."

Gunnar took a step up the path and let out a spontaneous scream of horror.

"What the hell is that!" he said, pointing to a beast fresh out of the Jurassic period.

"Lizard," Lek said with indifference . . . as though a four-foot reptile crossed her path daily.

"Lizard!" Gunnar yelled back sending the Bengal monitor back into the bush. "That thing was bigger than you. Did you see its tongue? It almost shined my boots from ten feet away."

"The Thai word is takuat."

"That's better. It deserves a name I've never heard before."

"Takuat is a friend. He is the good luck bringer. One time he enter my grandmother's house in the village. Three days later, she go to play lottery and win $100.00. That why Thai people like takuat. When he comes in the house he is the good luck bringer."

“Our lizards fit in glass jars," Gunnar protested. "If someone brought that thing to school for show and tell they would call in the police."

Not far from the spirit house, Gunnar homed in on the “shoe tree.” Draped hither over branches were shoes of adults and children killed during the Vietnam War. No. They had not forgotten. A small pair of plastic sandals reminded Gunnar of his niece back in Clover, Michigan. How different the world she grew up in.

As they stared upward, the butt end of a rifle met the hard earth beside them. Gunnar gasped. A Laotian soldier stared back. His white whiskers came together in a yellow point just below his chin. A rusty bayonet topped the gun. Gunnar glanced over his shoulder and prepared to make a run for it. The old man squinted. He looked at the reporter’s face through a different era. His army uniform had faded to pimento green with either shoulder supporting a single red star. Gunnar tried not to stare but the cloudy eyes of the soldier held him motionless.

"Sawadti?" Lek said more as a question, than as a salutation.

Gunnar retreated behind his guide. Both waited for some hint of a human response.

"Grandfather," a young voice called out. “Come back to the village. Your steamed rice soup is ready. Come back to the house."

As the little girl caught sight of Gunnar, she grew silent and pressed up next to the soldier for protection. The odd couples stared across at each other. The girl grabbed the man by his leathery palm and pulled him back up the hill. En-route she removed his gun and twisted it back and forth like some kind of baton. Surreal.

Gunnar gripped Lek’s hand with renewed angst. “Let's hurry up and get Lumpah's blessing. I don’t want my shoes to end up on that tree.”

"He is just baa. I don't think he want to hurt us."

"Baa or not, he had a gun."

"Old style."

"Yes. But a gun nonetheless. Plus, we have a renegade boatman running around. Who knows what he is telling people."

"He say you a Mr. 007. I tell you already."

"More reason to hurry."

They approached the first plank board house of the village. An elderly woman rose to greet them. "Bonjour!" she said, adjusting a dusty sundress.

The years of French colonization had left it mark: even on Ban Pah Dam.

“English?” Gunnar said, tipping his Maple Leaf cap. "I'm a Canadian."

She smiled. Decades of chewing beetle nut had stained her teeth blood red. Her village consisted of crude wood houses on stilts: no electricity wires, no cement. In many ways, life persisted as it had for centuries. Community gardens, a few pigs and chickens, wild meat on all sides provided a way of life. The only sign of modernity was a boy running across the courtyard in a Walter Payton football jersey.

Gunnar Ray had done more than cross a river; he had walked back in time. He pulled out his notepad and sketched the scene before him. Lek called a villager over and asked him to locate the headman. She turned and pulled Gunnar into a village store. The plastic razors and packaged snacks common on the Thai side found their counterparts in seeds wrapped in cloth, dried buffalo meat, and handmade hoes. Without refrigeration, there was little demand for the over-sweetened soda sold at .40 cents a pop on the Thai side. Plus, given the subsistence lifestyle, a Coke would cost half a person's daily wages. The two packaged items for sale were perhaps the greatest advents of civilization: Ovaltine and Tampex. Gunnar retrieved a 100-baht note and purchased some buffalo meat. The storekeeper happily accepted the Thai baht. The Lao Mark--one of the world's most volatile currencies--had only marginal worth even within its own country. After taking a hit of opium, Redneck Jim had shared the time he discovered the bills used as toilet paper in a popular Vientiane guesthouse. Such was the luxury of not having a King's face on one's currency.

No less than thirty men and women had gathered outside the store.

"What now?" Gunnar said out the side of his mouth.

Lek looked into the eyes of young and old alike. "Act natural."

The crowd watched with anticipation for the visitors to exit.

"Is there any history of cannibalism here?" he said holding back a smile.

"Stop talking nonsense," Lek answered, poking him in the ribs. "Don't give them more reason to think you more baa than you already are."

"What do we do?"

"Just say you are a Canadian and you wanting to see Lumpah Tet."

Gunnar felt his muscles tighten. The eyes of the villagers followed him through the store. After ten minutes of browsing, a short man with tattoos on his biceps muscled to the front of the crowd. A freshly killed chicken dangled over his neck. Whether he wore the fowl as fashion, or food source, Gunnar did not know. The headman rattled off a phrase in Lao. Gunnar smiled and nodded. He didn't understand a damn word. "Lek,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “He's speaking in Lao. Take over."

Lek answered the village headman in her native tongue. Phasaa Isan (Isan dialect) and phasaa Lao (Lao dialect) were nearly the same. Politics and an allegiance to different soccer teams separated the Northeast from nearby Laos. As Gunnar emerged, small children hid behind buildings. All stood in awe of his size twelve feet.

“We are passing through to see Venerable Lumpah Tet on Sii Khiew Mountain,” Lek said. “We have come to ask his blessing for my Uncle . . . Ajahn Piko . . . a Thai monk.”

Before the headman could answer, the chicken blinked its eyes and sprang to life. Gunnar watched in amazement as it kicked its captor with razor sharp toenails. Without shifting his gaze, the headman wrapped his hand around the animal’s neck and squeezed the life out of it. "Lumpah is on retreat," he answered sternly. "He is not taking visitors. He has come to Sii Khiew Mountain for his final practice."

"Yes. I understand," Lek pleaded. "But this is an emergency. My uncle is sitting in a Bangkok jail. We have come to ask for a blessing on his behalf."

The headman turned to consult with two men, both wearing arm-sized daggers. "I'm sorry. Lumpah has instructed us not to accept visitors."

Gunnar felt the pain of 450 miles of useless travel. "At least send a boy to announce our arrival," he insisted. "Lumpah will be rather upset if he finds out that you denied him a chance to help an old friend and the first Buddhist monk ever to sit in a Thai jail cell."

He studied the man's face to see if he understood the Thai language he spoke. The chicken again opened an eye. Listening. The headman nodded and motioned for a village boy. He instructed him to deliver the request to Lumpah Tet. Children continued to stare at Gunnar's feet. Their giggling helped ease the stand off between serious adults. The reporter wiggled his toes. The movement brought outright laughter . . . everybody loves a Canadian.

An hour later the boy returned and whispered into the headman's ear. Lumpah wished to see the man with big feet and the niece of a holy man. A mile outside the village, Gunnar and Lek began their ascent of Sii Khiew Mountain. A family of white-handed gibbons called from overhanging branches. A mother with infant stared at the curious couple below. Further on, a vernal-hanging parrot landed in a nearby tree. Even in the midday heat the Laos jungle teemed with life. To the reporter's delight, their guide identified the scat from a small-clawed otter. The rare river dweller must have passed between drainage zones. And plants. Ferns three-times the size of a man or beast towered above them on either side.

A series of simple, elevated, gouties marked Lumpah Tet’s residence. Built of bamboo and ply-board, Tet had managed to avoid the trappings that went with being a celebrity monk. The modest accommodations impressed Gunnar. Many a senior Thai monk ended their careers in a swivel chair with a TV clicker in their hands. Ajahn Piko and Lumpah Tet were truly the last of their kind. The floorboard creaked as Lumpah emerged. Gunnar bowed his head in the presence of a true forest wanderer. "This is Gunnar Ray,” Lek announced. "And my name is Boonsala Banatik. We have come on behalf of my uncle, Ajahn Piko."

Lumpah's face lit up with recognition. "Yes. I spent a rains retreat with your uncle many years back. He is a tireless wanderer. What is this about his being in jail?"

Lek raised her hands in a wai. With attention to detail, she explained the plight of her village and lock up of her uncle. The old monk recalled his own experience with forests that eventually fell to the saw. Twenty years Piko's senior, he remembered a time when the Mekong River dissected a single body of dense forest; a time before agriculture opposed wilderness and communism opposed capitalism.

The reporter placed his hands together and summoned every polite adverb in his Thai vocabulary. He explained why a 1956 Chevy pick up truck with a chrome exhaust and 30,000 amulets needed his blessing. The monk’s eyes followed the nuances of Gunnar’s face.

Lumpah rose to his feet. His bones creaked like an old fishing vessel as he led Gunnar and Lek out the door. With a junior monk at his side, they headed down the pathway and through Ban Pah Dam. The old gun wielding "com-u-nit" soldier bowed his head as Lumpah passed. Gunnar tipped his maple leaf cap. An hour later they crossed the river in a large skiff. On the shoreline of the Mother of Rivers, the Grey Ghost stood poised to receive a blessing from one of the most respected monks in two countries. The villagers of Ban Rim Suan gathered for the rare opportunity to see the monk in action. Gunnar Ray returned from the edge of the river with a pouch filled with silt-laden water. An incarcerated Ajahn Piko would not be able to bless the amulets in person: but he could bless water from the Mother of Rivers. That same water could then be applied to the amulets. With the pouch atop the amulets, Gunnar handed the monk Khun Taktan’s 14k gold amulet. Lek watched nervously as Lumpah surveyed the vintage steel, rust, and amulets. He put a hand on the metal, closed his eyes, and began to chant in the Pali language. As Lumpah finished, Lek pulled on the reporter's shoulder and whispered into his ear.

"Oh yes," Gunnar said with some apprehension. "The truck. Please do us the honor and bless our Grey Ghost . . . I mean, our Chevy pickup truck."

Lumpah smiled as he surveyed the rust bucket before him. "Certainly," he said winking at Lek. "But I will tell you the same thing I tell the car owners. Change your oil. Machines don't run on blessings alone." And with that sagely advice, Lumpah chanted for the safekeeping of the Grey Ghost. Lek stood relieved. Exorcised of its profanity, the Chevy became a more suitable vehicle to carry her Uncle's image on Thai roadways. With everything down to the greasy carburetor blessed, Gunnar turned the key and waved goodbye to the villagers. He shifted into second gear and motored down the gravel roadway.

Lek watched in silence as dusty sugarcane fields passed by.

“You know," Gunnar said pressing the throttle, "I think the Grey Ghost is driving better since Lumpah blessed her. The popping sound has disappeared.”

Lost in thought, Lek did not respond. Gunnar slid the 8-track tape in the cassette and tapped his foot in the rhythm with Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.” Given her Uncle's incarceration, he thought twice about translating the lyrics. Lek spoke over the Country Gold. “It has been thirty-four hours since I took a shower you know. That must be some kind of record for a Thai girl.”

Gunnar took a deep breath to see if his scent matched Lek's arithmetic. “I once lived at 16,000 feet with a Sherpa family in the Nepali Highlands. They bathed once every forty days.”

“So you staying there a full year?”

“Nope.”

“How long?”

“Twenty days. We all have our limits.”

“Hmm. I think a Thai girl never want to marry Nepal boy.”

“Probably not a Sherpa anyway. When we hit Khorat, we can get a couple of hotel rooms courtesy of the Bangkok Times. You can wash up there.”

At 10:00 PM, the Grey Ghost entered Khorat. With a population approaching 200,000, Khorat ranked as Thailand's second largest city. Two-story cement buildings provided shelter, if not scenery. Apartments: cement. Schools: cement. Police Station: cement. At the main intersection Gunnar paused to admire one of the lone attempts at modern architecture: Kentucky Fried Chicken. Depressing.

"How about a park?" he quizzed Lek. "I know I am imposing my Western values on this city, but we have just spent an half and hour getting lost and seeing the sites and there isn't one damn green space."

Lek tilted her head slightly. "City is a place for people to do business. Have plenty of countryside if people not wanting to live in city."

City planning. Architecture. Parks to feed ducks after a day at the office. Urban living remained new to most Thais: an experiment without a muffler.

"Why you have to criticize Thai people?" Lek said flashing a belligerent stare at her driver. "If you not like Thailand, why not go back to America?"

Gunnar sensed her defensiveness. Perhaps he had gone too far with his comments. “Hell, Lek, I complain about America too. That's what reporters do. I'm an equal opportunity complainer. In America, I harp on the same things. Too many people. Not enough National Parks."

Lek folded her arms and did not reply.

Following dinner they returned to separate, but adjacent hotel rooms. Thoughts of Lek drifted through his head. He reminisced about the time her head rested on his shoulder while on the train. And perfume. He could smell it through the wall if only in his dreams. He wanted to feel her smooth bronze body next to him. Under the stars he had only to reach an arm around her to fulfill his desire. But he didn't.

“What you doing in there?” a muffled voice said through the thin wall.

Gunnar’s dreamy thoughts subsided. “Thinking about Buddhism,” he answered.

“I never stay in strange hotel room alone before. It kind of scary actually.”

“What’s there to be afraid of?” Gunnar said, surprised. He thought she would welcome the luxury of having her own space compared to the cramped apartment she had been living in.

“Many thing. Could have bad man know that Lek sleeping alone. Maybe he come and do rape. Also have some ghosts in this city too. Many bad thing can happen when Thai girl sleep alone. You want to study monk, why you not come sleep on my floor like monk so I feeling safe.”

The invitation sent Gunnar on a sprint. With pillow in hand he knocked on Lek’s door. She met him wearing red silk pajamas with a green Mickey Mouse patch embroidered over her left breast. The brown skin of her face was splashed white with baby powder. Her color scheme resembled a Belgium flag. Gunnar stretched out on the floor at the base of her bed. Lek, for her part, lay sideways to prevent her feet from pointing toward Gunnar’s head.

“That much better,” she said turning out the light. “If bad man comes, you bark like a dog okay? Thai man is afraid of big dog.”

“Woof, Woof,” Gunnar answered playfully. “I’ll be a good watch dog for you Lek. Sleep soundly.”

Being likened to a dog was a mixed blessing for the reporter. On the one hand, it meant that she considered him a close friend. To call a stranger a dog could lead to a fistfight. On the other hand, it intimated that he should stay on the floor. The last thing a young Thai woman would do is sleep on the same bed as a dog. Hollywood movies wherein the lovable pooch hops upon his master’s bed might not make it through the censors.

Gunnar stared open-eyed into the darkness. He listened to the odd motorcycle pass by on the city street. The urge to feel Lek’s beside him made his body hotter than the night air. He waited for the slightest twitch to come from her direction . . . a bad dream, anything that would allow him to comfort her. By now, he knew every curve of her body, if not by touch, by sight and imagination. When she walked in front of him over dusty trails, his eyes followed the gentle sway of her hips. When she smiled, he knew the contours of her white teeth, the texture of her tongue. Lek remained still. Gunnar counted from one to ten to encourage sleep. Each time he reached the number six, his imagination jumped back into her bed. Still, he worried about her profession . . . where he found her. He tried to block out the images of vagina blown darts zipping over her head on a nightly basis. Maybe she once had a farang boyfriend in Bangkok. That would explain her passable English. He could live with that explanation. Still, a nightly temptation must have confronted her: thousands of baht in exchange for one evening, or one hour, with a stranger. Two men at different times in the same night could bring in the average monthly salary of a Thai laborer. Health care, education, transportation--not just for herself, but for her family, depended on how she made a living.

“It’s happening!” Gunnar lamented as he returned to his room the next morning. “I’m supposed to help free a monk from prison and I’m becoming infatuated with young Lek. A long-term relationship with a bargirl can’t possibly work. I know this. In my head I know this. Thailand is full of farangs who have fallen into that trap. The poor guy never figures out whether the girl loves him or his money. He becomes stuck in a purgatory where he can’t tell whether he has a girlfriend or an opportunist. Then there is the financial obligation. It starts out with the farang thinking he has a woman who is content with not having much. But in Thailand, you don’t just get the girl . . . you get the entire family. She brings you to her village to meet Paa and Mae. You see what she has to return to should you turn her out. The next thing you know, you’re making a down payment on a pick up truck for “dad.” From there the bills keep coming: older sister gets sick, you pay for it; younger brother wants to go to school, you pay for it; the family farm needs fertilizer, you pay for it. The timeless myth of the male hero rescuing the damsel in distress is acted out through your pocketbook. Anyway, how would Lek handle a cold and dreary Michigan winter? I bet she would miss all that she thinks is miserable about her life: traffic in Bangkok; washing in the stream with the other girls; working long hours. I’ve got to put an end to this infatuation. I need to rewire my hard drive before I fall into a web that traps me financially and emotionally.”

As Lek emerged from her room, Gunnar announced a surprise. “Lek, I’m going to treat you to a special lunch today--much nicer than last night’s pepper curry.”

“Okay, I eat whatever,” she said.

“Exactly!”

The couple walked toward a busy street lined with food vendors. En-route, the reporter reflected on the Buddha’s teachings. In Buddhism, overcoming sexual desire is paramount to progressing on the path. Nibbana is characterized by a cool, dispassionate awareness. The Buddha taught that whenever sexual urges arise, the monk should counteract the feeling by meditating on something truly foul in the body: bile, intestines, flem, or feces. Time spent in cemeteries likewise helped the monk. A half-buried foot or skull unearthed by a village dog tempered one's attraction to the body.

Long lines formed behind the most popular booths serving gwitieow and pad Thai (oil fried noodles). Gunnar kept walking.

“First up on today’s menu,” he said, looking over a metal tray piled high with one of Isan’s favorite snacks, “takien.”

“Great,” Lek said smiling. “I love to eat grasshopper.”

Using a metal scoop fashioned for the handling of mixed nuts, the vender ushered four ounces of oil-fried insects into a bag. Their little roasted bodies--complete with entrails--rustled like popcorn as he twist tied the offering.

“Let’s call that one an appetizer,” he said dragging Lek to the next booth.

His lunch date bit down on an insect. “No eating until we find a nice table. This is supposed to be a romantic lunch. You have to wait until we find some atmosphere.”

“Okay,” she said frowning. “But I'm hungry.”

Gunnar surveyed another Isan delicacy. “Boy are you in luck,” he said looking over the table. “They’ve got some real taste treats here.”

Lek’s eyes lit up as she surveyed the offering.

“Okay,” he said to the vender. “Give me two dozen pupas and a bag of roasted ants.”

“Black kind or red kind?” the vender asked.

“You choose.”

“Red kind,” Lek smiled.

Three more bags were twist tied and tossed into a plastic sack. The ants actually looked edible . . . like a fresh helping of wild rice. Gunnar grabbed Lek by her free hand and they continued down the street. “Now it’s time to find a main course . . . something with substance.”

The reporter closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. “Ahh Haa!” He homed in on the scent coming from a distant table. With Lek beside him he watched with trepidation as the vender opened a plastic lid. Stomach acids rose as the smell of something that should have been buried near a riverbank months ago overwhelmed him. Pla raa . . . the same fermented fish that helped to drive communists from the Sua Yai forest would soon grace the lips of the village beauty queen.

Gunnar placed the stinky catch at the bottom of the lunch bag and headed down a back alley. “We need to find some desert.”

“This is a very big meal,” Lek said, holding the weighty purchase. “I hope you eating too. Too much food for only me.”

Gunnar smiled. He held back the obvious answer. The final booth provided the ultimate chaser. FISH TANK. “The end of my infatuation with Lek is near,” he thought to himself. In aerated water behind dirty aquarium glass, baby shrimp darted around in a panic. Lek grabbed Gunnar by the arm to express her disapproval. “This is crazy type of food,” she said, frowning at the purchase.

Crazy has a high threshold in Thailand.

“But Lek,” Gunnar said holding back a smile, “this is dessert . . . you promised I could choose your meal.”

“Okay,” she sighed, looking into the tank. “But not so many. Last time I eat, I could not sleep. All night I dream shrimp swimming in the stomach.”

“That’s a good sport.” Gunnar watched as the server dipped a small seining net and then emptied his catch into a water-filled bag. He placed his purchase on a table and made a quick dash to the pad Thai stand. He returned to find baked pupas and fried ants on his plate. “No, you go ahead," he said, pushing the plate towards her. "I’m trying to cut down on fried foods.”

Lek raised a grasshopper to her mouth and balanced the insect between her perfect teeth. “Why you staring at me?”

“Don’t worry,” Gunnar answered, waiting for the inevitable “crunch” to sever the insect in two. “Enjoy your meal.”

The grasshopper gyrated up and down in the same lips he longed to press his mouth against. “See,” she said giggling. “Him still alive.”

“Crack!” The bug separated into two pieces. Eyes, nose, and mouth landed on Lek’s tongue--wings, legs, and thorax ended up on the white tablecloth.

“I know what you doing,” Lek said scooping the bottom half of the grasshopper from the table. “You buying Lek food that farang never eat. I'm a smart girl you know. You want see Thai girl eat grasshopper, go ahead and watch. Don’t complain if you get hungry later because you only eating small bowl of noodle.”

“Fair enough,” Gunnar answered.

After the grasshoppers, Lek started to mix and match. She finished off a few black pupas that resembled shells from a .22 caliber rifle. A spoonful of ants followed. Finally, she opened the container filled with fermented fish. “How you like that smell?” she said popping the rancid meat in her mouth. The reporter’s eyes watered. The scent reminded him of the summer that all the white fish washed up dead on Michigan beaches. “You like to watch Thai girl eat crazy food? I take you to Sakhorn Nakorn Province. People eat dog there. I eating dog just for you.”

“Really,” Gunnar said, wiping the corner of a teary eye. “I’m a part-time vegetarian. Today just happens to be a no-meat / no-pupa day.”

“Some farang food I not understand either you know. Why you always having to eat bread, not rice? And why you eat so much meat in one big piece. That a very ugly habit to Thai girl you know. I know a girl who break up with her farang boyfriend because he always eating big meat in front of her. Make her stomach sick. When Thai people eat meat, we cut into small piece and mix vegetable. Maybe farang is the same as the forest animal. Big meat eater.”

“That’s very true,” Gunnar answered, acknowledging her point. “But don’t forget to save room for your dessert.”

Chomping her teeth in a rebellious gesture Lek dipped into the Ziploc bag housing the live shrimp. Her spoon zigzagged as she tracked down her catch. She tilted her head back and poured the living broth down her throat.

“That should definitely do it.” Gunnar thought to himself. “The next time those soft eyes and full lips stir primordial passions I will recall the grasshoppers, ants, and live shrimp that swirled around in that beautiful mouth: I will reflect on Lek’s fermented fish breath.”

He would only think of Lek as a friend from here on out. He hoped.

On the highway they passed a cattle truck, a diesel-belching bus, and three underpowered motorcycles. Twenty minutes past Ubon Ratchathani, the Ghost veered off the pavement onto a bumpy dirt road. Five hundred yards from the screaming roadway a six-foot cement wall circled a 100-acre forest. Outside the wall, in every direction for as far as the eye could see agriculture reigned. Nature in solitary confinement.

Gunnar and Lek followed a trail into the compound. The midmorning heat dropped ten degrees under the canopy of trees. Unlike the flashy and ornamented structures of Bangkok, wood and corrugated metal made for subdued architecture. Near the sala, every third or fourth tree supported a sign with words of wisdom.

The important thing is not acting like a saint,

but to see things the way that they truly are.

Gunnar smiled at the sign as though he were greeting an old friend. “This is the temple I studied at for six months on my first trip to Thailand,” he explained to Lek. “It is one of the only farang monasteries in Asia. I met monks from Germany, France, Canada and even Argentina here. Ajahn Kanlayo has quite a reputation as a meditation master you know.”

The twenty-year-old lived in the nearby village Ban Khao Suay but joined the monks in their daily temple routine. In the evening, he followed the sagely advice of “not acting like a saint” and skipped the final meditation session in favor of drinking rice wine and practicing Thai language with the villagers. When he did not have a hangover he followed the temple schedule:

3:30-5:15 A.M. ---- chanting and meditation

6:00-7:00 A.M. ---- follow the monks on pindabat (accepting food

from the villagers)

8:30 A.M. ---- sweep the leaves off the pathways

3:00-4:30 P.M. ---- clean buildings / temple projects

5:00 P.M. ---- drink tea with Ajahn Kanlayo

7:30-9:30 P.M. ---- meditation / chanting / Dhamma talk

Dry leaves in orderly piles lined the pathways. The raking of pathways at dawn dated back to the time of the Buddha. The simple practice encouraged mindfulness and kept the monastery tidy. The autumn piles in Gunnar Ray's Michigan backyard bore little resemblance to the dusty mounds before him. In Thailand, to cast oneself upon stacked leaves risked being scratched by pointed edges, covered in dust, or bitten by centipedes, scorpions, or any number of poisonous snakes.

In the tree canopy, a coppersmith barbet balanced on an extended branch. His short tail flicked in a two-count rhythm. With every organ in his bronze body dedicated to song, he unleashed a melodious rampart. Further down the trail, an unbroken tissit, tissit, tissit, caught Gunnar’s attention. A ruby flash through high branches marked the passing of a scarlet-backed flowerpecker.

In the sala, Ajahn Kanlayo sat on a red cushion advising an elderly Thai woman on a family matter. The woman wiped her eyes, crying. The Ajahn sat calmly, his words soothing. Kanlayo came from the Shakespearean birthplace of Stratford on Avon. He apprenticed in his father’s butcher shop until the age of seventeen. He decided that severing cow flesh was not his calling. On scholarship, he left Stratford for Cambridge University. There, he excelled in philosophy and linguistics and pursued a life of the mind.

In his junior year, he lost control of his Mini Cooper in an ice storm and was thrown twenty feet into a storm ditch. Three broken ribs, a shattered femur, and head trauma confined him to a hospital bed for three weeks. When released, he suffered migraine headaches from swelling in the brain tissue. Neither the philosophy of Greeks, nor Immanuel Kant could help him control the pain. Through trial and error, he invented his own form of meditation. He trained his mind to accept life as it comes. His newfound wisdom helped ease the suffering. Disillusioned with Western thought, he turned to Asian religion and Buddhism in particular. He flew to Thailand and joined the monkshood. Following his journey into Sua Yai Forest with Ajahn Piko, he abandoned books and dedicated himself fully to forest practice. In the years that followed, he became recognized as the leading farang monk in the country.

The hollow eyes of Nari Wannapat fell on Gunnar and Lek. A hole in the frontal lobe of her skull proved that a bullet is faster than cancer. Behind the glass and below the skeleton an stillborn child sat preserved in formaldehyde. Both served as temple reminders that a premature birth and a premature death are commonplace in Samsara. As the elderly woman departed, Ajahn Kanlayo waved for the reporter and Lek.

"Gunnar Ray . . . how many years has it been?"

“Four and a half years, Ajahn. Seeing the words of wisdom on the trees really brings back the memories.”

“I have followed your career at the Times. With Ajahn Piko in prison, I have been reading the newspaper more often. It is a sad day for Thailand when an honest monk sits behind bars.”

“This is Boonsala Banatik,” Gunnar said. “Ajahn Piko’s niece.”

Lek bowed her head in submission. Kanlayo smiled. He saw a semblance of her uncle in her high cheekbones. He turned back to Gunnar. “So what happened to your aspirations to become a monk?”

“Maybe it is a case of ‘those who can do; those who can’t write’ . . . or however that saying goes.”

“Well. It looks to me you are doing good works. Thailand needs more concerned reporters. I heard that old Maha Tawui is trying to have Ajahn Piko disrobed. Those two have a long history as you know. You could not find two more different monks if you tried."

Gunnar cringed. The mere mention of Tawui spawned rage: images of Kelly choosing the city monk over him. Kanlayo continued. "I heard Tawui is driving around in a Mercedes Benz these days."

"Lexus," Gunnar corrected him. "He traded in the Mercedes for a new Lexus. It even has a sunroof."

Kanlayo and Gunnar laughed outright at the image. "So you said on the phone that I could do something to help free Ajahn Piko from prison?"

Gunnar led the monk through the small forest to the edge of the cement wall and the Grey Ghost. He reached into his pocket and retrieved Khun Taktan's 14k gold amulet. Kanlayo flipped it over and studied the trio of forest images. He then ran his hand over the pile of brass medallions in the back of the truck. "Looks like you have found yourself quite an enterprise," he said, unaware of Gunnar's motives.

The reporter explained himself. "The idea is to market amulets to gain support for Ajahn Piko and the Sua Yai Forest. People will defend what they own. The amulets will allow supporters to own a piece of Sua Yai and Ajahn Piko's cause."

Kanlayo nodded, but did not answer.

Gunnar continued. "We have come to ask you to bless these amulets. You are a monk of great standing. Your blessing will go far to convince the public that Ajahn Piko is wrongly imprisoned."

Kanlayo ran a hand over an infected tick bite on his otherwise smooth head. "You understand that many Thais look to amulets for a spiritual power outside of themselves. That is not what we teach at this temple. We try to promote spiritual self-sufficiency; non-attachment."

"Ajahn Piko had the same reservations. But the reality is that the Sangha has failed to convert the populous to environmentally friendly form of Buddhism. This monastery is a perfect example. It is the lone green space for miles. The only reason the forest remains is because there is a cement wall around it and monks within it. The amulets will help to erect a spiritual wall around Sua Yai Forest. The people who own them will defend what helps to keep them safe. A forest, not a spirit, can become their greatest source of refuge."

Kanlayo shook his head and smiled. “We live in increasingly strange times.”

“Yes, Ajahn. We do.”

"I will bless your amulets. Before you depart, however, I wish to share a story with you. Several years after I ordained as a monk, I spent a rains retreat near Huay Kha Khaeng National Park in western Thailand. As you might imagine, nothing in England prepared me for the wildness of that place. Each step through that forest had me on full alert. Wild elephants roamed the Park. I often heard Asian sun bears foraging for roots nearby my shelter. Seub Nakhasathien served as superintendent. You have probably heard of him. His stories entertained village children for months. I translated some of his nature observations into English. He knew that in time, farangs would discover the wilderness quality of the Park.

I raise his name because the only Thai I have met who exceeded Seub in his passion to save the forest is the monk you have immortalized on metal. Like Ajahn Piko, Seub considered himself a guardian of the animals. With each passing year however, the numbers of poachers on either side of the Park increased. Businessmen paid poor villagers to hunt the animals. Elephants were slaughtered just for their tusks. Sun bears were hunted for their fur and claws. Gibbon pairs were captured and placed on the black market. Some had their heads sawed off while alive simply to preserve a look of horror. Seub took each killing personally. He mounted a major education campaign to show villagers the importance of preservation. But the killing continued. One day he woke up and realized that his dream had died. With the decline in animals, he no longer felt the wildness of the place. Without wildness, the beauty of life disappeared for him. He removed the pistol strapped to his belt and pointed it at his own head. Huay Kha Khaeng survives. But Seub and his dream died when he pulled that trigger."

Gunnar lowered his eyes from the monk. He considered the implications. "But isn't it better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved? I know that is a trite saying, but I've always found it true."

"No. It is better not to lose at all," the monk answered.

"But how? Being an environmentalist is about winning and losing. It's about fighting to preserve the few remaining patches of wilderness from wanton exploitation. How can it be any other way?"

"If you want to be in this for the long run, you have to make peace with the Middle Path. The Buddha did not commit suicide when he discovered that the world was suffering. Instead, he found a way to navigate the joys and horrors without being attached to either extreme. It is good to be active and concerned. But if you lose track of the larger mystery, the Dhamma, you will burn out . . . or worse. Activists have a tragic past in this country. I don't want to open the newspaper to find you, or Ajahn Piko, as the latest victim."

Kanlayo placed his hands on the pile of amulets. He chanted for the health of the forest and the well being of those who sought to protect it. He looked up at Gunnar Ray and smiled. "Please tell Ajahn Piko that he is in my thoughts. The time we spent of Fon Maak Mountain has not been forgotten."

22

April 2

Ajahn Piko sat cross-legged in meditation with the unsteady florescent light pulsating above his head. Gunnar pressed his hands against the bars. An aura of peacefulness emanated from the cell. “I’ve returned, Ajahn,” he said, out of breath. "Please excuse my interruption."

Piko sat oblivious to the request.

Strange. He had always responded to the reporter, even when in samadhi. "Ajahn!" Gunnar said forcefully, not wanting to squander the precious minutes they were allowed to speak. Piko remained unshaken, unmoved. Could one die in a lotus position? Gunnar released his grip on the bars and squatted in front of the cell. He set the blessed river water down next to him. Several minutes later, he again tried to stir the Ajahn. No response. In his years of observing Buddhist monks this was the first time one had so utterly withdrawn from the world as to be unreachable. He had read about jhanic states of consciousness in the Scriptures, but this was his first encounter with a monk lost in space.

Seventy-two hours later, Gunnar returned to the prison. An alert Ajahn Piko greeted him with a smile. The guard opened the cell. "What happened three days ago? I yelled to you from five feet away but you were oblivious."

Piko looked into the reporter's eyes. He considered how much to share about his inner journey. "Do you believe that there exist places in this universe that are free from change altogether?"

The magnitude of the question caught an anxious Gunnar Ray off guard. The two main schools of Buddhism: Theravada and Mahayana differed on the answer. Gunnar had no ready response. Piko continued. "And if you entered these spaces, do you think that a person could be free from pain and suffering?"

The reporter reflected briefly on a childhood biking accident that had shattered his femur. Bone spurs erupted through the skin. It took a morphine drip--oblivion, not meditation--to ease his suffering. "Do you mean if someone took a hammer and hit a person on the toe, could he sit indifferent?" he asked.

"Something like that."

"No. I think there would be some awareness, some reaction to the pain unless a person was heavily sedated."

"Have you ever heard of Thich Quang Duc?"

"Do you mean the monk who set himself on fire in Saigon in the early 1960’s to protest the war?”

“Right.”

“Yes. We discussed the ethics of the immolation in a world religions course that I took in college. President Ngo Dinh Diem’s government refused South Vietnamese Buddhists the right to fly a religious flag alongside the country flag. And then they ransacked Buddhist pagodas believing they were a safe-haven for communist insurgents: eight activists were killed by their own government. Duc's immolation came in protest of religious persecution and the continued violence of the war.”

Piko’s eyes lit up with appreciation for Gunnar’s recollection. "His flesh burned around him and he did not break his meditation posture. How could that be if he felt pain of that magnitude? He would have to react."

The fiery images captured in Malcolm Browne's photographs disturbed Gunnar. He had repressed the grisly site. "I don’t know how he did it," he said, not wishing to dwell on the subject. "Perhaps no one can. But deep down I think he knew what was happening, felt the pain, but found a way to overcome the reaction."

"Nibbana?" Piko answered.

"I don't really get into that concept. Maybe it's because I don't have a chance in hell of getting there: if there really is a "there." Let’s just say that if someone lit me on fire, I would stop, drop, and roll.”

“But if you had to write a story about that monk, how would you explain his perfect mastery over pain?”

Gunnar’s restless state would not allow him to penetrate the question deeply. He had 30,000 amulets that needed blessing. "Ajahn. These are metaphysical questions. I'm not sure we have the luxury to discuss this right now. We have our own war to think about."

"But how would you write about it?"

"I guess I wouldn’t try to get inside Thich Quang Duc’s head. I really don't know how he did it. I would just talk about how he changed the course of history. The photo of the immolation was on President Kennedy’s desk the morning after it happened. The publicity helped to depose President Ngo Dinh Diem from power.”

Piko walked in silence at the other side of the cage. He knelt down and picked up an empty pouch. "Thank you for the water by the way,” he said to Gunnar, changing the subject. “It was refreshing."

Gunnar looked back with horror. The pouch containing the Mother of Rivers and blessed by Lumpah Tet and Ajahn Kanlayo lay squeezed and empty on the prison floor. "Ajahn! What did you do? You drank our holy water!"

Piko looked back without concern. Gunnar covered his mouth in shock and then spoke. "You were supposed to bless the water, not drink it."

"The guard said you left the water for me. I drank what I could and washed my feet and undercarriage with the rest of it."

Gunnar tried to contain his shock. "But it was blessed by high ranking monks. Couldn't you tell?"

Piko smiled. "Actually, there was quite a bit of silt in it: perhaps my friends are losing their powers of purification in their old age."

Gunnar called for the prison guard. He handed him the empty bag and requested it refilled. The guard extended his hand. Gunnar placed a 500 baht note in the leathery palm. Ten minutes later he returned with a pouch full of prison water.

"I see we are in different places in our thinking right now Ajahn, but I need you to bless this water. It will be applied to all the amulets. It is the only way that I can, in good conscience, say that you have blessed them. If you don't mind, hold this gold amulet while you complete your prayer."

Piko accepted the water and Khun Taktan's amulet. He closed his eyes and chanted in the Pali language. Two minutes later, he handed both the water and the amulet back to Gunnar Ray. “The next time you come back, bring me a book about Thich Quang Duc. Please don't forget.”

Gunnar rose to his feet.

"I'll carry that out for you," the guard insisted, taking the water from the reporter. Gunnar sighed and fished through his pocket for another 500 baht “tip.”

“What’s the chance of getting a receipt out of you?” he said to the guard.

He would have to create his own administrative category called “bribes and bad deals” to account for the 500 baht notes flying out of his pocket. Bowing one last time to Ajahn Piko, he turned to leave the cell. "Remember what I told you Gunnar Ray,” Piko said with conviction. “No matter your intentions, amulets belong to Samsara. The raft you are on is a shaky vessel.
23

In spite of the Ajahn's warning, Gunnar left the prison feeling good about his plan. He sat poised to introduce 30,000 new amulets into the Thai spirit world. With holy water in hand, he returned to Redneck Jim's garage.

"Steam!" Gunnar hollered without an explanation.

Jim flipped the visor on his welders’ mask and reached for a cigar. “Steam?”

"That's right. There's not enough water in this pouch to bathe all the amulets. We'll need steam to bless them."

"What the hell are you talking about Gunnar Ray?"

"Holy steam." The reporter answered. "We've got to cover these amulets in full. I can't tell people they are blessed by Ajahn Piko until they have all been anointed."

"Com' on Gunnar. You aren't going tell old Jim you actually believe in that hoot n' nanny."

"Jim. I am about to flood the market with a truckload of amulets. For better or worse, people will be praying to these things when they get sick, if they need to earn money, or if they have to pass a college exam. I didn't think about that when I came up with the idea but it sure seems an awesome responsibility now."

Jim wheeled a steam cleaner next to the Gray Ghost. "Save me an ounce of that would yah'," he said, half serious. “I've been fighting with a coffee stain on the front seat of a Chevy S-10 for the past twenty minutes. I bet that holy steam would take it right out."

"You're joking right?"

"A little. But, think of the marketing opportunity. There isn't a cleaning product out there with holy water as an ingredient."

"If you want a tough stain out, pray it out . . . is that your jingle Jim?"

"Sounds catchy."

"You're the warped one. Not me. Turn off that heavy metal music. This is supposed to be a religious ceremony."

Jim flashed his Jethro Tull concert tee shirt in defiance and reluctantly turned down the volume. He placed three ground cloths behind the tailgate of the Grey Ghost and a long-necked jack under the front axel.

"Crank her up." Gunnar pressed a button on the cleaner. A wide mist of “holy steam” poured forth. Jim put his weight on the yellow jack handle until the amulets poured over the tailgate. As the rear bumper touched the cement, two-thirds lay sprayed with steam and piled on the floor.

Jim walked to the back of the truck. "You ready for the final assault?"

Gunnar braced himself. "Let her rip!"

The tailgate snapped down and a rush of amulets poured through the steam and onto the cloth. Mission accomplished.

The mechanic raised his hand and accepted a high-five from Gunnar Ray.

"You're a strange dude," Jim said, shaking his head. “One strange dude.”

With Taktan's gold amulet in hand, Gunnar entered the lobby of the Erawan Hotel, site of the champ’s "Coming Out" press conference. Past a horde of reporters he homed in on one of Taktan's bodyguards. “I’m Gunnar Ray,” he said, flashing he press card.

“Yes. Khun Taktan is expecting you.”

The champ had kept a low profile during the adjustment period that goes with having your penis cut off. She greeted the reporter with a drawn out kiss on the cheek.

“Put that amulet around my neck darling,” Taktan said, staring at the gold in Gunnar’s hands. “Did you actually go all the way to Laos to get Lumpah Tet’s blessing?”

“All the way,” Gunnar said. “Three distinguished monks held this very amulet in their hands. There’s so much saksit it might burn your nipple.”

Taktan secured the chain around her neck. The conference room reached a fever pitch as Revlon's newest supermodel emerged. With diamond studded high heels, hair extensions, and a 14k gold amulet dangling from her neck, the kick boxer turned model walked to the podium. Gunnar and Lek stood in the back of the room like nervous parents. Flashbulbs illumined the amulet. Elbow-to-elbow with a reporter from Thailand's largest circulation newspaper, Gunnar summoned his charm. "Have you seen the necklace Khun Taktan is wearing?" he said innocently.

"Looks like some kind of amulet." She raised her hand. "Let's find out."

After handling a question about his severed genitalia, Taktan took the reporter's question on the origin of the amulet. She stared down at the image of Ajahn Piko and caressed it with the same hand that had broken the jaws of two different opponents. "Thank you for asking," Taktan said. "I am proud to be wearing a 14k gold version of the newly released, Ajahn Piko of Sua Yai Forest amulet. As you know, one of Thailand's bravest monks is sitting behind bars in a Bangkok prison. The Sua Yai Forest that he seeks to protect--the last of the great forests in Burriram--is poised for destruction. I wear an amulet in support of Ajahn Piko: in support of the forest and villagers on the verge of being relocated because of the Kau Jau Kau."

Gunnar thrust his fist into the air to show his approval. He couldn't have said it better himself. And since he wrote the brief speech that Taktan regurgitated, that was a truism. The model waited for the next question about her trip to Europe or her Revlon sponsorship. The humbug among reporters had begun however. Khun Prasat, the author of numerous opinion pieces accusing Piko of communism and infidelity--raised his voice without raising his hand. "Khun Taktan. Are you publicly endorsing a known communist; a criminal posing as a monk who knowingly destroyed government property?"

Taktan stared blankly at the senior reporter. She blushed as brightly as any woman ever could. Her throat contracted and a rash, complex as a Bangkok roadmap, erupted on her neck. With the champ on the ropes, Gunnar pushed his way to the center of the stage. The eyes of the crowd shifted from the scarlet-faced model to the young reporter. "Khun Prasat, have you asked Ajahn Piko yourself about this accusation? Or, are you simply reporting false rumors in support of the Kau Jau Kau scheme to relocate five million people under the pretense of reforestation and land management?"

"My question is for Khun Taktan," Prasat retorted. "People do not care what Gunnar Ray says. But they do care if Khun Taktan has changed more than just his gender--if he himself has converted to the communist party."

As the verbal sparring continued, Taktan's sulked in the corner. Gunnar continued to grandstand for Ajahn Piko. "The amulet you see on Khun Taktan's neck will be available to the public tomorrow. Anyone who cares about the forest, about the plight villagers on the verge of being relocated should purchase one to support the cause. Ajahn Piko's message is simple: ‘Thailand can afford to preserve Sua Yai--the last forest in Burriram.’ Boonsala Banatik, Ajahn Piko's niece, will now circulate among you. She has complementary amulets similar to the one Khun Taktan now wears."

"Useless!" Khun Prasat shouted back. "Who will support such a cause?"

"Lumpah Tet would. Ajahn Kanlayo would," Gunnar answered proudly. "Every amulet that we distribute has been blessed by three monks of the Thudong tradition. We have witnesses who can verify these blessings. Khun Taktan is wearing a very powerful piece of metal around her neck."

Reporters snatched up the amulets like tickets to a Khun Taktan fight. They thumbed at the image of the monk, the cloud covered mountain, the bird in flight, and the tree cloaked in a Buddhist robe. Lek presented the last amulet to Khun Prasat. He stared down at her dark skin with the contempt of his Chinese ancestry. She did not shift her gaze in deference to the senior writer. Finally, he turned and walked out of the room.

As reporters stood enthralled with the novelty of the amulet, Taktan sulked on the corner of the stage. The peach foundation she wore bubbled in the heat of embarrassment. Tears formed in her eyes. Seeing the hurt on Taktan’s face, Gunnar Ray again raised his voice. "I have said my piece. The public wants to know about Taktan’s modeling career. She leaves for Paris tomorrow. I suggest we use the remainder of our time to find out how she plans to transform the world of fashion."

Taktan let out a sigh of relief. She returned to the podium to field a question about her operation. At last she could speak about a subject she could handle--or used to anyway.

As Lek and Gunnar prepared to leave, an inconspicuous man took some parting photos. Unlike the reporters who had come to photograph Taktan, the man had targeted Gunnar and Lek throughout the conference. Maha Tawui’s cousin lowered his lens and watched with rapt attention as the pair exited the building. Gunnar extended his hand to Lek and the two became one as they merged into the human highway outside the hotel. The photographer smiled at the union. Mission accomplished. He developed the photos and presented Maha Tawui with evidence of where the reporter would bleed most. Lek.

The following day, Jim's Garage filled with the loyal members of Khun Taktan's fan club. At Gunnar’s request, Taktan had approached the katuhy faithful about marketing the amulets on Bangkok street corners. What the country lacked in punk rockers, Jesus freaks, and rebellious youth, it more than made up for in its colorful cast of cross-dressers. Gunnar stared into the ranks of altered flesh. Those with the largest breasts had established a pecking order over the less endowed. The leader of the loose gang wore a tank top with the emboldened words: "Suck Me Milk."

Lek circled among the faithful handing out cloth sacks filled with medallions and tee shirts with the self-explanatory caption: AJAHN PIKO AMULETS. The katuhys put their game day jerseys on . . . all but one. "Suck Me Milk" refused to change shirts.

Gunnar called her into the back of the shop.

“If you want to be a leader, then I need you to show your support of Ajahn Piko by wearing this tee shirt.”

Saranya Bunghut pointed her hard won breasts in Gunnar's direction. “This shirt has a lot of meaning you know. My British boyfriend gave it to me on a Tuesday. He said it was a joke but I promised him that I would wear it four times a month . . . every Tuesday . . . to show him my love. Do you understand?”

Gunnar stood on the verge of an outburst. He had slept a total of ten hours in three days. “If you want to distribute amulets," he said forcefully. "You have to lose the shirt. This is about saving a forest, not sucking the damn milk out of your nipples.”'

Within an hour, the busiest street corners in Bangkok were manned by amulet wearing "lady-boys." Booths consisted of medallions spread on ruby red cloth, pictures of the three forest monks who blessed them, and a copy of Gunnar’s latest article--translated into Thai. The flamboyance and salesmanship that went into transforming their gender made the strong-armed saleswomen effective on all fronts. Minutes after the booths had opened, lines began to form. Media coverage about Ajahn Piko’s plight and Lumpah Tet and Ajahn Kanlayo’s involvement created high demand for the amulets. By 1:00 PM, frantic kahtuhys raced back to Jim's garage to refill their sacks. Thousands of Thai baht were piled on the oily floor next to a discarded transmission. The amulets did not just arrive on the scene; they exploded into the Thai cosmos. Lek counted the currency while Jim’s filled the safe.

"I'm tellin' ya Gunnar,” Jim said, shutting the door on the latest deposit. “You should triple the price on those things. I ain't no economist, but it just seems like a simple case of supply and demand: timing belts vs. American trucks in need of them. You could be raking in the dough."

"Jim, it's not about profit. It's about getting amulets in the hands of as many potential supporters as we can."

"You're call. But, I tell you, you're pissing away a lot of money."

At 7:00 PM, weary katuhys filed back into Jim's garage. Pock-marked with sweat, diesel dust, and other contaminates from the Thai roadway, they again emptied sacks of money onto the floor. In spite of the cheap perfume and protests to the contrary, Jim's garage smelled very much like a men's locker room.

As Gunnar looked over his battalions, Jim took a call from Bunrungrad Hospital. Saranya Bunghut, (Suck Me Milk) had been checked in with two broken ribs. Gunnar and Lek caught the first taxi to the hospital. Saranya lay conscious, but sedated. She stared serenely at her morphine drip.

"Saranya . . . Lek and I came as soon as we heard."

"They took the amulets Gunnar,” Saranya said half awake. “They took all of them."

"Who?"

"Ten or twelve college boys. Forestry students I think. They said Ajahn Piko is a fraud and that Sua Yai should be managed by the government and not backwards villagers."

"Did you provoke them?"

"All I said is to please leave me to my sales job because I was trying to support Ajahn Piko."

“And they attacked you for that?”

“Well . . . a couple of the boys took amulets without paying. So maybe I told them to go line up like a choo choo train and fuck a street dog in the caboose.”

Gunnar looked over at Lek. “They must have fathers in the Forestry Department who are feeding them lies about our cause.”

Gunnar and Lek spent the night in the hospital room. The next morning, a surprise visitor knocked on the door. As Saranya opened her eyes, a vision of beauty, power, and perfection stared down upon her.

"Khun Taktan!"

Wearing a khaki Giorgio skirt with a midnight blue top, Taktan reached out and touched Saranya’s hand.

“I came to offer my strongest fan some support," Taktan said, smiling. "Now you are the fighter. I have not forgotten all you have done to make my fan club the best in Thailand.”

Saranya searched for words to express her awe of the woman before her.

Gunnar looked on, trying to make sense of the whole scene. The two before him were men, but also women. As women they really liked men, but not enough to want to be a man. Should they per chance fall in love, would that make them gay in the male sense? Or lesbians in the female sense? If one kept his penis but had breasts, while the other lopped off his penis but retained a man's chest, who would be the King and who would be the Queen in the relationship? And in times of conflict, would it matter in the least that one was the retired kickboxing champion of the world?

24

Gunnar and Lek slipped out of the hospital room and into the Bangkok heat. Before returning to Piko’s cell, they stopped at Thammasat University to search for a book on the immolation of Thich Quang Duc. A single chapter in a collection of essays on Southeast Asian activism revealed the horror and patriotism of the event. A photograph of the melting monk paralyzed the reporter. The angst the immolation had once inspired returned in full. Through the fire, Gunnar could see a blackened face. But how? Ajahn Piko’s question weighed heavy as he viewed the supernatural feat in full color.

The reporter knew what a burn felt like. He had once fallen asleep to close a campfire while canoeing through Canada's Northwest Territories. His sleeping bag went ablaze and before he could free himself from his entombment, he suffered second-degree burns on his left foot and calf. His body convulsed in shock. As with the broken femur, he could not hold back the emotional response. Thereafter he considered the body’s reaction to pain as unavoidable: part of pain itself. To see a monk in perfect equilibrium as his skin bubbled made Gunnar re-think the potential of mind over body. The final photo showed charred bones in a meditation posture. How?

Walter Kronkite explained to an American audience why the monk had set himself on fire. He did not, however, enter the metaphysics of how someone could overcome pain in such a spectacular fashion. To a young Gunnar Ray the images were otherworldly. A bald, religious man ablaze; wailing farmers who looked different than his neighbors; all strangely alien . . . all tragically human at the same time.

At Piko’s jail cell he bowed his head in respect and placed the book next to the monk. Piko reached down and ran his fingers over the cloth cover. Without saying a word, he turned to the page that showcased the immolation. Beneath the image was a quote from David Halberstam of the New York Times who witnessed the gruesome scene firsthand.

I was to see that sight again, but once was enough. Flames were coming from a human being; his body was slowly withering and shriveling up, his head blackening and charring. In the air was the smell of burning flesh; human beings burn surprisingly quickly. Behind me I could hear the sobbing of the Vietnamese who were now gathering. I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to even think . . . As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him.

“So how did he do it?” Gunnar asked, “How can a man sit unmoved while his flesh is consumed by flame?”

Ajahn Piko hesitated. He hinted at giving an answer and then held back. He walked quietly to the opposite side of the cell. “There may exist places within and without where nothing changes; where darkness and light are one. In this sacred space, pleasure and pain, anything that can turn into its opposite, may be seen for the illusions they are. When this happens, the mind and body may be no longer compelled to react.”

“So have you ever met a monk like Thich Quang Duc . . . someone who has overcome the reaction to pain?”

Piko revisited the monks he had traveled through forests and over mountains with. “Only one that I can think of.” he said nodding. “He dwells in a cave atop Phuu Serow Mountain in Khao Yai National Park. His name is Ajahn Graduk.”

“And this monk can enter a state of non-being similar to what Duc experienced?”

“He dwells there perpetually. He never leaves the cave in fact.”

Gunnar was shocked by the revelation. He had given up hope that such an austere monk remained in Thailand. The idea of meeting a cave-dwelling recluse had inspired his first trip to Thailand. “Can I call on this monk? I have the weekend off and I need a break."

“I don’t see why not," Piko said, open to the proposition. "Ajahn Graduk has kept a journal of his travels. I have long said that someone should translate it into English. It is a historic document that details how he overcame suffering. There are plenty of farang monks in Thailand who would benefit. Why don't you and Lek translate that journal and send a copy to my friend, Ajahn Kanlayo.”

April 8

En-route to Khao Yai National Park, Gunnar contemplated what kind of monk, what kind of man, would choose to live alone in a cave for so many years? Who brings this Ajahn Graduk food? Does he have any ties to civilization? A portable radio? After a three-hour taxi ride, they stood at the base of the emerald mountain. Established in 1962, Khao Yai was the nation's oldest and most beloved National Park. Macaque monkeys lined the roadsides waiting for a handout. At least twenty tigers and 150 elephants roamed the park. Sambar deer, wild pigs, and 375 species of birds either passed through, or called the forest home.

And waterfalls! Thank Buddha for the waterfalls--without which, Khao Yai might lose half its protection. The Yosemite of Thailand, its proximity to Bangkok, combined with its wealth of natural wonders made it a retreat on the verge of being loved to death. A smaller, lightly traveled version of Khao Yai matched Piko's vision for Sua Yai Forest. With half of Thailand's remaining native forests protected by the park system, new legislation seemed the only way to ensure the long-term survival of his forest. The national parks inspired hope for a country blessed in natural beauty and diversity. Still, a park boundary is only as real as its enforcement against poachers and government officials. Boonsong Lekagul and Seab Nakhasathien served as reminders of that grim fact.

At a food stand just outside the park, Lek excused herself to go the bathroom. Gunnar patiently sipped his cola and waited for his guide's return. Ten minutes later, she emerged in a new wardrobe.

“Jesus Lek!” he said, stupefied by the heavy jeans, cotton sweatshirt, and scarf she wore. “Have you ever heard of heat stroke? It's ninety-five degrees out here. We’re on our way to climb a 1500-foot mountain. You’re going to sweat yourself to death.”

Lek scowled at the reporter. She did not appreciate his tone of voice. “You do not have to worry about Lek,” she said flipping the scarf around her neck. “I understand how to dress in hot weather. I living in Thailand my whole life you know.”

“Okay. Up to you. But there’s no way you’re going to get cold. I mean look at your forehead, you’re sweating just sitting here.”

With a heavy sigh, she rolled up her sleeves to reveal tan skin. She addressed Gunnar like a child ignorant in the adult ways of Thailand. “Mai ow phui dam,” she said in a high-pitched whine.

“You’re kidding me!” Gunnar replied, shocked by her vanity. “You’re willing to risk heat stroke to prevent your skin from taking on a little color? Khun baa baa bo bo . . . absolutely crazy.”

“Not crazy,” she responded forcefully. “White skin is beautiful kind of skin. Dark skin is very ugly kind. You ever see movie star in Thailand? They always have white skin. Bad person in movie always have dark skin. You want me to look like thief?”

“But Lek . . .”

“Look down the street . . . see, there are Thai people dressed the same as Lek.”

A hundred yards from the table, a work crew hauled pails of cement to a nearby job site. Both the women and men wore the same combat gear as Lek. Even more dramatic were the woolen ski masks that covered their faces. Like blue-collar burglars, they suffered for their skin, for their status.

“You see?” Lek said, pointing to her countrymen. “Not just my concern. Even road worker trying to keep his skin light. If you want to find a good job in Thailand or a good husband, you have to watch your color.”

Gunnar held the Bangkok-based entertainment industry partly responsible for propagating skin color as a nexus for status, intelligence, and beauty in Thai society. Soap operas in particular were a virtual closed shop to all but the China whites and leuk kreungs (half Thai / half farang stock). The Vietnam War, it seemed, had left more than just an improved infrastructure; it left corps of would-be movie stars as well. To get an audition, applicants had only to provide their father’s military dog tag. “Mr. Gunnar,” Lek said, sipping her cola with a quizzical look. “How come you farang like dark kind skin better than white kind anyway? You want Lek to teach you about Thai culture, I tell you that Thai people never understand why you crazy farang think dark skin is beautiful. We see you lying on the beach with no clothes and we thinking you ting tong.”

Lek’s question belonged to what Gunnar called the “fascinating five.” No Thai / farang acquaintance would be complete without Thailand's version of a Gallop's pole. Question One: Is there hii-maa tok (snow) in your home country? Two: How much is a plane ticket to Thailand? Three: Do you cheer for England’s Manchester United soccer team? And, do you think their star halfback is handsome? Four: (for men) do you have a girlfriend or wife and how firm is that relationship? Finally, the question on everybody’s mind in Thailand: how in Buddha’s name could you prefer dark skin above white?

Lek released her lips from the straw. “You know why Isan girl work in farang bar in Bangkok and Pattaya?”

“I guess I never thought about it . . .”

“It because many Isan girl have dark skin. Thai man, Malaysia man, Japanese man, they all like the Chiang Mai girl--white skin girl. They not pay money to take Isan girl home or try to make girlfriend. That why we always covering up. White skin helps us live better in Thailand. Keeps the food in the stomach.”

Gunnar paid for the sodas and joined Lek in a tuk tuk (three-wheeled taxi) for a short ride to the trailhead. En-route they passed an ornate shrine decorated with flowers. Two park rangers knelt before the image with incense sticks pressed between their hands.

"Do you understand what they doing?" Lek asked the reporter. "They are making prayer to the pii of a park ranger that was killed many years ago. Have many poacher coming into Khao Yai and they gonna kill anybody who try to stop them. These men make the offering and call on the protection of the park ranger pii to keep them safe from poacher’s gun."

Gunnar nodded. He sketched the strange scene in his journal. Lek's explanation reminded him why "wilderness" in the Western sense of "land in its natural state," would never catch on in Thailand. Pii ruled the land and the idea of there being a place without a ruler was an utterly foreign concept. As many of the pii were human ancestors, separating humans from nature was a tricky task indeed.

With a gallon of water in his pack, Gunnar took the lead. The dry, forested terrain resembled the arid foothills of northern California with species diversity times a thousand. A few raptors circled above, but in the oppressive heat, all others remained still. At the 500-foot mark Gunnar discovered the fresh droppings of what he guessed to be a marble cat. He sliced the scat open with a penknife to see what the animal had been eating.

“What the hell you doing?” Lek said, astonished by his past time. “Why you like playing with that stuff?"

Gunnar acknowledged her with a smile. She had a unique way of making him see his own culture. “Just trying to learn a little something about what the marble cats are feeding on this time of year.”

"I tell you honestly, that look like a very bad habit. Same as eating big meat. A man could lose his girlfriend if she see him touching that."

They continued up the mountain in silence. Light faded behind the mai pado trees and shadows offered welcome respite from direct sunlight. The plateau loomed far in the distance. With each step, Gunnar began to regret their late departure. He had underestimated the time it would take to climb the mountain. They reached the clearing twenty minutes after sunset. Exposed blocks of Jurassic Period sandstones jutted up from the field. Exhausted, they unloaded their packs in front of a cave sealed with aluminum fencing. A small gate in the center allowed passage. Ajahn Graduk, the monk that Piko reported "never left his cave," looked to have deserted his post. No footprints or signs of human occupation were anywhere to be seen.

Barely visible in the waning light, a carved wood sign proclaimed:

In learning how to die,

we can discover how to live.

“That’s cheerful.” Gunnar said with growing frustration. “But where is the monk who supposedly never leaves his cave?”

Lek unlatched the metal gate and pulled it toward her. “SA-WAT-DI . . .” she yelled. The cavern swallowed her voice and offered no reply. Gunnar pulled out a flashlight. Click, click. No light. He gave the plastic a whack on the granite and tried again.

“Damn Thai batteries.”

Bat guano. The stench reminded Gunnar of a childhood spelunking trip that went bad. Fifteen hours passed in a dark hole before a fireman’s spotlight illumined the way out. Next to cat urine on a shag rug, guano ranked as his least favorite smell in the animal kingdom.

Lek paced in front of the cave. “We gonna sleep behind the gate tonight, right?”

The thought of sleeping in a bat-filled cave made the reporter’s stomach turn. If only the holes in the gate were small enough to keep the bats out. “I would rather sleep under the stars than under the bats,” he said with frustration. “Wouldn't you?”

“This is Khao Yai! Are you crazy? Still have tiger around here. I not want to sleep with the tiger. And what about gnuu jong ang. Aren't you afraid?”

Gunnar hesitated. She had a point. The king cobra hunted at night. There must be a gate on the cave for a reason. “Okay Lek. We can sleep in the cave.”

The reporter discarded the useless flashlight and pushed into the darkness. He took to his hands and knees and inched across the cave bottom in search of a candle and matches: standard issue for cave-dwelling monks. Gunnar yelled back to Lek. “Your Uncle said I could ask Ajahn Graduk if I needed anything. I guess I expected he would have some matches."

“You saying you forgot to bring a lighter to make fire?”

Gunnar hesitated. “Yes. Pretty much.”

He brushed his hand in a sweeping motion over the dark cave floor. With each pass over the guano carpet, the sweet stench increased. Fifty feet into the belly of the earth, his fingers met a woodpile. Past the pile, a carved wood bowl. He fished through the bowl and uncovered what felt like a journal. Beneath the journal, he found his prize: safety matches and candles.

“We’ve got matches!” Gunnar yelled with excitement. “I’m going to break off a couple logs so we can have a fire before we fall asleep. He snapped off a couple pieces of dried wood and headed back toward the cave entrance. In front of the gate, he dropped the sticks onto the black earth. “Ajahn Graduk has some things to learn about camp etiquette,” he lamented. “He must have dragged a small tree in there. He could have at least broke the branches and stacked the wood."

The first pass of the match over granite yielded a spark, but no light. Gunnar tried again. A flame quivered. He reached for a candle and lit the wick. As the flame caught he brought light to the woodpile.

“SON OF A BITCH!” he screamed, dropping the candle to the earth.

“WHAT!” Lek yelled back terrified. “WHAT YOU SEE.”

“DEAD MAN . . . WE’VE GOT A DEAD MAN!”

“Where dead man?” Her voice cracked in fear. "The flame go out. What you see."

“Those are bloody human bones below us Lek. Not logs. Bones! I just hauled half a human skeleton out of the cave!”

“Who dead body?”

“HOW SHOULD I KNOW!” Gunnar pressed his back against the warm granite. “All I know is that I must have grabbed a couple femurs. No. Worse. I broke the damn things off thinking they were sticks.” Gunnar felt queasy as he realized what he had done. Lek stared into the darkness below. “Ohh this bad. Very, very bad. We gonna have ghost come tonight. I just know it.”

Gunnar’s leg started to shake.

“Maybe he's an animal, not a man,” Lek said, trying to salvage hope. “Many animal like to die in a cave you know.”

Her explanation shed a glimmer of hope to the dark moment. Gunnar cautiously reached down and located the matches. He struck the rough stone and lit the candle. “Ohh Jesus!” he said moaning. “Look at that Lek. Those are stinking leg bones. That’s Homo-erectus. One even has a foot attached!”

A small patch of dehydrated skin remained on the toes and added to the grisly scene.

“So what you going to do?”

“I’m going to give this guy his legs back. That’s the least I can do.”

The reporter scooped the bones under an arm and crawled back into the cave. He cautiously placed the femurs back into their hip sockets. The one-time college student who dreamed of meditating at funeral pyres quickly reconsidered his aspiration. Beneath the skeleton lay a ground cloth: saffron in color--once brilliant, now faded. Gunnar shifted his attention from the cloth to the wooden bowl. Begging bowl.

AJAHN GRADUK!

"Lek, I’m pretty sure we’ve got a dead monk in here.”

“How you know him a monk?”

“Well, I’ve got his begging bowl in my hands and there are pieces of his saffron robe scattered on the cave floor.”

“You broke a monk’s legs off!”

Gunnar did not answer.

“I tell you now, we going to have ghost come tonight."

“I don’t want to hear that kind of talk,” Gunnar said with growing frustration.

“So he smell bad?”

“Like bat shit. I think your Uncle neglected to tell us that the reason Ajahn Graduk has remained in the cave so long is because he is DEAD.”

“Yes. That sound like Uncle's kind of humor. Graduk means bones in Thai language you know."

Gunnar shook his head at the obvious explanation. "I guess your Uncle is trying to tell me something. The only way to overcome pain in this life is to frickin’ die."

"So where we sleep now?”

Lek’s question placed the metaphysical inquiry on hold. To search for another cave did not sound appealing. Plus, the western hills of Khao Yai contained malaria-infected mosquitoes. To wander at night, without netting, invited trouble.

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to hole up here tonight.”

“With dead monk?”

“Yes.”

“I not going to close my eyes the whole night.”

“Tomorrow we can look for a different place. Go ahead and bring your pack in.”

The rusty hinge creaked as Lek entered the cave. Her shadow danced across the wall while her feet sank softly into the guano carpet. She curled her lips in disgust at the sight of the skeleton. “I hope he was good monk,” she said, staring at the candle-lit bones. “If he good, his bones still gonna have saksit. Maybe that enough to keep the pii away. But if he bad . . .”

“No more talk of pii,” Gunnar said, refusing to give into primordial fears. “I want to sleep tonight. So tell me, have you ever seen a dead person before? I mean, actually seen the body like this?”

Lek’s eyes remained fixed on the skeleton. “Yes, of course. Many time. Grandfather die in Lek’s house. We keep the body on the floor for three days. That's our tradition you know. Have man and wife in nearby village die of AIDS already. He go to prostitute and bring the HIV back to his wife. Everybody watch as they growing thin and lose their power. Maa Pii said the "Skinny Ghost" got them. But the doctor tell us they die because of AIDS. And one time I see motorcycle go under bus in Bangkok. Him die too. Also see bus go off the road. That time many people die on the street. Oh yeah, have two babies die in Lek village also. I forgot about that. How about you. You see dead kind of people before?”

Lek’s laundry list humbled the reporter. The face of death had eluded him for all his twenty-six years. The closest he had come to an actual dead body was a chalk outline of an accident victim on a Michigan street. Some impatient pedestrian wrestled his way to a street corner, stepped off the curb, and caught a garbage truck head on. Horrified spectators reported seeing his body do a 360 around the man-sized front tire. The policeman who drew the chalk rendering either had a morbid sense of humor, or a penchant for details: the outline of the head lay two feet away from the rest of his torso. Such is death in America--a chalk rendering; an image on the silver screen. Lek’s list spoke to the two different life experiences.

“I saw a chalk outline of a dead man,” Gunnar said humbly.

“That it? That all you see?”

“Okay,” he snapped defiantly. “I saw the skeleton of our family cat as well. He got stuck between a floorboard and a water pipe under our house. The little guy starved to death. A plumber found him two years later with his bony little paws dangling two inches above the ground.”

“So you only see dead cat, never human body?”

“It was a family cat.”

The flame continued to feed on the candle wax. Gunnar removed an old shirt from his pack and dusted off a wood platform near the skeleton. As he worked, he thought about the wily monk who led him to the cave. Ajahn Piko must have enjoyed a good laugh at his expense. With the platform swept, he laid a blanket down for Lek. Next, he dusted a spot off on the floor for himself. His fleece pillow would keep his nose five-inches above the guano. Lek had the better of the two arrangements . . . her platform luxurious compared to Gunnar’s date with the floor.

The flame of the candle flickered and then disappeared. Gunnar closed his eyes and watched the images of the day pass before him. As he began to drift off, Lek’s voice emerged from the darkness.

“You asleeping?”

He did not feel like answering. “Almost . . . Why?”

“I have to tell you something.”

“Tell me quickly,” Gunnar said wearily.

“It bad manner in Thailand if you point foot at person’s head. Before candle go out, I see your foot point at monk’s head. That is worst kind of disrespect. You tell me to teach you Thai culture. Now I teach you. I cannot sleep thinking about your foot at Ajahn Graduk's head.”

The thought of stirring up the guano floor made for an irritable reporter. Gunnar pleaded his case. “Lek, I really don’t think the monk will mind. Look at him. He probably hasn’t lost his temper in eighty years. He’s not human anymore. He’s not a monk. He’s just dead. And in my culture it’s impolite for a dead person to assert himself on a living person.”

Lek thought briefly through Gunnar’s words. “He might be dead, but he still a monk.”

“Okay Lek . . . I’m moving. Hear that shuffle . . . that’s my sleeping bag changing directions. That’s me making you happy and respecting the dead monk. If I have bad dreams tonight because I put my head next to a skeleton, you will have to listen to me complain all day tomorrow.”

“You a good man Gunnar. Next life maybe you will come back as monk.”

“So I can end up dead in a cave. No thanks! I want to come back as a migrating bird who sees the country on the wing.”

“You strange man also you know that? Why you want to be born in a lower animal form? Maybe American man is crazy man.”

“Baa baa bo bo right?”

“Right. You very Baa baa bo bo.”

At precisely 5:18 AM nature’s alarm clock went off. A single wrinkled lip bat squeezed through the wire of the cage and circled erratically through the darkness. Lek opened an eye. She pulled the light blanket over her nose. The wings of the bat fluttered like a small flag in a stiff wind. One flag became two. She listened with concern as the pair conducted unseen aerial displays. One of the bats landed on the limestone above her. “Seet bataateet whit tit taleet tsuu tsuu tsuu.” Her heart raced as she struggled to identify the stranger.

The second bat answered from the opposite side of the cave. “Seet bataateet whit tit taleet tsuu tsuu tsuu.”

With a pair of bats plotting against her in the darkness, Lek could no longer keep silent.

“Gunnar,” she said in a forced whisper. “You asleeping?”

The exhausted reporter did not respond.

“Seet bataateet whit tit taleet tsuu tsuu tsuu.”

Afraid to raise her voice and set the bats flying, she reached for her shoe. She hurled it through the darkness in Gunnar’s direction.

A sharp pain on his side stirred him from his torpor. “WHHHOOO. WHHAAT.”

“Gunnar,” Lek whispered. “We’ve got two bats in the cave. I worry that maybe they the blood drinker kind.”

Gunnar rubbed his side as he came to his senses. He took hold of Lek’s thick shoe and hurled it to the other side of the cave.

“Lek! Keep your shoes to yourself! I had a very long day. I’m tired. I don’t care if a snake sleeps in my armpit right now.”

“But we have two bats. Before they just flying. Now they keep talking. I worry that they might be the blood drinkers. You’re the nature man. Open your eyes and tell me what they saying.”

“Lek. I don’t speak bat. And even if I could, I am too tired to care about what they are saying. They are probably asking each other why the farang put his head next to a dead body.”

Lek reached for her other shoe. “That not funny you know.” She cocked her arm and threw it at Gunnar.

“Owww!” The rubber bounced off his hip. “Stop doing that!”

“So you not gonna fix the problem?”

“Lek. I can’t even see my own feet. Let’s face it. It’s their cave and we are the visitors.”

“What about Ajahn Graduk? This is the monk’s cave. We should fight the bats and make them leave. I think it bad manner that they always flying over the monk and talking nonsense.”

Gunnar did not answer. He changed positions and hoped his silence would encourage Lek to sleep.

She stared into the dark. “Okay. I try to close my eyes again. But can you promise me that these are not the blood drinkers?”

Gunnar paused and listened in on the conversation between the spires. “Seet bataateet whit tit taleet tsuu tsuu tsuu.”

“Don't worry. Those are wrinkled lip bats. They are actually somewhat rare. They hunt insects in the forest. Since much of the forest is gone, there are only few of these species left.”

“Okay, I will try to sleep.”

As Gunnar nodded off, a breeze blew through the cave. In his dreamlike state, he imagined that Lek had just turned on a squeaky ceiling fan.

“GUNNAR!!!”

The chaos of hundreds of bats returning to the cave drowned out Lek's scream. The metal gate rattled as they squeezed through a limited number of holes.

“HELP!” Lek’s voice roused the reporter. “QUICK! COME HERE GUNNAR. SAVE ME FROM THE BATS.”

The bat breeze increased the stench of the cave. Gunnar crawled through the deafening squeals and slipped under Lek’s blanket. He pulled the cotton over his head as protection against the mayhem above. Lek wrapped her arms around the reporter. They lay face to face in the darkness. “You think we gonna die? Maybe they angry that we steal their cave.”

The screeches were maddening. “We’ll be okay,” Gunnar said above the noise. “Just stay under the blanket.”

He felt Lek’s heartbeat. In a strange way, it was all rather romantic. Her arms remained tight around his body. He could feel the contours of her breasts through the thin cotton of his shirt. He stroked her long hair and then ran his hand gently over her cheek. “I imagine they go through this little ritual every morning. They don’t want to hurt us.”

“Alright. I trust you. Just stay with me until they leave.”

Lek’s warm breath on his lips stirred the reporter. He opened his mouth and accepted her exhale into his body. In the exchange, the sound of the bats seemed to disappear altogether. Gunnar waited, hoped, that Lek would press her lips against his.

But she fell asleep.

They awoke to a less offensive caller in the form of a velvet-fronted nuthatch. Outside the cave he retrieved water from a stream. Parched wood made for a hot, short-lived fire. He boiled water for pasta. His smoke-stained pot had traveled to four continents and down a thousand miles of Canadian rivers.

Lek emerged from the cave. She made no protest about the pasta being “dinner fare.” The Thai menu changed little from dawn to dusk. Following breakfast, the reporter retrieved his sketchpad and traveled down a narrow forest path. He picked up the faint prints of a serow--the wild goat that the mountain was named after. He took to his hands and knees and tracked the animal. The arid land reached into him and tapped his veins for life-giving water. Against the bone-dry earth he felt like an oasis. Beads of sweat fell off his forehead and onto the thirsty ground. He followed the tracks under a deadfall and into an open savannah. The sign disappeared amidst the high grasses.

He returned to the campfire to find Lek resting comfortably in the cave entrance. With Ajahn Graduk’s diary in hand, he leaned against a tree just outside the cave. “Come on over here Lek," he said waving to her. "Help me translate this diary. I can’t read the monk’s handwriting. If the grandfathers of your language would have only used spaces between the words . . .”

Lek looked at the sunlight reflecting off Gunnar’s legs. She thought twice about leaving the cave. “Why don‘t you come in here and work?”

“Well, I guess there are a couple of reasons: first, there’s a dead body in there; second, it’s a beautiful day and the sunlight will only be bearable for another hour.”

“You and Uncle have the same dislike of caves you know. Uncle tell me that if I stay out of caves and stay out of Bangkok, then in the next life maybe I will be born as monk.”

Gunnar submitted. He always did for Lek. “You’re not going to come out the cave right?"

She flashed an appreciative smile. “Maybe I’m gonna be a bat in the next life.”

He rose to his feet and slipped in beside her. As he opened the journal, a dusty black and white photo of a man, woman, and a novice monk appeared. Ajahn Graduk and family? Next to the photo was a soapstone carving of the historic Buddha. Gunnar studied the faces while Lek thumbed at the amulet. The man and woman, in typical Thai fashion, showed no emotion. The Thai custom of looking grim for a photo, while smiling in just about every other social situation held true.

“He's a cute monk don’t you think?” Lek said, staring at the chiseled features of Ajahn Graduk when he still had skin.

“He’s not supposed to be cute; he’s supposed to be a monk.”

“Yeah. But a cute monk.”

Gunnar positioned himself against the cave wall for a long spell of writing. The scent of Lek's skin improved the musty stench. She opened the book to page one. Her soft voice told the monk's story. As she spoke, Gunnar translated her words into some of the following passages:

March 12, 1908

This entry marks our (110th mile) and 8^th day on the trail to Ayuthaya. In the former capital we will spend a rains retreat. We departed Nakorn Phanom (Western Isan) under clear skies and hot temperatures. I would have started this journal earlier but our pace has been swift. Pra Kongkrat and Pra Chaiwan are my companions in this (400 mile) journey. Pra Kongkrat, twenty-four, is three years younger than I. Pra Chaiwan is five years younger than Pra Kongkrat. I feel inspired to write as last night we encountered a forest animal. Against the wisdom passed on by our elders, Pra Chaiwan set up his mosquito netting on the main walking trail. A juvenile boar, under chase by some predator, collided with the sleeping monk. Fortunately, it was a small pig and not a forest buffalo. Otherwise, Pra Chaiwan might have awoken to cracked ribs. I suspect he will not set up camp in such a foolish manner again.

March 29

Today is the seventeenth day of our pilgrimage to Wat Bin Bao in Ayutayah. We have traveled nearly (215 miles) through some of the thickest jungle I have ever seen. The last three weeks we split our time between two forest villages. Ban Baa Rawp Chang (Wild Elephant Surrounding Village) housed thirty families. Many of the people were in some way related to one another. We saw five elephants not far from the village. This settlement has been living in fear of a tiger that has taken both men and cattle. The people in this settlement eat much wild food. Monkeys live in the surrounding treetops and the men are very adept at shooting them with arrows. I broke a vow by refusing to eat the food given to me when undercooked monkey was placed in my begging bowl. I have long believed monkeys to be victims of craving and a nervous temper. I did not want such food to disturb my meditation. The second village we stayed in, Ban Phuu Dang (Village of the Red Mountian) was larger and more developed.

The wound on Pra Chaiwan’s foot continues to fester. I now feel guilty that I chided him when he fell in the stream and injured it. He does not complain during the day, but last night, Pra Kongkrat heard him sobbing. Each day the foot gets more gruesome to look at.

April 4

This morning we traveled through a nameless village filled with nomads. They could not speak our language and I do not think they had ever seen a Buddhist monk before. Our bowls were open, our stomachs empty, but they offered no food. They did not understand the custom of giving food freely to monks. These people were dark skinned with flat noses. Some of the children ran behind crude thatch houses and began yelling at us in their mother tongue. An old man shook a turtle rattle and mumbled something indiscernible. With our shaved heads and saffron robes, I believe he thought us to be some kind of forest spirits. We left the village weak with hunger.

We arrived at another village the next morning. Two days had passed without food. Fortunately, these peasants revered the Buddha. They offered us food. We were forced to refuse as the noon hour had passed. Pra Chaiwan was ready to break the precepts and take the offering. He is not the strongest of monks that I have traveled with. At my request, the villagers allowed us to spend the night in their cremation grounds. We meditated with our stomachs growling the entire night. The camp reeked of fresh death from an inadequate burial. The decay helped curb my appetite.

April 7

Meditating in a cave I entered a deep state of samadhi and completely lost track of time. I believe I experienced a jhanic state--I did not tell the other monks fearing that they might think me to be posing as an arahat (enlightened one).

May 3

The monsoon has arrived to this part of Isan. With my head on the earth I could hear the rumble of life stir within. In three days, this brown mountain will once again be green. Pra Chaiwan refused to lay down all night out of fear of snakes. He said the first rain drives them into a feeding frenzy. I wished the snakes peace and loving kindness and slept soundly.

May 5

Yesterday was my twenty-eighth birthday.

May 7

We came upon a very poor village. The rains we knew on the mountain did not reach this village on the flatlands. Villagers say the rains have come late every year for the past three years. Out of desperation, I watched as they strapped a cat to a palanquin and paraded it throughout the village. Village elders took turns poking and prodding the cat until its screams could be heard all the way to the Mekong River. I had never seen such an act but Pra Chaiwan says his village performed a similar ritual when he was a boy. The spirits, he said, abhor the cat’s wails and provide rain to stop the noise. I choose to follow the Buddha’s teachings and discount such a calculation of cause and effect. Pra Chaiwan, however, insists that torturing a cat will indeed bring rain.

May 10

The rains have brought fever to my body. My skin resembles the pattern on the back of a salamander. This morning, my bed sheet was wet with sweat from the disease. Pra Kongkrat is very concerned.

May 12

The fever continues to weaken me. As soon as I start to feel better, the pain and sweats return. My joints ache to the point of rendering me immobile. I have begun writing letters to my family. Pra Kongkrat said that I slipped into delirium and was speaking nonsense.

May 15

I awoke this morning with a sharp pain in my side. Pra Chaiwan took to beating me with a stick. Each time he lacerated my skin he screamed something about ridding me of a pii. I tripped him to the ground to stop the beating. It took ten minutes to convince him that I am still a man, not a dreaded ghost. Still, he will not turn his back to me. I told Pra Kongkrat that this monk is of low learning and shall not go far on the Buddhist path. I insisted that both continue onto Wat Bin Bao without me. I would rather deal with my illness alone than be in the company of a fool. I have resolved to climb Phuu Serow Mountain to search out some herbs and to heal myself with plants and meditation.

May 18

The jungle fever grows worse by the day. The flesh that carried me up the mountain has deserted my bones. I have taken up residence in a small cave on the eastern flank of Phuu Serow. I continue to gather herbs. Villagers bring me food once a day. The sickness, however, continues. I tried to meditate on the pain as the Buddha taught, but my mind is weak and filled with images of death.

May 20

As my body continues to fail, I have intensified my search for the “self” that will die should the fever continue to consume me. I yet feel great anxiety over the possibility of death. A monk is supposed to conquer this fear but I remain very much afraid. I will search for the “self” that was born, has made the journey through the years, and may die in this cave if this fever persists. My fear of death is a fear of the ending of a self. But where is this self? Who is it?

May 22

Each day the villagers from Ban Klai Khao bring food that I cannot eat. I am losing the battle with the jungle fever. My pain, however, has made me more deeply aware of the Buddha’s teaching on the three marks of suffering. The wisdom of this teaching is moving. Dukkha is now almost beautiful if for no other reason that it can be understood. The fever has reinforced the first mark: the pain of pain. There are times when my head feels pressed between two rocks and brain slowly eaten by some hungry ghost inside of me. My joints are so stiff as to ache with each beat of my heart. As I reflect back over my life, rarely has there been a week when this body was not in some way sore or aching.

This fever has likewise confirmed the second mark of suffering: the pain of anicca. Having examined the skhandas of thought, feeling, and form I have seen change in an intimate way. This constant transition between states--in health, as well as sickness--is suffering in its own right. All that is pleasant has its counterpart in all that is unpleasant. At my happiest, I am aware that this feeling cannot last. This eternal rotation is suffering in itself. To hold onto something that is bound to change intensifies the suffering: I have started to let go.

The third mark of suffering that I have confirmed is the underlying tension and anxiety in this body that the Buddha spoke of. Even in “good health” I experienced this despite my fitness. We sentient beings are cursed by the need to always be “doing” something. Even this wandering is a product of the compulsion to set objectives that will deliver us from our current state of dissatisfaction. The steady breath given to us at birth does not satisfy us. Even in my weakened state I can feel the churning and shuffling of trsna within.

May 23, 1908

As I drank from the stream I had a vision. Cold water entered my ailing body and warm sun reflected off my back. I lost awareness of being an individual separate from the world around me. Mountain water and the flesh into which it poured; penetrating sun and the skin that reflected it; air within and without; all moving, shifting, and changing. In that blessed exchange it seemed beautifully obvious that a piece of me was in everything. Everything! The sun, water, and earth were my body. The rain, river, and sea became my blood. Great is the mystery! This subtle sense of “self” that appears to separate us from the ten thousand things is but a part of nature as well: a flower petal, a fig tree. Yes. Even that familiar sense is not our own. The freedom! A self never born can never die. Freedom I say! There is pain, but not “my” own. And without a “self,” there is no fear. Having lost fear, suffering becomes a passing cloud in an endless sky. In May that cloud becomes rain. The stream swells into a river and everywhere parched earth gives way to new grasses. Something continues. That is enough. For I know now that I am a part of that something . . .

Should this body die, leave it to the insects until there is nothing left but bone. Preserve these bones so that other monks might meditate on the corpse. Let it serve as a reminder of the impermanence of life. Call me Ajahn Graduk (Teacher of the Bones). I am very sleepy, but will write more in the morning about my trust in the Buddha.

“That’s all.” Lek closed the tattered book. “He not write any more after he go to sleep.”

“That’s because he died Lek. Those were his last words.”

“Yes. I think you right. He die of pii and nobody helping him.”

“It was malaria. Jungle fever.”

“Sound like pii to me. But, maybe you right.”

Gunnar dated the notebook and passed it to Lek for her to sign off. He titled the translation.

Quiet Footsteps, Broken Path

A Journal

by

Ajahn Graduk

In spite of the message, the premature death of the forest wanderer left the reporter melancholic. He exited the cave and walked to the forest edge. He observed that the colors of the setting sun, while brilliant, were also fading. An Asian fairy bluebird in a nearby tree, while melodic, also seemed nervous and edgy. The grasses near the trail were brown tipped. Down the footpath, he passed by the mangled flesh of a field mouse: eaten, digested, and excreted. Life and beauty became death and darkness everywhere he looked. He reflected on the time he witnessed a Canadian goose descend from the heavens and crash headfirst into the ground. It marked the only occasion that he had ever witnessed death from old age in the bird kingdom. Where once he saw harmony and balance, he now felt a certain apprehension at the entire arrangement of life and death. Insects feasting on plants; rodents devouring insects; mammals eating rodents; humans eating mammals. Samsara. Endless. Cyclical. Suffering.

Gunnar returned to find Lek sitting in a lotus position. She faced the final colors of the western sky. “Nice time of night?” he said quietly, taking a seat next to her.

“Yeah. I just thinking.”

“About the monk?”

“About how everybody have to die. I want to understand how the monk stop being afraid of death?”

“The eternal question.”

“So you think if I do meditation, I will not be afraid?”

Gunnar paused. “It worked for Ajahn Graduk.”

“And what you think about heaven? Before, farang tell me that if I believe in Pra Yehsoo (Jesus) then I will go to heaven and not have to worry about death. You think that a good idea?”

“I guess that works for some people. But I don’t think that was Ajahn Graduk's way. He stopped believing in anything--including his “self.” By letting go, he found peace.”

“So you not follow Pra Yehsoo?”

“My Grandmother’s Christian. She isn’t afraid of death. She thinks God has a condo rented for her in heaven that cleans itself automatically every two hours.”

“That funny.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe I will believe in both.”

Gunnar placed a hand on Lek's shoulder. He caressed her back in slow, circular motions. “Stop worrying. You are only twenty-two years old,” he said with reassurance. “You have a full life ahead of you.”

“But sometime life is shorter than we want.”

25

They spent the night beneath an overhanging cliff: in view of the stars, in fear of the tigers. Lek gazed up at distant planets. Gunnar gazed at Lek. He half-hoped that some creature of the Thai night would drive her back into his arms. Her soft touch had awakened feelings that lay dormant since he said good-bye to Kelly. Still, so much of her life remained a mystery to him. His attraction was based half on what he knew, half on what he hoped for. And he hoped like hell she did not go home with men for money. Still, deep down he knew that no bar girl escaped three years in Bangkok without some scars. In the City of Angels, you don't change the devil; the devil changes you.

Lek’s Village: Three Years Ago

A cloud of red dirt rose high above the withering banana fronds.

Children emerged from rice fields to greet the stranger. No one in the village owned a truck, car, or anything capable of sending the earth skyward. Probably he was a government official. It had been nearly two months since the last ambassador of deceit delivered a promise he could not keep. Last time it was some fairy tale about an electric generator for the village. Three months before that, there was talk of proper vaccinations for the children. In spite of the broken promises, villagers lined the street to catch a glimpse of the newcomer.

And there was excitement . . . if only to break up the doldrums of the heat wave. When the dust settled, only the tinks, panks, and pinks of the hot engine remained. A man in his early fifties wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses and a polyester suit emerged from the car. Villagers smiled as he walked past their meager plywood houses. They smiled not because they were happy to see him, but because they hoped to pacify him . . . to stave off any harm he might bring. He did not smile back. He did not return their bows. Through a gallery of stares he walked with an air of indifference. He offered no explanation as to the purpose of his visit. The attention bored him. How many villages had he walked through to propagate his trade?

On the underside of his chin grew a sizable mole. Black flesh: a fungus more apt to be found in the shade of a tree than on the face of a man. Whiskers emerged in a southerly direction from its center. From the crowd lining the street, he picked a smiling boy to serve as his guide. “Give me a tour,” Mole insisted. “And I will give you more money than you make in a week. With an eager guide by his side, the stranger surveyed the village. Through dark glasses, he scanned the dusty compound in search of some unknown prize. At the village well he paused. Four young girls, each wrapped in a cotton sarong, laughed and joked as they poured cool water over their heads and onto their bodies. Mole watched as each splash revealed the contours of teenage flesh.

Like a jeweler examining fine stones, he studied the women before him. His eyes followed their exposed calves, covered thighs, legs, breasts, and faces. The boy looked on as well: but only for a moment. His mother had beat him for spying on the maidens. The mere sight of naked skin brought back the sting of the scolding.

Lek was the last to splash water over her body. As her wet bangs parted, she made eye contact with Mole. Embarassed. The water penetrated cotton revealing curves and contours that neither of her friends had. Mole removed a notepad from his leather handbag. “The girl on the left,” he said to the boy. “What is her name?”

“Lek.”

“What does her father do?”

“Farms rice.”

“Was last year’s crop worse than the year before?”

“Worse. Each dry season we add more rope to the bucket to fetch the water from the well.”

“Yes,” Mole observed scanning the houses. “Yours is a poor village.”

“Have you come to help us?” the boy asked.

“No.”

“Why are you here then Sir?”

Mole grew up in the merchant class of Bangkok's Chinatown. As a young man, he worked in his father’s exporting business. His first trip to Isan came in the 1960's when the region still had large pockets of forest. His family exported endangered species to foreign countries: Japan, Korea, Malaysia. Among other rarities, the freight included white-handed gibbons, baby leopards, and great hornbills. Mole gave a small percentage to the villagers who captured the game and kept the rest.

Rampant logging depleted his supply. For a spell, the man who caged and shipped animals sided with the environmentalists. He even approached Thai officials to warn that many endangered species were on the verge of extinction. So long as they remained threatened: neither plentiful nor extinct, Mole had a successful business.

In spite of his pleas, humans replaced the animals in every corner of the country. The entrepreneur followed the market and began to trade virgin women, instead of immature gibbons. Often he traveled above Chiang Mai to break up hill tribe families. Amidst the poorest of the poor: Yao, Lisu, Lahu, and Hmong, he found a few fathers who were willing to sacrifice their daughters for the equivalent of a year's wages. Isan was a tougher sell. In the Northeast, to sell a daughter brought great shame to a family. Most Isan women joined the trade on their own volition. Many made a conscious choice to help their families. But Mole had a special order. A Chinese-Thai client with a peculiar taste for brown-skinned girls had placed an order. The hill tribe women were too pale for his fetish. Mole turned to Isan to fill the order. He chose Ban Nam Sai because of its primitive state. He expected to find families thirsting for modernity: fathers willing to make the sacrifices necessary to enter the 20th century. He would never grasp that the people before him valued self-sufficiency above all else. They chose to live close to the land, close to the forest. Ajahn Piko had made the trappings of modernity abundantly clear.

Mole grabbed the camera from the boy's hand and snapped a photo of Lek. Of the women, she alone held his interest. His eyes returned again and again to the wet cloth that wrapped her thighs. Even at a distance he could see her perfect teeth framed by full lips. Teeth were important to Mole. Not his teeth--which were crooked as a willow--but the teeth of the girls that he marketed. A good smile could overcome a fat body. But Lek was not fat. She was just right for Mole.

Seventy-two hours later he returned with cash in an envelope. He arrived at night and parked his truck a safe distance from the houses. Dogs barked, but no one emerged. Could be a ghost. Mole walked past the well where he had spotted Lek. He followed the dirt road until he came to the headman's house. Santipap sat outside finishing off a bottle of home brewed lau khau. Mole tapped the half-drunken man on the shoulder. He announced that he had come to talk business.

As Mole sat down, Lek opened her bedroom window. Even in the dark, she could make out the strands of black hair jutting from his chin. Mole reached into his pocket and placed ($500.00) on the wood table. The cash exceeded the farmer's annual income. Santipap knew well where his principal wealth lay. His face turned white at the thought of losing his daughter to the trade. Without saying a word, he shut the door on his guest. Mole slipped a business card beneath the handle. When the dry season peaked, a father's pride often gave way to a farmer's needs.

Four days later, with Mole’s discarded business card in her purse, Lek boarded a bus for Bangkok. She told her family she was going to work at a downtown hotel. Rumors that Sua Yai would soon fall to the ax and that Ban Nam Sai would be relocated inspired her decision. Her youngest brother was at the top of his class. Without support, he would not be able to study beyond grade school. If Lek took the money now, she could help her father prepare for hard times and her brother live his dream. If a year or two passed and desperation followed, she would be too old to command a high price for her virginity.

In Bangkok, she lay in alone in one of Mole's holding tanks. The time had come for her to make the ultimate sacrifice for her family. A knock on the door brought an end to her speculation. Visitor. He arrived early; or maybe she had just lost track of time. An elderly man greeted her: his thin, frail, body covered by expensive cloths. He removed his top hat and smiled. His teeth were yellow and crooked. A black bicuspid made for a Halloween smile.

This was the man whose seed would fertilize the family farm.

He half-believed in the Chinese adage that: "intercourse with virgins prolonged a man’s life." True or not, sex with young strangers satiated him. He planned to take Lek out of her windowless room to a hotel. They would have dinner in his room, champagne. He wanted to make it romantic for her . . . this being her first time. But when he saw the youth in her eyes, the innocence, he could not hold himself back. He mumbled a few things about her beauty and groped her. He took her right there in the steamy bedroom scarcely bigger than a closet. His bony fingers worked over the buttons on her blouse. One by one they fell under his shaking hand. He tasted her stomach and then licked the skin over her ribs. From his pant's pocket, he retrieved a small pair of scissors. He cut the bra strap rather than fumble with it. The source of his great hunger revealed itself. Lek watched in disgust as his yellow teeth circled her brown nipples. The man raised his head and stared into her terrified eyes. He opened his mouth and brought his tongue toward her face. His rancid breath smelled of fish. Lek tried to turn away but he would not be refused. He held her chin with a firm hand. That old man with his awful white tongue surged into her mouth. What followed: the removal of her underwear; the ripping of flesh; the excruciating pain between her legs, overwhelmed her. Lek passed out in the man’s arms.

For two days and nights she remained alone in her room. She drank sink water and accepted the meager food delivered to her. On the third day, Mole informed her that another man would call that evening. “You’re a virgin,” he insisted, “until I tell you otherwise.” And that’s just what she became. A virgin whore. After the third customer, the blood no longer flowed. With her virginity spent, Mole planned on transferring her to a Chinatown brothel. From behind glass, with a number on her chest, intoxicated men would pick her number up to four times a night. Aware of what lay ahead, Lek excused herself to go to the bathroom. She disappeared down a dimly lit alley, into the black heart of Bangkok.

In a cloth factory, she earned eighteen dollars for a fifty-five hour workweek. Around her were other girls from the Northeast. All worked the same long hours for the same low pay. She made friends from Sisaket, Burriram, Roi Et, and other poor Isan provinces. All were farmers’ daughters with younger siblings to help support. After eight months in the factory, Lek’s lungs became so inflamed by the treated fibers that she ended up in a hospital. On a bus ride to another factory job, she spied the King’s Court and the other bars on Soi IV. She got off the bus, put on a maid’s outfit, and earned a livable wage. That was three years ago.

26

April 12

For the first time since heading to Ban Nam Sai, Gunnar returned to the Bangkok Times. He entered the newsroom with amulets in hand. Ex-patriot reporters looked up from their computer screens. Silence. Then, in unison, the newsroom erupted in cheer. His peers, the people whose opinions he valued most, rose to their feet. His articles had brought an international spotlight not just to the forgotten province of Burriram, but also to the largest English-speaking newspaper in Thailand. The Thai papers had been playing catch up. They published day-old re-treads of Gunnar's articles. The Associated Press had picked up two of his articles.

His public relations campaign led to the release of Anan and the three other villager men beaten and imprisoned for their role in the protest march. Ajahn Piko, however, remained behind bars. Like a tropical Santa Claus, Gunnar handed out amulets from a cloth sack. Kittikarn Manjai, the Times’ classified ads writer, handed him a bag of home-baked cookies as he passed by. “My daughter made them American-style just for you. Steve said you would be in today. My sister and her family were relocated by the Kau Jau Kau. You are doing something good for Thailand. Maybe you can prevent this from happening to Ban Nam Sai.”

Steve met the reporter just outside his office. He put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him inside. “You’re a brave son of a bitch Gunnar Ray. I’m proud to have you on my staff.” In the carnival atmosphere of the past weeks, Gunnar had almost forgotten the short life span of promising environmentalists. He didn’t feel brave, just busy. Still, his role in taking on the Kau Jau Kau and rallying for the release of Ajahn Piko had made him a high profile activist.

After debriefing the reporter, Steve raised the idea of selling Ajahn Piko amulets by mail order. Of course, he wanted to raise the price to make a profit, but that was negotiable. "You are probably gong to win some awards for your articles you know," Steve said, opening his office door. “Hope you don't leave us for the New Your Times too soon."

Gunnar blushed at the compliment. He returned to his mailbox and filled his Santa’s sack with letters from concerned readers. At his desk, he read through the praise and scorn that his activism had earned him. A British reader called him “a meddling American ass” for undermining a foreign government. A German living in Phuket suggested that his biased reporting made him "untrustworthy" and "a disgrace to the industry." Most of the mail, however, was written in support of Ajahn Piko and his cause. An Australian reader shared that she "lit a new candle for each day that Piko remained behind bars." A third grade class from Burriram's Long Rian Elementary School sent hand written letters with pictures of trees, birds and one three-legged elephant to deliver to Ajahn Piko. By 6:00 PM, the newsroom emptied. A few postcards and a padded manila envelope remained on his desk. Gunnar bit into a corner of the envelope. The contents poured onto his wood desk. He retrieved a cup of coffee before sifting through the contents. When he returned, he caught site of a handwritten note that read:

“See what happens to environmentalists in this country?

See what is going happen to you!”

Gunnar frowned. He untied what felt like photographs wrapped in rice paper. Coffee spilled onto the table as he stared aghast at photos of cut up human flesh. He reached for an image of a woman whose breasts had been sliced off. Next, he gazed in horror at a man with a knife sticking out of his eye socket. Finally, he locked onto Sarawat's bullet-ridden body. Stapled atop the activist’s severed neck lay a passport-sized photo of Gunnar Ray. Nausia. The reporter looked into the eyes of mortality. His arms and legs went numb. Panic set in. Holes in Sarawat's body. His own smiling face. From this day on he would walk the streets of Bangkok as prey: a blind rabbit stumbling through a dark forest. Every backfire, every man who looked at him the wrong way would inspire fear. He thought of his parents, friends, and former teachers back home in Clover, Michigan. The American government he once chastised, he now welcomed with open arms. And the Detroit Tigers. Who cared if they had never won a World Series. The reporter closed his eyes and dreamed of sitting high in the right field bleachers.

He tucked the photos into his travel bag and exited the building. Through the smog and heat of the city he scanned the windows in nearby buildings: open holes for masked gunmen. A taxicab sat idle on the street before him. He studied the contours of the driver’s face and thought twice of taking such an obvious ride. He jogged toward the main street to hail a less suspicious cab. The onslaught of passing cars, the distant sound of police sirens, a child tugging on his shirt for a handout added to his misery. Every day would become a game of hide and seek with cold-blooded killers. The alternative: he could be in Tiger Stadium in less than thirty-two hours. He handed the taxi driver the largest bill in his pocket. Forty minutes later he stood in the “Purchase Only” line of China Airlines.

“Detroit via Taipei and Los Angeles,” he said winded.

The agent typed in the request. A $2,000.00 ticket popped out with his name on it.

Gunnar shook his head at the high price and then laid down his visa just the same. “Credit Card Approved. Thank you sir. Transfer to United Airlines when you reach Los Angeles. How many bags to check?”

“None.”

She smiled.

Gunnar folded the ticket and placed it in his pocket. He walked through the metal detector. The alarm startled him. He took a step back and walked through again.

“Goddamnit!” he said, cursing at a small security guard amidst the renewed beeping. “I don’t have a thing on me. No luggage. No toothbrush. No gum wrappers. I just want to get out of this goddamn country.”

The guard flushed the wand over Gunnar’s legs. No beep. No peep.

“See. I’m empty,” Gunnar protested. “I came here with nothing. I leave here with nothing.”

As the wand moved over his heart, a space age whine filled the hall. The guard tapped three times on Gunnar’s chest. Metal on metal.

“Now what?”

“Are you wearing a necklace?”

Gunnar reached under his shirt. He returned with a brass amulet with Ajahn Piko’s image on it. The guard examined the shiny metal and ran a finger under the Thai script that read Sua Yai National Park.

“Oh Yeah," Gunnar said embarrassed. "I guess I forgot.”

The guard reached beneath his shirt and revealed his own protective amulet. “Maybe you came to Thailand with nothing. But you are definitely leaving with something.”

Gunnar remained silent. He bowed his head in defeat.

“I read about Ajahn Piko you know," the guard continued. "He's a very strong monk. You will have a safe trip if you wear his amulet. He protects the forest, but he protects people as well. Finally there is someone strong enough to stand up against the Kau Jau Kau. My cousin’s family from Nong Khai was relocated you know."

Gunnar did not raise his eyes. He tucked the amulet under his shirt and walked toward the gate. Asian travelers surrounded him on either side. Amidst the buzz of empty conversations he sank into an orange bucket chair. He placed his forehead on open palms and closed his eyes to the world.

A flood of images appeared in the theater of his mind. He saw Ajahn Piko meditating under a florescent light. He saw butterflies rise off a deadfall in the Sua Yai Forest. And he saw villagers enjoying conversation around bowls of soup. He watched the picture show without reaction. He opened his eyes and scanned the crowded room. Then he saw her. He saw Lek with her arms raised and the security guard's wand over her body. Lek! She had followed him. He did not know how, but she stood fifty feet away. She turned and caught Gunnar staring at her. The stranger with Lek's body, but an unfamiliar face, walked past and took a seat across from him. What had he done? He would never see Lek again. Not even a picture. He could barely catch a full breath. What would happen to her? Her village? Her forest home? He imagined her head resting on his shoulder as it once did on the train. He removed the plane ticket from its red China Air jacket and followed the courier type to a familiar place. In Michigan, the hardships of the past month would disappear under the stadium sound of his favorite pastime. Humidity. Crooked politicians. Skyscrapers with foreign names. Death threats. The plane would lift and all that he loathed about Thailand would disappear forever.

“China Air Flight 2701 to Taipei now boarding.”

The polite voice cut through the images. A primordial urge consumed him: fight, or Flight 2701 to Taipei. He rose to his feet, placed his sunglasses over his eyes and approached the security guard. “I have a question about your goddamn country," he said to the chin-high man. "Has a Buddhist monk ever been assassinated or murdered while wearing the robe?”

The guard rotated the wand as he searched for an answer. “No. Never. If you kill a monk in this country people will mob you and kill you. And when you die, you will go to hell for a million lifetimes. Not even the most ruthless man will kill a monk.”

Gunnar mulled through the guard’s explanation. Surely the robe protected Ajahn Piko from assassins. Lesser activists had already been whacked. There had been plenty of threats, but the monk still had the luxury of following his breath. “This is the final boarding call for China Air Flight 2701 to Taipei. All passengers must board at this time.”

Maybe the photos were just a threat. Perhaps those who stood to lose financially were just trying to intimidate him? They must have known that the Tigers were opening up a three-game home stand on Wednesday. They knew he would gain a day in flight and make the first pitch. Threats were good. Threats meant his plan had merit. Gunnar posed himself the question of a lifetime. “Are you willing to pay the ultimate price for people that you understand, at best, like an interesting textbook?” He inserted coins in the payphone and made the one call that could save his life. He followed a red airport carpet that ended in humidity, car exhaust, and all that was miserable and intriguing about Thailand.

“Wat Talopan,” he ordered the taxi driver.

In the back seat he stared intently at the ticket. He thought about spring in the northern hemisphere: the gentle rains on pine forests. He wondered if Lek would enjoy American baseball. Would she have the good taste to root for the Tigers over the favored Yankees? She was different. Strong. Determined. She could learn to like America. Maybe. Still, page two in the Ex-pat Guide to Dating a Thai Woman declared that: “a Thai may become easily bored and dissatisfied when plucked from her homeland and placed in a cold climate with few native speakers.” But Lek’s English was passable. Improving. And she liked him. Or at least he imagined that she did. No. She did. She really liked him. Maybe. He would find out soon enough if she accepted him for more than just his American looks.

The taxi pulled to the curb of a Buddhist temple. Young monks and children formed a half circle around the farang. Ajahn Reung, the temple abbot that took his call from the airport, greeted the reporter with scissors in hand. After a few polite words he ushered Gunnar into the center of the courtyard. He sat in a chair circled by spectators. The abbot had never touched such a curious head. With a three-inch blade he took a swipe at the longest of strands. A spiral of blond hair fell to the ground. With each pass of the blade, young children whispered with growing excitement. The girls who thought the reporter handsome cringed at the loss of another good man to the Sangha. The abbot applied cream to the fuzzy scalp. He changed blades and minutes later Gunnar’s head was as smooth as a brass globe. The lawn had been mowed, but the hedges needed trimming. The Ajahn splashed cream across the reporter’s Scandinavian eyebrows. A hair caterpillar formed on the blade. Gunnar looked like a young Yule Brynner--the actor maligned in Thailand for his portrayal of the monarchy in the King & I.

"Your new name is Pra Wichai," the abbot said with a hint of pride. "You must leave Gunnar Ray in the newsroom. You are now walking the Eight-fold Path." As the abbot sheathed his blade, an elderly woman swooped in like a black drongo to collect the fallen hair. In accordance with tradition, should Pra Wichai become a stream winner, his fallen hair would become imbued with saksit. Gunnar felt honored by the gesture. Wait until his friends back home heard about this. He reached for the mirror and brought it before his face with nervous anticipation. OH JESUS . . . sweet son of the Almighty that his grandfather worshipped. He was a freak. “Bald fucking alien,” he thought. But he caught himself. Caught that vulgar voice in his brain. He was a monk now. He had to be indifferent to appearance. And he could no longer say “fuck;" not even think the word. No fuck. No fucking. No mother fuckers on the Thai roadway. It would be difficult.

What would his father say? The Michigan insurance salesman did not distinguish Hare Krishnas from Buddhist monks, street whackos from religious seers. He would definitely not approve. He did not like the long hair and he would not condone the Arian Youth look. Pra Wichai placed a sweaty hand atop a hairline that receded to his butt crack. Ridges, slopes, and stubble from infected insect bites made for an unfamiliar “self.” He touched the pale skin where his eyebrows once grew. With each glance in the mirror he felt his ego deflate . . . just as the Buddha intended.

No hair . . . or, death by an assassination? He prioritized his concerns. Loss of appearance was a small price to pay for the only bulletproof vest that worked in this country. Gunnar knelt before the abbot and accepted the Eight Precepts of the naak (novice monk). He would have to give up the occasional “high, luxurious bed.” No more killing mosquitoes. Movies, soccer matches, all entertainment . . . forbidden. Hanging out with Friday night friends named Jack, Jim, and Johnny . . . finished. He would have to check whether writing articles for the Times constituted, “Right Livelihood.” Gunnar could say goodbye to those things, but he could not say goodbye to Lek. No matter the outcome for the village and Sua Yai Forest, he would return to his street clothes in three months--the appropriate time for a novice monk. His stint in the monkshood would no doubt improve his standing with Lek’s mother. Thai tradition held that a man should spend time as a monk before courting a woman. When his stint as a monk was finished, he would be a respectable beau; cultured and well suited for a village girl.

Pra Wichai arrived at the prison shortly after dusk. He found the monk upright in meditation. He cleared his throat, hoping to stir Piko from his samadhi. No response. He announced himself verbally. Again nothing. Whatever new meditation practice Piko had discovered, Wichai didn’t like it one bit. To retreat from the senses and become an empty vessel seemed more a Hindu obsession than a Buddhist goal. The monks Gunnar Ray had studied under preached heightened awareness, not withdrawal. Attention to the breath helped focus the mind. With the mind sharp, awareness was applied to the body and the environment. Pra Wichai sank to the floor, his back resting against the bars. It just didn’t make sense. Piko could virtually speak the same language as several species of birds. He could identify the mental disposition of animals just by studying their tracks. In a real way, the monk had naturalized Buddhism by teaching his monks to make the forest their Buddha. To be unresponsive in full implied a strange reversal of all he had taught. Wichai rose to his feet and yelled outright at the monk.

Piko blinked his eyes as he returned from the void. He stared at a bald monk with the face of Gunnar Ray. He then shook his head to regain clarity. “Wait a moment Gunnar,” Piko said, massaging his eyes. “I am not seeing clearly just yet.”

“No. Ajahn. If you are talking about my change in appearance, it's not an illusion. Yesterday I accepted the Eight Precepts. I am a novice monk now.”

The shock on Piko’s face declared that he had indeed returned in full. Wichai explained the death threat and his motivation for donning the robe. Piko nodded his head in understanding. "So did you meet Ajahn Graduk?" Piko said, changing the subject and fighting back a grin.

The mere name brought back the stench of the cave to Wichai. "Yes . . . Lek and I met the recluse."

"And . . ."

"As you said, Ajahn Graduk is not much of a talker."

Piko laughed outright at poor Wichai's expense. "You have to get me out of this cage so I can tell Santiap. He's going to love this story."

"Well. Ajahn Graduk was my last hope in finding the lonely mystic I once dreamed of studying under."

"You can learn a lot from a dead man you know. There are certainly worse teachers out there."

"I suppose. But for now, I am going to resign myself to generating support for your release. The trial is only nine days away. The outcome may determine the fate of the forest and the plan to relocate the village."

Wichai left the monk for the Bangkok Times. The reporters who cheered him days earlier now stared at the born-again monk with apprehension. Their features writer had gone native. Wichai walked mindfully through the gallery with his eyes on the carpet.

Steve opened his door for the monk. "Gunnar Ray!" he said out of earshot of the reporters. "What the hell did you do to yourself?"

"It's been a tough week Steve."

"I can see that. You're white as a ghost my friend. And bald."

"You noticed?"

"What happened? Did some Thai girl finally break your heart?"

Wichai tossed the envelope filled with severed flesh on Steve's desk. The editor stared at Sarawat's bullet-riddled body topped with Gunnar's smiling face. He raised a hand to his head and massaged his temples. "This is serious stuff."

"Dead serious."

"So are you a monk for real? Are you truly giving up women in the grandest sense?"

"All but one. But for now, I am going to uphold the Eight-fold path and not have intercourse if that is what you mean."

"Hmm. Tough break."

"Look, I need to ask you for some front page space to announce a nationwide rally in support of Piko and the forest. We have organized protests in Bangkok, Khorat, and Chiang Mai to take place in a week. To help generate interest, I need you to feature my announcement."

Pra Wichai returned to his apartment, installed a deadbolt lock on his door, and prepared to unite the masses with his words. For Piko to walk free and Sua Yai to remain wild, thousands of amulet wearing, forest-loving Thais would have to raise their voice in support of the last green space in Burriram. The protest sites and organizers had already been contacted. Ban Nam Sai farmers would disperse to three locations and present firsthand accounts of their struggle to stay on the land. Music stars such as Saran Paonil, sports figures including Khun Taktan, and sympathetic members of the television industry had already committed to support the cause. Twenty thousand more amulets were in production. And the editors of several major university newspapers promised to reprint Wichai's announcement. Taktan’s katuhy fan club, for their part, pledged to publicize the day of protest in the streets of Bangkok.

The day of the rally came quickly. Thousands of Thais wearing Ajahn Piko amulets and thousands more hoping to purchase one, descended into city parks and university courtyards. People now had a personal stake in getting the monk back into Sua Yai. They realized that the power of their amulets depended in part on freeing Ajahn Piko and preserving Sua Yai Forest. Three thousand people crowded around podiums in Bangkok's Sanam Luang Park. Saran Paonil, Thailand's most popular folk singer, kicked things off with a song he had written about the incarcerated monk.

Saffron Robe Behind the Bars

Before there was a Buddha,

the hills and trees grew wild.

Ajahn Piko came to remind us

that man is still a child.

Where once we drank the rivers,

and heard birds call to their mates.

Now we thirst for money,

export our animals in crates.

Saffron robe behind the bars.

Saffron robe behind the bars.

Ajahn Piko we are calling . . .

Saffron robe behind the bars.

If you hear us from the prison,

this song goes out to you.

Lead us back into the forest,

and the life you know is true.

A new day for Isan is dawning,

rolling forests beneath the stars.

Ajahn Piko we are calling . . .

Saffron robe behind the bars.

Between the songs and pleas of entertainers, villagers from Ban Nam Sai took to the microphones and shared their long history and the squalor of the proposed relocation site. Police lined the fences, but no violence ensued. In Khorat and Chiang Mai, similar rallies took place at respective universities.

As concerned citizens gathered, Ajahn Piko remained alone in his cell, closed off from the world. His thoughts alternated between the upcoming trial to the inner-work that lay ahead. Over the past week, his captors had denied him both a bath and a razor to create his current disheveled appearance. Atop his once baldhead sprouted grayish-black hair, light on the top, thicker around the edges. His skin smelled of sweat and confinement. His robe bore cockroach stains and dust that could no longer be shaken free.

27

April 24

Two days after the rallies, the trial commenced. Pra Wichai joined Ajahn Piko on the defendant’s bench. Lek and Maa Pii sat together in the middle of the courtroom. Reporters crowded into the back. Maha Tawui, for his part, watched the spectacle from an inconspicuous corner. The state had three days to disgrace the monk and render his cause worthless. Their goal: to ensure the relocation of Ban Nam Sai Village and re-planting of Sua Yai Forest. Failure to do so could jeopardize the entire Kau Jau Kau and all who profited from it.

The prosecutor stood before the judge and read the list of charges. "Pra Ajahn Piko. The Royal Thai Government hereby accuses you of destruction of private property, membership in the communist party with the intent to overthrow the government, operating an unregistered monastery, and trespassing on government lands. Further, we shall demonstrate to the court that you have committed adultery while wearing the robe and should be summarily dismissed from the monkshood. The government will show beyond a doubt that all of the charges are true and that you have been rightfully imprisoned."

Piko walked deliberately to the stand. He looked over a courtroom filled with hostile attorneys in front, family and friends in back. "I have but one word to say to your charges . . .” The audience looked on with rapt attention: their eyes alternating between his stained robe and haphazard whiskers covering his face. “Samsara . . . To you this is a trial; to me this is continued passage through unsatisfactory states of consciousness. What you call the law, I call symptoms of overpopulation. What you call justice, I call Bangkok-born self-interest. Ours is a Buddhist nation. The direction toward rampant development is not a Buddhist direction. The Buddha warned the monk to be wary of hui khui--hungry ghosts: beings who live to eat but who are never full. The fight to save the forest has brought me into contact with many such beings. And ghosts in human form are poised to destroy the last forest in Burriram. These beings have lost touch with the simple majesty of living close to the land. Without that tie they circle aimlessly through the wheel of life and death: forever re-born in unsatisfactory states of consciousness. I pity them. I pity you. As long as I am alive I will tighten the belts on these gluttons until they are released from the pain they cause others. I hereby call on the Buddhist monks of this nation to come out of their caves, leave their village temples and emerge from their urban centers to once again become patrons of the forest. The monastic community must lead; it must not follow. For too long we have been silent and passive while the world around us changes at record pace. Now is a time for action.”

Reporters recorded Piko’s tirade in their notebooks. Weeks of confinement had not softened his stance. His call to arms for the monastic community would reach the four corners of the country in newsprint. Piko continued. “The land on which they built the greenhouse belongs to the Sua Yai Forest. As a boy, before I became a monk, I hunted wild pigs in thick jungle that extended far beyond where they constructed the greenhouse. At that time, we called the land Sua Yai Forest, the same as we refer to the tree cover on Fon Maak Mountain. The truth is that the government and Bangkok business interests are trespassing. You say I destroyed private property; I say I evicted the real squatters."

One by one, the prosecuting attorney called villagers to substantiate the monk's role in destroying the greenhouse. The account of Piko dousing the building in gasoline was recounted by three "witnesses" that were paid to offer testimony on what they had heard but did not actually see. The court broke for the day and Piko returned to his cell.

The following morning the monk entered the courtroom prepared for more half-truths and harassment. He passed by a middle-aged woman with a pre-teen son sitting next to her. He vaguely recognized her, but could not pinpoint where they had met. The prosecutor called the woman to the stand. Flash bulbs erupted as Suda Tawankiij took the podium.

"Do you know the accused man sitting in this courtroom?" the prosecutor asked a woman in her late forties.

"I do," she said, looking at the attorney. Once Piko heard her voice, he recognized her. She was one of the communist insurgents he had evicted fifteen years earlier from the forest. She had not aged well.

The woman spoke with emotion. "Ajahn Piko and I met in Sua Yai Forest in August, 1976. At the time, I was a member of the CPT (Communist Party of Thailand). Sixteen of us had set up a base camp a couple of kilometers from Ajahn Piko's temple. The monk brought us food and supplied us with maps that helped the men in our group attack several Police outposts. I later spent time in prison for my role in the slayings. During my time in the forest, I engaged in physical relations with this man you call Ajahn Piko. I loved him dearly for what he did for our cause. When my fellow insurgents left the forest, I remained in a nearby village so that I could be close to him. We had discreet meetings for six months both in the forest and in the city of Khorat. He promised that he would leave the monkshood for me. I believed him and we had intercourse nearly every time we saw each other. Our relationship bore him a son."

The woman shifted her gaze and stared at Ajahn Piko. In a well-rehearsed plea, she addressed him with a teary voice. "For fourteen years your son has grown up without a father. If you come back to me, I will create a comfortable house for you to raise your son in. Without a man to provide for us we do not live well. We are hungry. Please tell me you still love me as you once did."

Piko stood before the court to answer the charges. With a hint of weariness in his voice, he faced the attorney. "I have loved no woman. I have no children."

"Do you deny ever seeing this woman?"

"No. I have seen her. She is one of the insurgents that I evicted from my forest years ago. It appears she hasn't learned her lesson."

"You had a love affair with her that lasted six months. You produced a child. What kind of man hides behind a robe and abandons a son."

Piko again sighed. He shook his head and smiled at the drama of it all. "To have a child, one must have intercourse. To have intercourse, from what I have read, two people must be in the same country. After the insurgents left the forest I traveled to Burma and stayed for three months with Venerable Mahayasi Sayanoi. The esteemed monk has since passed away, but they do keep records at the temple. You will find that my residency contradicts what Ms. Tawankiij has said. Further, you have already told us that she is loyal to the communist party. As such, you have demonstrated that she is neither credible, nor trustworthy. Clearly someone has paid her to concoct this falsehood."

The trial of public opinion continued outside. Busloads of protesters stormed the front of the courthouse. Signs waved and people marched in disorganized fashion. Bangkok television stations broadcast the plight of the monk and Sua Yai Forest. The next day, the Bangkok Times funded an intern to travel to Burma to secure a letter from Wat Vannasi Doi to document Piko’s residency. The intern returned with the letter in hand. Piko had indeed spent three months at the temple. The dates contradicted Ms. Tawankiij's claims. Gunnar published the affidavit in his column. The Thai language papers that had not been paid off by the government likewise published the letter.

The final day of the trial saw Piko looking more ragged than ever. He had lost weight and his loose robe glistened from sweat and body oils. Stubble gave him eyebrows for the first time in nearly thirty-six years.

Maha Tawui filed into the courtroom behind the reporters. He watched and waited for Lek to take a seat. During the first days of the trial, he watched her from afar. After discovering her close ties to Gunnar and Piko, the monk had his cousin research her past. He discovered that she had worked at a strip club. The imagery delighted him.

Late at night, when alone and sleepless in his quarters, Tawui thumbed through the photos of Lek again and again. For a dark-skinned girl from Isan, her beauty surprised him. She reminded him of his father’s maids that pleasured him as a boy. As the courtroom filled, the monk took a seat behind Lek and Maa Pii. His heart beat wildly. How many nights had he pleasured himself by placing her image on his bed sheet? Lek glanced back and caught the monk staring at her. Tawui looked away. She straightened her posture in defiance. His villainous reputation preceded him.

As the charges against Ajahn Piko were read, Tawui leaned forward and took in the sweet scent of Lek's body. She was an orchid just beyond his grasp. The allure. The challenge. The brown girl from Isan made for good sport. And while the monk had courted more cultured women in his double life, few could match Lek for her sensuality. Her full, dark, lips rimmed with a hint of pink made his mouth water. Lek likewise possessed the adulation of the two men he despised most: Ajahn Piko and Gunnar Ray. Five years earlier he had inserted the robe between the reporter and Kelly; with Lek, he hoped to insert something else. A few hundred dollars might persuade her. A bargirl from a poor Isan village . . . just maybe she would accept his offer. He would attack where Gunnar and Piko least expected.

Piko waited for the next round of chicanery to reveal itself. What real or imagined ghost from his past would walk into that courtroom? The rear doors opened and flashbulbs erupted. Pra Taniro. His loyal monk entered wearing handcuffs, ankle chains, and dressed in orange prison garbs. Piko looked on with distress. A woman flaunting a bogus love child did not catch him off guard. One of his monks in shackles did. Taniro lowered his head as his Ajahn's eyes fell upon him.

The prosecutor called Piko to the stand. "Do you know the man sitting in the front row of the courtroom?"

"Yes," the monk responded with concern. "His name is Pra Taniro."

"Do you see the prison clothes he wears? Does he look like a monk to you?"

"Yes."

"How long have you known him?"

"Fifteen years."

"How did you meet?"

"Pra Taniro came to the Sua Yai Forest on a camping trip with his college friends. The monks in my temple made a favorable impression on him. He stayed behind and became a monk."

"The man before you is named Manop Raengsit. The reason he is wearing a prison uniform and not a Buddhist robe is because he is a killer of men, not a monk. Manop has been a fugitive for fifteen years. You have knowingly protected a man who murdered a Thailand police officer."

The magnitude of the accusation caused Piko to wince. He hesitated . . . and chose his words carefully. "I only know a Pra Taniro. He is a very dedicated monk who lives according to the Dhamma."

"Does the Dhamma allow for killing police officers?"

"No it does not."

"Your "monk" has confessed that he killed a policeman. He cut a man’s head half off with the blade of his knife. Is this the Dhamma you preach in the Sua Yai Forest? Do you train monks to kill policemen?"

Piko looked away from the attorney and into the eyes of his confidant. "Is this true Pra Taniro? Did you a kill man and confess to the deed?"

The attorney allowed the disruption, if only to embarrass the monk. Taniro's face trembled under the strain of the question. "I did," he said shaking. "I killed a policeman during the riots at Thammasat University in October, 1976."

Piko nodded. He looked back at his accuser. "I am a monk and not an expert in the terminology of killing. However, I understand a murder as an act committed against someone who is innocent. Not all the policemen at Thammasat were innocent that day."

"So then you admit to harboring this killer of men."

"I do not. As I stated, I only know Pra Taniro, the monk. Whatever actions he did or did not commit before becoming a monk in my monastery I have no knowledge of."

October 1976, Thaamasaat University

Manop (a.k.a. Pra Taniro) stood unmoved as bullets ripped through the backs of fleeing teenagers. No logical explanation. Not bravery. Not panic. He just remained standing. Hundreds of bodies streamed by. Two girls knocked him to the cement, stepped on his chest, and began running again. Manop stood back up. He watched a policeman take aim at another student. Explosion. The head of a nineteen-year-old snapped back. The man calmly placed his cheek back on the stock of the gun and again fired into the back of another protestor. Smoke. More shouting. Another dead teenager. Manop removed the serrated blade that he had used earlier in the day in the making of cardboard signs. He circled around the policeman. Before the man could squeeze off another shot, Manop cupped him by the mouth and jerked his head away from the gun. He thrust the blade into his windpipe and brought the steel deep through his throat. The half-decapitated man slumped to the ground, shaking. Manop folded the blood-covered blade, placed it in his back pocket, and became a teenager again. He hurtled dead bodies as he ran alongside the other panic-stricken protestors. When the last canister of tear gas exploded, over a hundred students lay dead.

That evening, Manop and six protestors broke into an abandoned warehouse. With candles lighting tear-stained faces, they struggled to make sense of the senseless. Manop provided his best guess of the number of dead. He did not, however, share his role in history. The massacre came three years after the bloodiest protest in modern Thai history: Black Tuesday, 1973. In June of that year, 10,000 students had rallied in support of a constitution for the people. In October, further protests led to a confrontation of historic proportions. The army-led government unleashed its fury against the Thai students that opposed them. Hundreds were killed or injured. Reigning King Bhumibol intervened and the two Generals who led the repressive government were deported. Three years later, Thanom Kittikachorn--one of the two exiled rulers--was allowed to return as a monk. To protest Thanom's return and rally against increasing government corruption, Manop and 2,000 students held a sit in at Bangkok's Thammasaat University. Border police, along with two right-wing anti-communist citizens groups turned the protest into a bloodbath. As Manop and friends planned their retreat, the military capitalized on the disorder by implementing a return to right-wing government.

Chanchai, a third year Business major from Thammasaat University sobbed openly. "What now? How can we return to the classroom after this?"

“We can’t go back to school.” Manop said, establishing himself as the leader. “That is just what the oppressors want. Everything back to normal. And it's not. Not anymore. Not after what they did.”

Somsak, a third year marketing student stood to his feet and paced under the high ceilings of the warehouse. A pair of sewer rats wrestled over a discarded apple core beneath his feet. Boonma, twenty-three, addressed his friends. “I have heard from a reliable source that the Freedom Fighters have moved into Sua Yai Forest. They have set up an outpost on Fon Maak Mountain and are carrying out operations.”

“Where’s that?” Manop asked.

“Burriram.”

“Who is your source?”

“My cousin. He joined the communists last year. The PLAT (People's Liberation Army of Thailand) has established a stronghold in Isan. He receives the latest tactical information via short wave radio.”

Few of the students called themselves communists. Still, with the return of the military to power, they had few options. Insurgents lived in forests. Ladda, the daughter of a successful banker, had never set foot outside of the city. Sinjai's father owned a calculator repair shop. She had been to the Southern Islands, but always stayed on the beach. The four men, including Manop, had at one time traveled to Khao Yai National Park. Their excursions, however, all followed the same pattern: see a waterfall in the morning; play guitar in the afternoon; drink whiskey at night.

“Are you sure the information is current?” Manop said.

“My cousin has been promoted twice. He is a high-ranking soldier in the PLAT and knows what he is speaking of. Things are heating up in the borderlands. There are 10,000 armed insurgents in the forests and over a 100,000 sympathetic villagers.”

With no alternative save a return to the classroom, the students resolved to join the Freedom Fighters. At a roadside stand they purchased tents, large metal pots, a vat of butter, and a sack of rice. The insurgents, they hoped, would provide the rest of their needs. The next morning they arrived at a trailhead that by-passed Ban Nam Sai Village to the east. Four miles into the forest they set up camp in a dried up pig wallow. That night, they listened as bamboo rats returned to dens near their tents. A mountain scops owl repeated its signature “toot-too” with mechanical regularity. Images of tigers and Asian sun bears made for a restless night’s sleep nonetheless.

With the coming of light, Boonma, Somsak, and Manop set out in search of the communist camp. They carried no maps and only a little water. As the young men searched, Ajahn Piko practiced walking meditation on the swept ground outside his goutie.

A week earlier, two young pit vipers had crossed his path. Piko saw the coming of the snakes as fortuitous. A healthy pit viper population meant an intact ecosystem. From a practice standpoint, the snakes helped fine-tune the monk’s mindfulness. Green snakes, vipers, pythons--Piko welcomed them all. One snake, however, inspired a primordial fear that no amount of meditation could shake. In his early twenties, he had a dream that bordered on a vision. On a forest pathway, a gnuu jong ang (king cobra), seven feet in length and thick as a man's leg, bore down on him on. The cobra's head rose three feet above the leaf cover until its eyes were nearly equal to his own. Young Piko generated loving kindness as the Scriptures advised, but the snake's eyes . . . so dark and indifferent, stared back with aggression, not understanding. As the monk stepped back, the snake inched forward. All seven feet orchestrated by a head the size of a man's fist. The cobra acknowledged nothing human, nothing righteous. In its eyes Piko saw the same indifference that promised to bring an end to all of life itself. Time. The dark physics of anicca shook him to his core. The snake cocked his head and prepared to deliver a jugular bite. Piko woke up. For the next week, he meditated on the eyes of the snake: a world without life, a universe without a human witness. Though he would remain a champion of biodiversity, at the deepest level he came to accept the transient nature of all things.

Manop tripped over a vine. A blue-throated flycatcher sounded the alarm. Ajahn Piko scanned the forest for intruders. Moments later, he caught sight of three men crashing through the jungle just outside his compound. "Aayyy Oooo” he called out from the front step of his goutie.

The boys froze, unsure of whether a man or beast summoned them.

“Aayyy Oooo” Piko yelled again, louder than before.

For a moment they thought they had stumbled upon the communist camp. “Over there,” Boonma said, glimpsing Piko's saffron robe. “I see a red uniform.”

The recent settlement of villagers along the rim of Sua Yai had resulted in a ten-fold increase in poaching. Piko suspected the intruders might be after the gibbons that used the monastery as a safe haven. “What is your business in Sua Yai Forest?"

Somsak waited with anticipation for an armed insurgent to appear. Instead, a thirty-six-year-old monk stared down at him. He spoke with apprehension. “We are on a camping trip. Please Sir, who asks about us?”

"Where are you from and why are you here?"

“Ajahn. We are college students from Bangkok.”

“Are there more of you?”

Somsak hesitated. He did not want to lie to the monk, but he had to protect the others. “No. We are alone.”

Piko re-thought his presumption about the boys being poachers. They were far too incompetent in the ways of the forest and too well spoken. But camping? In all his years of wandering he had never met students who would walk into an unknown forest and set up tents for the enjoyment of it. No. They were up to something. He could feel it. He played along with them. "What do you hope to accomplish on this camping trip?”

Manop answered the monk. “Ahh. Well. Yes. You see, we want to live close to nature for a while . . . experience the forest firsthand.”

“Very well. Get on with your camping.” The monk turned away from the boys and headed in the opposite direction.

That afternoon, Piko followed their tracks. The meandering, uncertain trail convinced him that if they were not already lost, they deserved to be. Twenty minutes later he arrived at the edge of the pig wallow. College students sat huddling around a small campfire. One look at their confused faces and the inept camp they had erected and Piko knew their purpose. Hundreds of students had fled Bangkok to join insurgency groups after the massacre. A few lost sheep, it seemed, had found their way into the Sua Yai Forest.

"If we don't find them soon," Manop explained to his fellow students. "We are going to run out of supplies."

"You don't say . . ." Piko said, emerging from the bush. "These persons you search for would not happen to be members of the People's Liberation Army of Thailand would they?"

The students looked at each other with irritation. Manop stood and addressed the monk. "I told you Sir, we are simple campers."

"ENOUGH!" Piko raised his voice to the point of yelling. "Do not incur the bad kamma that accompanies lying to a monk. I have wandered these forests for thirty years. I need only ask the birds your purpose and they will tell me. Bangkok students don't camp in pig wallows for fun." He walked over and picked up Ladda's handbag. He pointed to the words Thaamasaat University on the side.

"I have bad news for you. The insurgents were driven out of this forest two months ago. If you planned to join their ranks, you will have to search elsewhere. Of course, you can always create your own insurgency group if you like. You can make do on bush meat . . . that is, if the bush doesn't meet you first."

Ladda looked back in horror. Pontip grabbed onto Chanchai's arm. The thought of going it alone in the forest terrified them.

"How do we know that you are telling us the truth," Manop said boldly, questioning the monk. "Maybe you are simply acting on behalf of the government that we oppose."

"Do you see the robe I am wearing? This robe has been telling the truth for 2,500 years. There are no communists in Sua Yai, except for yourselves, if, indeed, you are real communists."

"And what if we are," Manop said. "What if we have come to Sua Yai to set up a camp and live off the forest?"

Piko smiled. He let out a bellow of loud, condescending, laughter. There was nothing like a challenge on his home turf to get the blood flowing. "As communists, the first thing you need to do is strip me of my robe."

"Excuse me Sir," Manop said with renewed politeness, "Unwrap you?"

Piko ran a hand over a knot on his robe. "Have your lady friends turn their heads. Come over and strip me to my breechcloth. Leave me naked as a plucked chicken to fend for myself."

"But Venerable Ajahn? Why do you ask such a thing?"

"Venerable? Surely you have studied the communist manifesto? Religion is the opiate of the masses. I know of three forest monks who have been executed in the past sixteen months by insurgents. They have no regard for the robe or for Buddhist principals. If you are indeed a communist, stop referring to me as Ajahn and come and strip me to my underwear. Call me a mangy dog and be done with it."

Had Piko known of Manop's recent handy work, he might have re-thought his bravado. Still, the monk went by instinct: the students before him were searchers, not anarchists. They were looking for a better way in the world; something more compassionate, more inspired than their current government could offer.

Manop blushed. The thought of calling a Buddhist monk a “dog,” and a mangy one at that, stunned him. He called the students into huddle. "Perhaps Boonma's cousin was mistaken," he whispered to his circle of friends” What if the monk is right? What if there are no communists left in this forest?”

Five minutes passed.

“I can stand here all day," Piko said with a hint of showmanship. "That's the beauty of wearing the robe. Idle time is a monk’s workshop. Most people that pass through this forest do not belong here. Poachers. Criminals. Villagers who burn it for mushrooms. Your communist friends were the same. The forest did not accept them. They preach a life lived close to nature but they do walk gently over her paths. No creature in this forest kills the way they do: sneaking up on the sons of Isan and unloading their rifles. If you truly wish to change your government you need a vision rooted in the Eight-fold Path. What is your vision?”

Manop broke the huddle and addressed the monk. “We do have a vision Ajahn: a government by the people, for the people.”

“Ahh yes. Heard that one before.” Piko said unimpressed.

“But that is our goal.”

“And would this government function in tune with the laws of nature?”

Manop paused. He looked back to his friends for an answer. “Yes.”

“And what are the laws of nature?”

Manop again retreated to discuss an answer. Some of the students offered scientific explanations; others called upon Philosophy 101. Both the laws of nature as well as the principals used to govern a nation were not easily articulated. What they did know, however, was the depth of corruption of the current leadership. The insurgents were organized and actively opposed this government.

"Stop your whispering!" Piko said loudly. With the eyes of the students upon him, he issued an ultimatum. "I’ll make your decision simple. You have three choices: disrobe me and live as communists in Sua Yai Forest; leave now before I throw you out; or, spend two weeks under my tutelage learning the Dhamma. I will provide you all the food you need and proper shelter. If you want to be communists after practicing the Dhamma, so be it. If you go on to formulate your own vision of government based on what you see in this forest that is your choice.”

With nowhere to go, no communists to look after them--the students resigned themselves to Piko’s offer. Villagers supplied them with meat and cabbage. Near the stream, a small curtain was erected to allow the women a comfortable bath. The students had all they needed to live close to nature and experience the Dhamma firsthand. Under the forest canopy, would-be communists became religious seekers. Piko and his monks provided a crash course in the Middle Path. They trained the students in the art of observation. First, they followed the breath and calmed the mind; next, they allowed their awareness to embrace the forest and the ten thousand things. They learned the practice of careful wandering, marking one's passage through the bush to allow for an easy return. In the evenings, they practiced debate, Buddhist style. Piko addressed each student as a future leader. In their ranks could be future cabinet members and decision makers. Some days they fasted, calling on the strength of purpose it would take to endure a long political struggle. On other days they sat in meditation for hours at a time.

On the fourteenth day, Anan walked into his pigpen, clapped his hands, and called a swine that he had raised from birth. The pig looked up, the sledgehammer came down: party time. What is the use of wealth if not to spend it? That night, students and villagers gathered around a bonfire under the harvest moon. Home-brewed rice wine poured and young competed against old for drinking honors. The next morning, the students formed a single file line and walked proudly out of the forest. They were not communists, but they were changed.

Manop remained.

He approached Ajahn Piko under a fig tree. “I am not ready to leave you Ajahn," he explained, kneeling in submission. "You have taught me that the Dhamma runs deep. If I am to pattern my leadership after the laws of nature, I must learn to live and breathe it first. Otherwise, my directives will always be ideas born of men and not experience born of the forest. I wish to remain your humble servant. I ask that you shave my head and initiate me into the monkshood.”

Ajahn Piko ran a hand over his smooth skull and contemplated the young man’s request. “Do you understand the sacrifices? Have you seen the hardships my monks endure?”

“I have, Ajahn. I can embrace solitude just as they. I can learn to maintain my inner peace."

"Very well."

"Before you accept my request," Manop continued. "There is something I must confess. As much as I am committed to learning the Dhamma, there is another reason that inspires my decision to stay at your temple. Two weeks ago I committed an act at Thammasat University worthy of the hottest of Buddhist hells. I am not sure what you have read, but the police fired bullets into my classmates. Two students were shot before my eyes. When a policeman took aim for a third time, I decided to act and . . .”

“Stop,” Piko said sternly, interrupting the boy mid-sentence. “Keep your words. Your life, as far as I am concerned, began the day you stepped into Sua Yai Forest. When the military asks about my monks I tell them what I know, nothing more. If you have a confession, take it to the trees on Fon Maak Mountain. They have listened to the secrets of men for centuries.”

Manop bowed his head. The next day his hair fell to the earth and he became Pra Taniro.

Three weeks after the students left Ban Nam Sai, the military arrived to smoke out communists that were not there. Bangkok brass concluded that insurgents were endemic to Thailand's remaining forests. Reds grew on trees. Kill a tree. Kill a communist. The twisted syllogism became national policy. On government maps, forests were rendered in three different shades: green, pink, and red. The fate of thousands of colorblind animals depended on which pen marked its territory. Tapioca planters, eucalyptus traders, and the agri-business elite all stood poised to settle lands wrestled from the forest.

In many ways, the forest itself became a communist: communal, invasive, and opposed to capitalism owing to its self-sufficient nature. With the country seeing red, the military moved unopposed into Sua Yai. Ajahn Piko and his monks had traveled to Burma. They could offer no defense. The military set fire to three sides of the Forest. Ban Nam Sai villagers were evacuated until the government was content that the tree cover had been whittled down enough to make it difficult for insurgents to own the deep woods. Ash covered the village. When the smoke cleared, Sua Yai Forest had lost another seventy-three square miles. The buffer zone separating the villagers from the outside world had been reduced from six miles to one.

In the charcoal landscape, bulbols no longer announced the dawn. Civet cats were destroyed or fled inland. All that remained were fire-hardened termite stands with the bodies of thousands of immolated insects therein. Piko returned to the blackened landscape and collapsed to his knees. How often had he meditated on anicca--the changeable nature of things? It helped to make sense of the aging process, flash floods that transformed the planet in a heartbeat. Such contemplation however, offered little solace for the death of his forest. Loba, dosa, moha--greed, anger, and delusion had transformed this land. To Piko, there was nothing natural about it.

For several months ash made for a quiet, if not lifeless neighbor. That ended when phase two of the government's “village surround the forest” scheme kicked in. In the name of rooting out communists and promoting agri-business, landless villagers from the poorest of Northeast provinces poured into the blackened lands. Roi Et, Nong Khai, Ubon Ratchathani--all were represented in the resettlement. The criteria for newcomers: willingness to turn back communist insurgents and servitude to farm cash crops. Ban Nam Sai, one-time remote forest village, now had neighbors on all sides.

28

As the final arguments were presented, Lek rose from her chair and exited the courtroom. She passed by Tawui without bowing her head. Tawui followed her with his eyes. Thirty seconds later, he slipped out the door. He walked a safe distance behind her until the courtroom disappeared from view. The monk increased his pace. “I may be able to help your family,” he said without further explanation. Lek recognized the voice immediately. She offered a forced smile. "I am sorry Sir," she said hurriedly. "I am late to catch a bus back to Ban Nam Sai."

Tawui kept pace. His eyes alternated between Lek’s breasts and the gentle sway of her hips. She made a quick turn down a busy street.

"Lek of Ban Nam Sai," Tawui yelled out. "I know you worked at the King's Court. Stop now or I will disgrace you with your family and the village."

Lek felt emotion well up in her chest. Pedestrians streamed past on either side. She slowed down to collect her thoughts. What else did he know about her? The thought of Tawui lurking in her inner-world terrified her. She thought she had left Bangkok behind. Now this. She wished only to return to a life lived close to her family and the green mountain. A quiet life. The thought of friends talking behind her back, smiling, but thinking her a prostitute, would be unbearable. Bargirls came from other villages: not Ban Nam Sai. She had been the first. She hoped to take her secret to the grave. Lek turned and raised her voice to the point of yelling. "You have ruined my Uncle and my village. Why are you coming after me!"

Tawui motioned for her to follow him into a side alley. An attractive woman yelling at a monk on a busy street drew attention. Behind a trash bin, he addressed her. "Like I said, I have come to help you and your family."

Lek folded her arms in disbelief.

Tawui continued. "There is wealthy layman at my temple who donates money to the causes that I deem worthy. I have been watching you Lek. I admire your strength. You are a worthwhile cause to me."

Lek turned back to face Tawui. In spite of his shaved head and saffron robe, she saw a weak man, not a powerful monk. She had spent three years in Bangkok discerning the intentions of men. The customers in the bars did not hide behind robes. They made offers, not threats. "I do not want your money," she said flatly.

"It is not my money," Tawui answered. "Like I said, it comes from a donor."

"Who told you I worked at the King's Court?"

"That is not important. What is important is that your family will soon be relocated to a lifeless land. It will take money to rebuild what you had in Ban Nam Sai. I can get you that money. And I can keep your work at the King’s Court a secret."

Lek weighed the few alternatives available. The thought of disgracing her parents weakened her. "What do you want from me? What must I do to keep you from speaking to my family?"

Tawui paused. He then smiled like a mischievous boy. As his lips curled, Lek knew instantly what he wanted. The thought of being with such a man made her ill. She turned her back and merged into the lanes of human traffic. All she could do was hope that Tawui would not tell her parents about the King's Court. The alternative was unthinkable.

Part Four

29

May 2

Two days after the trial ended, Pra Wichai received a phone call from the prison warden. The court had ordered Ajahn Piko released. Bursting with joy at the success of his campaign, the reporter took a cross-town taxi to the prison. He followed the guard up the now familiar stairs. With his hands on the bars, he gazed at the back of a man dressed in street clothes.

"Where is he?" Pra Wichai asked the guard in a panic. "What have they done with Ajahn Piko?"

At the sound of the familiar voice, the civilian in the cell turned and tipped his cap.

"Ajahn?"

"No. My name is Jaran Kongka: son of Pongsak, Grandson of Ekachai."

"But why? Where is your robe? What have they done to you?"

Jaran closed his eyes and meditated through the rush of emotion. His childhood dream of being a monk had come to an end. His every action had centered on the robe . . . on the Buddhist path he walked. The loss of his title was a spiritual death. He addressed Pra Wichai in a barely audible tone. "I've been disrobed. The Sangha Council has removed me from the monkshood. The court has ordered my release . . . but as a man, not as a monk."

The words hit Wichai with the force of a blow. He collapsed to his knees in fright. The implications horrified him.

"Stand Pra Wichai," Jaran said with resolution. "Accept that I am a layman now. You wear the robe and must keep your head above mine."

Wichai struggled back to his feet. “But Ajahn, if you go onto the street as a layman you will be a target for assassins. That could be the reason they have set you free without the robe. Anyone that will benefit from the death of a forest will be after you. You must go into hiding. You cannot return to Sua Yai. Please, Ajahn. Let me be your voice. At least I have the robe to protect me. Do not re-join this fight as a layman."

The Council's ruling had another intended effect. The 50,000 Ajahn Piko amulets in circulation would be rendered powerless. The amulets featured the plight of a monk, not a layman. And that monk, Ajahn Piko, had been disgraced. His disrobing made them worthless. Thousands of supporters would desert the cause. The government and the Sangha Council had metered out the cruelest of punishments. At the same time, they had effectively deflated a movement fueled by the image of a monk behind bars. The Kau Jau Kau would move forward. The government would not yield for a village of peasants and a forest without waterfalls.

"Do you think I am afraid of death?" Jaran asked, referring to Wichai’s concern with assassins. "Without the cloth, do you think all I have learned about the Dhamma will leave me? Am I now an ignorant moth who flies mindlessly into a fire? Sixty years ago, my teacher visited a village named Ban Hai Pleng on the Laos side of the border. Villagers were in a state of panic. Two nights before his arrival, tigers had dragged a man from his porch and devoured him. For ten days my Master meditated under a tree in front of the village. The first night he struggled with images of the tigers arriving and carrying him away. He heard their growls and saw their footprints. He sat unmoved and watched the drama of his mind like a stage play. Each night he meditated until he fell asleep. Once the tigers understood that the village had saksit, they departed. My Master told me, ‘fear is a natural part of life. It's what you do in the face of fear that determines your worth.’ The assassins are the same as tigers. I will return to Sua Yai to meditate. I will protect the villagers as my Master did before me.”

Wichai raised his eyes to the layman. "But Ajahn," he said with concern. "It is as you say. Assassins are like tigers. They kill villagers, not monks. And now you are a villager."

As the prison gate opened, Pra Wichai remained in a state of panic. He scanned the streets and buildings for marksmen. Images of his head stapled to a dead body returned. He tried to be as philosophical as Jaran but terror filled him at the deepest level. A stray bullet . . . or a two-for-one pay-off could end his life.

Jaran's stomach growled as they walked passed by a gwittiew stand. "What time is it?"

Wichai looked at his watch. "12:22 PM."

"Hmm," Jaran said, disappointed.

"If you are hungry, we can stop and eat. The rule of not eating after noon doesn't apply to you anymore."

Jaran cast an incredulous stare at the novice monk. “I do not eat after 12:00 PM simply because it is a rule. Afternoon meals lead to torpor. Controlling the appetite is part of the good life. It's a rule worth keeping."

Wichai bit his lip at the unintended insult. He watched as Jaran adjusted his trousers, first loosening, and then tightening them. "This whole belt thing is going to take some getting used to," Jaran said, changing the subject.

As they made their way down the busy sidewalk, three scantily dressed women appeared in front of them. A girl with hair to her loins pulled on a Japanese tourist, urging him inside a massage parlor. As Jaran walked by, she released the reluctant man and seized him by the arm. "You want to try a Thai girl?"

Jaran’s calm turned to panic as she pressed her chest against him and pulled him inside. Behind a glass window, twelve women read fashion magazines and groomed each other with combs. All wore red badges with black numbers. A few smiled at the newcomer, hoping they would be chosen for an hour of paid pleasure. The persistent hostess refused to release Jaran. "Come on Mister. Pick a good girl. Anyone you want."

Jaran looked upon the tan faces of Isan. How many girls from Ban Nam Sai would end up behind glass if the forest was destroyed and the village relocated? Wichai pulled him away from the temptress. "Do you see this robe I am wearing!" he said with force. "This man is with me. Show some respect."

The girl released her grip. A few of the ladies behind glass bowed their heads at the sight of Pra Wichai. Outside the parlor, Jaran took a deep breath. His heart beat wildly as he struggled for words to make sense of it all. The last woman to touch him was his own mother. That embrace came thirty-six years ago.

"I suppose I am still a bit naive in the ways of the layman," Jaran conceded.

"It was my fault, Ajahn. I should have been paying more attention. I guess I am used to seeing that kind of stuff around Bangkok. I won't let it happen again."

As they walked, Jaran took in the city around him. The lights, corporations, traffic, massage parlors: so much had changed from quieter days when he studied Scripture in this same city. That evening, Jaran climbed the stairs of the hotel and took a seat on a ledge overlooking the busy street. The transition from being a monk in captivity, to a free man in Bangkok, numbed him. He absorbed the horns and lights and music of the metropolis. "What magnet in the human soul inspires such a clustered existence?" he wondered. "At what point did humans lose their way in the forest?" Jaran sat alone: a mirror of Samsara, a reflection of humanity in its loudest form.

The next morning they shared a taxi to Ban Nam Sai. Jaran took a deep breath as he prepared to meet the villagers. He did not have to wait long. Children stared blank faced at the monk turned layman. Three farmers collapsed to their knees to prostrate him. Jaran stepped back to defer the adulation to Wichai. As they reached Santipap's house, he called out to his brother. Metal tools dropped to the hard earth as the headman sprinted to the front. Role reversal: Santipap stopped in his tracks at the sight of his brother in trousers and Gunnar in a robe. He smiled nervously, uncertain of how show respect. As he dropped to his knees, Jaran reached down and pulled him up by the shoulder. "No brother," he said firmly. "Stand before me man to man."

Maa Pii emerged from the shadows. Her eyes filled with tears at the sight of her two sons together again. Jaran reached out and seized her. She felt as comforting as he remembered. Maa Pii sobbed on her son's shoulder and the two were inseparable, if only for a moment.

The next morning, Jaran emerged from the house with enough food to sustain himself for a week's time. He approached his forest hermitage. There he found Pra Visalo reclining against the wall of his goutie.

"I see you have improved on the Buddha's meditation posture."

Visalo rubbed his eyes and snapped back into a three-point position.

"Ajahn Piko?"

"No. My name is Jaran Kongka."

Seconds later, three eager monks surrounded him. All wanted details of his imprisonment and what lay ahead. Did any chance remain for staying on the land? And what about the incarceration of Pra Taniro? Jaran had little to say. After a few polite words, he admonished them to assist his brother and console the villagers. He would return the night before the military arrived. He could say nothing more.

The weight of the pack and the heat of the morning made the ascent up Fon Maak Mountain a welcomed struggle. Jaran relished the challenge, the use of muscles that had grown weak in the cell. With no precepts binding the preparation of food, he could practice samadhi without worry of being interrupted by a villager. By early afternoon, he reached the Cliffs of Kalipattu. He wandered over to Tham Yao cave and stared into the same cavern where he had reprimanded Pra Ripansa months earlier. The one-time critic of sensory withdrawal stood determined to spend the next six days underground. He would fine-tune the inward practice that he had begun in the prison.

At 8:00 PM, his stomach growled in hunger. Images of each food item packed floated through his consciousness. He felt the temptation to live as an ordinary man: to eat when hungry and sleep when tired. But he resisted. This was no time to abandon discipline. He would begin his underground practice tomorrow. For one night, however, he wished to sleep under the stars, allow awareness to drift into the heavens. As Jaran stared into space, villagers huddled around tables to discuss his return. Some wondered if he had abandoned them to live as a hermit on Fon Maak Mountain? Did he fear assassination? Is that why he had so easily disappeared into the forest during their time of need?

Jaran continued to gaze at the star-filled sky. Soon enough this thirsty land would be awash in rainfall. A continent-sized cloud would form over the equator, march across southern Thailand and then enter Isan. He fell asleep to the images of past thunderstorms. The next morning he washed his face in the stream. He then turned and faced the hole in the earth as one would a long-standing rival. Jaran tried to move his legs, but felt a primordial protest within. His thoughts turned back to the villagers: the young women that prepared his food. He remembered their counterparts behind the glass of a Bangkok brothel. Listening to birdsong would not spare them from a hellish future. He had six short days to prepare for the military and summon the strength necessary for his final protest. He entered the dark cave, placed a blanket on the ground, and lit a candle. He assumed a meditation posture and focused on the in-breath. The robe. He missed saffron on his shoulder and the 2,500 years of heritage that went with it. With each breath he retreated further from the world of sense. Concentric circles opened and closed. The stream of thoughts that calculated when alert, pondered when relaxed, and spewed nonsense when tired, faded to black. With no thought to define him, no individual remained apart from the ten thousand things. After two hours in a jhanic state, his body reverted to sleep. When he awoke, he had no memory of the formless realm. Still, he knew that he had accessed a land beyond pain: a place where nothing is born and nothing dies.

The next morning, he left the cave to make breakfast. As he boiled water for rice, a black-crested bulbul challenged him from the branch of a mai dang tree. Jaran smiled. He offered a quick retort. A heated discussion over territory followed. The bulbol let off a series of trills. Jaran whistled back. He then returned to the cave, content to have put up a spirited defense. In darkness he resumed a three-point posture. To enter the formless realm in a controlled environment was one thing. The military would march on Ban Nam Sai in a few short days. He would need to find his center in a hurricane of distraction. His world now revolved around overcoming the reaction to pain. Jaran placed his full weight on both knees. Bone met granite and the agony of the union rolled through his body. Synapses fired and his torso shook. He followed the breath into the pit of his stomach.

As a Hindu ascetic, the would-be Buddha engaged in similar acts of self-mortification. The revolution of his new religion was the rejection of practices like the one the former monk now engaged.

Jaran knew this.

But with his village on the verge of relocation, the slow path to perfection would not suffice. He had days, not lifetimes, to mount a defense. Neither philosophical insight, nor the righteousness of a single man, would save the forest. His colleagues were now men who pierced body parts to induce, and then overcome, pain.

Himalayan ribbed bats returned to the cave as they did each morning before daybreak. They circled the spires and pinnacles just above the meditating monk. Screeches and trills bounced off his eardrums; the sweet scent of bat urine filled his nostrils. If he could remain in samadhi when the bats descended, he could likewise ignore the taunts of the military.
When the bats settled, Kongka emerged from the cave to make breakfast. Each passing minute seemed precious. The black-crested bulbol renewed his challenge. Jaran enjoyed the song, but offered no counter. The time for fighting would come. He would save his energy for the military, not the bird. He washed his face in the cool water of the stream. The leaf from a mai pado tree fell off its limb and landed in the current. It twisted and turned before disappearing from view. Jaran enjoyed the simple things of the forest: leaves in a river, the first grasses after a rain shower, the sight of a lizard sunning itself. With regret, he returned to the cave and his practice.

His world now revolved around inducing, and then overcoming pain. On the cave floor he laid a piece of discarded plywood. He slid his hands beneath and applied his weight.

“Bud-dho.” Searing pain followed his nerve endings into every part of his body. Jaran shifted his weight. “Crack!” His index finger separated at the joint. The monk cringed but remained unmoved. “I am in the fourth quarter of my life," he said to himself amidst the strain. "This body yet reacts to pain now the same as when I was a child. How much of this response is pointless? If I wish to crush my hand into a useless mitt that is my choice. I do not need some blind response to dictate what I can and cannot do with this body. I will run no longer." After forty minutes of sitting, he removed his disfigured hand and placed it calmly on his lap.

Jaran spent his final night on the mountain outside the cave, in full view of the constellations. The journey that began as a childhood contest with fear in the form of a tiger had become an adult showdown with pain itself. He gathered kindling and created a fire. Above, a single cloud floated overhead, a scout for the coming monsoon. Dusk became darkness as tinder became flame. He tossed kindling onto the fire. Next, he added arm-sized branches off a fallen mai gang-luang tree. He assumed the lotus position and followed his breath. “There is no self in this body,” he said, staring at the fire, reasserting the truth of paticcasamupadda. "There is pain, but no one to feel it. I have proven that the "self" is an illusion. Now, for a few moments in time, I must live what I know in my heart." The fire burned itself to coals. Jaran spread those coals across the hard earth. The heat warmed his body and sweat collected on his forehead. In his mind's eye, he imagined the white-hot cinders as a bed of silk cocoons. He looked to the heavens, and then took his first step onto the fire.

“Bud-dho.” Flames shot up his leg and singed his hair. The bottom of his left foot began to blister. Awareness of pain, of the "self" on fire, made him panic. He could not bare it. Jaran plunged headfirst onto the cool earth. A cinder remained imbedded in the callous of his foot. He beat at it madly until it too fell to the ground. He wrapped his arms around his legs and let out a heartfelt groan. If a worthless foot caused such a reaction, how could he endure the coming of the Thai military? A sleepless night passed in self-doubt. Where had that sacred space gone when he needed it the most?

30

May 9

Jaran washed his bruised and burned body in the stream. He covered it with layman's clothes and headed down the trail toward the village. Each painful step on the blistered foot reminded him of his failure to overcome the reaction to pain. “The village and the forest depend on you,” he said as he neared the settlement. “Do not fail them in their time of need."

Jaran passed unnoticed into mother's house. “Maa Pii," he said softly, but with a hint of distress. “It is time to leave the village. You must go to Auntie’s house now.”

His mother’s eyes filled with tears as she rose from her wooden rocking chair. “Is there no way to stop them?”

Jaran remained silent.

In a cotton sack she placed her medicinal roots and the few material goods she owned. As she passed by Jaran she reached out and pulled him close. His arms wrapped around her fragile body as if it for the last time.

“Sit in the rocking chair and accept my chants,” she insisted.

Jaran shook his head in protest but Maa Pii pushed him toward the chair. He felt like a boy again, forced to do as mother told. From a worn pouch made from the belly skin of nguu namtan (brown snake), Maa Pii removed a faded purple jar filled with liquid. She unscrewed the top. A musty, unpleasant scent filled the room. It reminded Jaran of the musk that a disturbed bark beetle gives off. The bottle shook in her trembling hand as she poured a small amount of liquid onto the floor. Maa Pii closed her eyes and chanted. Jaran remained still. Tolerant. His eyes focused on the flame of an oil lamp in the corner of the room. Maa Pii removed three blackened chicken bones from her pouch. She rubbed the femurs together and then lifted them above her head.

“Stop Mother,” Jaran protested. “Do not allow the bones to fall. I must focus on the present moment. I cannot worry about my health as proscribed by the falling of bones.”

His words were for his mother, but also for himself. The bones conjured a dark pathway back to his youth: a time when his mother's visions held sway over his future. These same bones had portended his father's death. Maa Pii looked up at her son. With a rebellious glare she dropped the femurs to the floor. The largest of the three landed in place: the smaller two bounced slightly, then settled. A broken triangle revealed itself. Maa Pii placed a nervous hand to her mouth. “Jaran, look for yourself. Look at the pattern of the bones. You are not safe. You must leave the village immediately.”

Jaran shuffled in the wood chair as he studied the position of femurs from long dead chickens.

“The bones are clear in their warning,” Maa Pii pleaded. “A broken triangle means the Triple Gem of Buddhism will not protect you. The Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha are not in harmony.”

Jaran clenched his hands together in protest. What if the bones portended a failure to overcome pain during his final protest? The horror. He would disgrace the village and his family. He rose above Maa Pii. “It is time to go Mother,” he said forcefully. “You must leave the village now. As your faithful son, I insist that you go to Auntie’s house.”

“But the bones . . .” she fought back tears.

Santipap arrived to usher Maa Pii into the courtyard. She squinted as the rays of the sun filled the wrinkles of her face. Holding weakly to her son's hand, Jaran watched as she shuffled toward Ban Posai. How many years had he contemplated the suffering of beings? How long had he embraced the fact that all aggregates MUST separate? As a man he knew; as a monk he knew . . . but as a loyal son? With his mother gone, he turned and kicked at the floor beneath him. Chicken bones spun in three directions and slammed against a dark wall. The room grew silent. A lone medicine pouch hung from the rafters.

That night Jaran closed his eyes and meditated on the descending bou-uu call of the collared scops owl. Every twelve seconds, the forest filled with the hunter’s lonesome voice. The evening song sent nocturnal snakes on the prowl. After his meditation, under the branches of ordained trees, he assumed a teaching posture. Pra Wichai His and his three remaining monks circled around him. Ripansa watched a centipede approach on a carpet of legs. With a single flick he sent the insect spinning until it disappeared beneath a floorboard. Jaran rocked from knee to knee as he was prone to do before important discussions. Visalo studied the face of his Master. The tight brown wrinkles on his forehead had increased. He seemed distant, withdrawn. With hair on his head, whiskers for eyebrows, and a soiled button-up shirt . . . the man before him bore little resemblance to Ajahn Piko. Jaran shifted his eyes and stared at Pra Visalo, aware of the monk's probing.

"Ours is a forest temple," he said with resolution. "Without the forest, we cease to exist. The deer, simian flycatchers and gibbons have elected us to serve as their voice against the Kau Jau Kau. We must not fail them. The villagers of Ban Nam Sai likewise look to us in their time of need. The first precept you took when you entered the monkshood was the prohibition against killing. At this temple we do not step on earthworms. The leaches that bloody our robes in the rainy season are plucked with care and placed on the pathway to feast on the next monk. We do not wear artificial sprays to protect ourselves from mosquitoes. Instead, we quietly endure and accept that we share this forest with native beings. Still, as you have seen with the cats, there are those who are strangers to our hills and streams. They do not add balance, but disrupt the harmony that time has created. Tomorrow, men not of the forest will come to destroy what is alive and beautiful for money and power. In many ways they are less human than the feral cats we extinguished. The cats, out of ignorance, killed the native birds. The men who will come have made a conscious choice to kill. They arrive with intent. What a man intends is what he is worth . . . his intention determines his migration through Samsara."

"So all is lost," Ripansa said woefully.

"Let our Master speak before we proclaim defeat," Bhuddipalo answered.

Pra Wichai looked on with growing apprehension.

Jaran continued. "According to the vinaya there is never an occasion for a monk to take a life. But if we are to defend Sua Yai Forest, blood must be shed. To sit idle and allow kamma to take care of the wrongdoers will not serve our cause in this lifetime. It will not keep the villagers on their ancestral lands."

Ripansa nodded his head. "Are we to rise up against the soldiers as we did the feral cats?"

Jaran answered a question with a question. "How many human lives is Sua Yai Forest worth?"

Visalo looked back at his teacher without an answer. Bhuddipalo ran a hand over his bumpy head. Wichai stared at the monk in man’s clothes without an answer.

"The answer is one," Jaran responded calmly. And with that he outlined his plan in full. He explained how he had instructed Santipap to contact nearby temples and recruit additional monks for the final protest. He spoke of the villagers and what to expect from them when the soldiers arrived. And reluctantly he shared his own fate. He told of the meditation practice he had homed in a Bangkok prison and how it would come to fruition in defense of the forest.

When Jaran had finished, even Bhuddipalo looked back in horror. How could killing cats prepare them for this? "I will not be a part of this plan," Visalo said outright. "I cannot kill a human being no matter the justification. I have dreamed of cats nightly since we slaughtered the feral batch roaming the compound. I will not spend the rest of my life running from the images of a man's blood on my hands." He rose to his feet and departed the circle. Why did his Ajahn single him out? He simply could not follow his Master's instructions.

Pra Ripansa closed his eyes and saw the images of what lay ahead. He hated the plan to its core, but in some horrible way it made sense. He stayed. Pra Wichai, for reasons know only to Jaran, had likewise been singled out for the most horrific of tasks. The implications. Why him? He was an American citizen. Did Jaran consider that? The government had already set the precedent of jailing a monk. His robe would not protect him from the repercussions of what his Ajahn asked. He could be tried for murder. Suddenly he wished he had gotten on that plane to Michigan. The thought of spending one day, let alone a lifetime in a Thai prison sickened him. Jaran’s request would transform him forever. He would lose his innocence. Every muscle in his body contracted and urged him to stand up and run away from the plan. Still, something deep inside forced him to stay. Integrity. Loyalty.

Jaran hesitated as he saw the reaction of his monks. "If you are not able to support me," he said, trying to remain stoic. "Leave the forest now. Allow me to prepare for the morning."

The monks saw the commitment in his eyes. There would be no turning back. "If you sit here now," Jaran continued. "You must be with me until the end. When the soldiers come, you will do what I have asked. You will not cower and you will not run. And when it comes time to take a life, you must do so without hesitation."

If not for the nausea Wichai would have been awash with fear. Sweat drained out of every pore in his body. What Jaran asked violated the first vow he had taken as a monk. In America, it was more than just a vow . . .it was the law. Still, in a strange, unfortunate way he saw the terrifying logic of the plan.

Jaran lay alone on the porch of his goutie. Through a break in the trees he stared at a patch of midnight. Thoughts of what lay ahead appeared and then passed away like clouds. One moment he felt nervous. The next, relaxed. A star fell through the Southern Cross. The stream of light replayed itself on his retina. Ah ti pan. He heard the childhood admonition but made no wish. The time for wishing and hoping and planning was over. With no future save the present he pondered the most basic, if not mysterious of life's questions. Where did the falling star come from? And where did a human life go when extinguished? That vast ocean of ego: memories, words and phrases learned as a child . . . what happened to all of that when the body died? And he thought about life itself. He had dedicated himself to protecting nature in its most diverse form. For what purpose? Why was there life at all? To what higher end? The dust mites on his sandals, the thrush in the tree . . . why? Each time he stared into the heavens these were the questions that silenced the mind. Years ago on a remote hilltop above Chiang Mai he screamed like a madman at the space between the stars, demanding answers.

Emptiness. Always emptiness.

He remembered the shock he felt as a school child when he learned the scientific certainty that the sun would someday become a red giant and destroy the earth. To discover that all must perish and history must be forgotten had a chilling effect on the young man. He saw this cold indifference in the eyes of the king cobra that had entered his dream. If not futility, life surely was a mystery. Jaran smiled. Years of forest wandering had brought him no closer to answering the greatest of questions. And with that, he felt like a boy again, in awe of it all . . . unafraid of tomorrow.

Village chickens announced the dawn. Their wild cousins responded from the behind tree cover as they had for generations. Jaran entered the sala to find all four of his loyal monks sitting in meditation. Visalo spoke first. "We are all here to support you Ajahn. We will fight with you to the end. I will do as you asked me to do. Please forgive my moment of weakness."

Jaran glanced briefly at each. When his eyes fell upon Pra Wichai he waited for the monk to acknowledge what had been asked of him. Wichai nodded and then lowered his eyes. "Very well. Let us revisit the plan in full. This is not a time for emotion; this is a time for clarity. Do not succumb to imagery when I speak. Focus on the details.” Jaran removed a sketchpad and outlined his course of action. Weeks of prison confinement allowed him to fine tune the logistics. Simple in design, it required an extraordinary feat of human willpower to execute.

As he detailed his defense, villagers prepared their surrender. Men and women that had grown old together emptied their houses in unison. Santipap issued short, curt, directives. The time for inspiring words had past. Children grasped the finality of it all and cried openly in the courtyard. No longer would they swim in Din Daeng Creek. The great frog hunt that followed the first rains would not know their footsteps. Soon, all would disappear into ash and folklore. How different life would be without the forest. Monotony. Plantations for as far as the eye could see. Without shade they would know poverty in the truest sense.

By 8:00 AM, the majority of their possessions stood piled high in the street. A line of monks from nearby monasteries filed past them. Thirty-nine men, nearly one for every Ban Nam Sai house, marched toward Jaran’s forest temple. At the trial, Piko called had upon the monks of the nation to rise up in defense of the forest. Thirty-nine bhikkus from nearby communities had answered his call. They filed through the forest to await further instructions. An hour later, a hundred and fifty college students and loyal Piko amulet holders arrived by bus. With protest signs in hand, they occupied a patch of dried grass at the front of the village.

At 11:00 AM, the first helicopter roared over Ban Nam Sai. Men with binoculars stared out either side with rifles pointed at unarmed villagers. The once confident protestors cowered at the sight of the side-mounted machine guns. Jaran heard the helicopter, but remained unmoved amidst his circle of monks. As villagers renewed their packing distant fields erupted in combustion. Military vehicles piled with soldiers motored toward Ban Nam Sai. Earthmovers followed in a slow procession.

Protestors formed a human chain to block the entrance to Ban Nam Sai. Seconds later, armed soldiers made quick work of the resistance. Signs lauding peace and non-violence were ripped from their hands and shredded. Unarmed villagers trembled in fear. Tired. Helpless. Anyone with a mother held her tight. Behind the melee, General Sunkorn and Ajahn Tawui looked on with the quiet reassurance that goes with superior firepower. Two blows of a whistle and 500 soldiers stood opposite 200 farmers. Santipap blew no whistle and gave no orders. Behind him, young girls sobbed openly. Men stood helpless with looks of terror on their faces. Soldiers searched the houses for weapons. Meanwhile, Tawui kept an eye out for rebel monks and their disrobed leader.

He would not have to wait long. Monks from four different villages took to the forest path. They filed into the courtyard wearing bright saffron robes. As planned, each occupied the doorway of a pre-assigned house. They adjusted their robes and assumed meditation postures. Tawui clenched his fist at the sight of the resistance. Villagers looked on in surprise. Appreciation.

Tawui filed past unfamiliar faces. He knew Jaran had a hand in this and relished the thought of confronting him as a layman. Without the robe, violence was the easy alternative.

“Bud-dho.” The monks repeated the chant in unison.

Tawui locked eyes with Pra Wichai. He had done more than just proposition Lek to have sex with him. He alone had authored the death threat that forced Gunnar to join the monkshood in the first place. Tawui's cousin bribed a police officer and recovered an original photo from the Khun Sarawat murder. The other images of bullet-riddled and cut up human flesh were purchased from other nefarious sources. Tawui affixed Gunnar's face atop the activist's bloody body. He penned the note, sealed the envelope, and addressed it to the reporter.

General Sunkorn looked on with rage. He waved for Tawui to join him. “What are the consequences of throwing every damn monk here in the back of a wagon and dumping them on the other side of the province?"

“It would be a catastrophe," Tawui said. "The nation is on alert. If these monks are mishandled there could be an uprising of historic proportions. They know this. That is why they are here."

“So how do we get rid of them?"

Tawui smiled as he considered the challenge. “Under each robe is an ordinary man. Attack the man, not the monk, and the nation will forgive you. A monk will hunger and thirst the same as a villager. Have your soldiers empty the houses of food and water and close off the perimeter so no supplies can be brought in. Arrest any person who brings water to the monks. Heat and dehydration will break them within a day and a half.”

Under Sunkorn’s direction, soldiers filed passed the meditating monks and emptied the houses of any remaining foodstuffs. Barrels used for bathing were tipped over. Vats of drinking water were smashed with the farmer's own tools. "BOOM!" the village well exploded. By 4:00 PM, thirsty villagers began their retreat. They exited the forest and took shelter in nearby Ban Posai. Monks began to fidget as dehydration set in. The next morning, a headcount by General Sunkorn revealed three empty houses where before sat monks. He approached the buildings with a smile, confirmed their desertion, and waved in an earthmover. The transport shifted gears. To the horror of onlookers, it plowed into Claichan Rungpo's house. Some monks glanced up from their sitting; others remained focused on their breath, if not their thirst. The sound of boards snapping filled the courtyard. The final of the three abandoned houses belonged to Santipap. The headman braced himself against his wife and watched helplessly as the machine motored toward all of his worldly possessions. Lek and Nok looked on helplessly. The earthmover ripped into the wood frame. The dwelling fell over backwards like a tipped vase. When it landed, walls that held posters of Nok's favorite actors were reduced to broken boards. The soldiers let out a loud cheer as though they were watching a boxing match instead of the destruction of people's lives. Sunkorn smiled at Santipap.

“Where is your spiritual leader now?” Tawui yelled to the monks that remained in the doorways. “Jaran has abandoned you to the May sun. You sit thirsty in the houses of his relatives while he enjoys food and water in the forest. Your Ajahn is a communist, not a Buddhist. You suffer for a traitor and a fool."

The monks did not raise their heads or acknowledge Tawui. Dehydration remained their strongest foe. Pra Bhuddipalo meditated upon single bead of sweat that had formed on his forehead. He watched the water trickle over his nose and onto his lips. By 2:00 PM, twenty-six hours without water, the temperature soared to ninety-six degrees in the shade and 103 degrees under the corrugated metal roofs. Pra Thumnit from Ban Rong Ling Village fell over on his back. He lay passed out from heat exhaustion. Tawui waved in a pair of smiling soldiers. They placed the broken man in a wheelbarrow and rolled him toward an army medic. Different levels of desperation reflected in the eyes of the remaining monks. Pra Panit released bile-stained urine into his robe. Pra Manothum started to blink uncontrollably as the moisture in his eyes evaporated.

Only once the sun descended could the monks relax. Many curled up on mats and slept to conserve energy and water. Pra Mongkol’s head ached so bad that he resorted to doing handstands to relieve the pressure. As the eastern sky grew bright with color, four more households were abandoned. Three monks had fled to Ban Posai for water and food while Pra Palisuk lay unconscious. Soldiers placed him in the wheelbarrow and delivered him to a medic. With a spring in his step, Sunkorn did the rounds. He waved in another earthmover. Amidst the cheers of soldiers, more houses fell to heavy equipment. An hour later, with the headaches becoming more unbearable, Pra Mongkol broke his meditation and wandered in a state of delirium toward the soldiers. “I’m looking to buy a water buffalo,” he murmured incoherently. “Can anybody hear me! Water buffalo . . . I need to buy a water buffalo.”

The army medic led him into an air-conditioned vehicle and poured three glasses of water, minus the buffalo into him.

The time had come.

In three hours, direct sunlight would reach the thresholds of east-facing houses. The heat would be unbearable. The remaining monks would dessert the cause or pass out altogether. Pra Wichai rose to his feet and walked into the forest. In a hidden grove of trees, he called on Jaran. "Ajahn,” he said with despair, “It is time. Monks are passing out with heat exhaustion. Village houses have been destroyed. This is the time you asked me to warn you about."

"Very well," Jaran responded calmly. "Return to your post. I will follow shortly."

Jaran put on a change of clothes and walked quietly down the woodland path. He paused at a colony of termites if only to enjoy their utter indifference to the world of man.

31

"The robe!" Pra Ripansa yelled out to nearby Pra Visalo. "Ajahn Piko is back. He is wearing the robe!"

Monks and army men alike stared with awe and contempt at the brilliant saffron that covered Piko's body. Unlike the insect-stained robe he wore to trial, the garment on his back equaled Tawui's in its magnificence. The monk acknowledged General Sunkorn and Maha Tawui and then assumed a meditation posture in the center of the courtyard. Tawui marched toward him in a rage. "You are a disgrace to the Buddhist path. You wear the robe like a monk but you are a criminal. Your actions will put you back in prison until you are gray with age."

"Bud-dho."

Tawui yelled out across the street. "What kind of monks are you to be led by this imposter? He leaves you to suffer in this courtyard and arrives only when you are at your weakest!"

Pra Wichai reached for a watch in his cloth bag: 1:35 PM. In twenty minutes, he would rise from his seat and do as he had promised his Ajahn. The countdown began. Pra Bhuddipalo chanted out loud. “Parnam Saranam Gatcharmee.” By the second verse the courtyard reverberated with monks chanting in harmony. “Parnam Saranam Gatcharmee.” Hypnotic. Piko followed the words inward. His blistered foot pointed to the sky; his dislocated knuckle rested on his robe. The moment he had trained for was upon him. With each breath he traveled inward to the land of the ancients. His heart rate slowed to twenty beats a minute. The concentric circles opened and closed as sunset colors gave way to a dark tunnel of awareness. A velvet-fronted nuthatch called from a tree limb. The voice appeared not as sound, but as a blue streak of light. Anicca: impermanence. Dukkha: suffering. Annata: no self. Piko saw a childhood image of naked boys playing in this same courtyard. One of the boys stopped mid-stride and stared back at him through eyes that resembled his own. He then saw a fisherman rowing a crude boat down the Mekong River. The man's face seemed foreign and wrinkled, but his eyes were the same as the boy's. The monk traveled deeper into the dark center of being until he stood face to face with a Bengal tiger. The cat turned and looked at him through the fisherman's eyes, the boy's eyes, his own eyes. Again darkness. He continued his journey. An Asian barred owl called out to him. He stared into his own familiar eyes on the face of an owl. Past lives? He did not know. The tunnel evaporated and a place beyond light and dark remained.

At precisely five minutes to the hour, Pra Visalo rose to his feet and moved zombie-like toward a barrel in the back of the house. Pra Wichai did the same on the opposite side of the courtyard. Both fished out man-sized cotton towels from barrels of gasoline. They dipped milk buckets into the vats and filled them two inches shy of overflowing. With swollen cloths in one hand and filled buckets in the other, they walked in unison toward the center of the dusty street. The chanting grew louder as the two monks met in the courtyard. Wichai could no longer sweat. He had only enough water to support the vital organs and the skin that covered them. Fumes off the cloth made his eyes water. He felt dizzy.

Tawui shook his head in disgust. “Your soldiers missed a vat of water,” he said to Sunkorn. “They are coming to ease his weak thirst!"

Wichai kneeled down two feet in front of his Master. He gazed up briefly at a godless sky. Piko looked serene, statuesque. His lips curved slightly upward. Visalo immersed the cloth into the bucket. Wichai did the same. One after the other they wrapped the monk in an octane cape. Piko knew sensation, but the division between his body, the cloth, and the forest were non-existent.

Visalo wiped a hand on his robe and reached for a flint and match from his carry pouch. With a single swipe, a flame danced inches away from a man bathed in gasoline. “Existence is but a flame,” Piko once told him on Fon Maak Mountain. “Burning brightly one moment, disappearing the next. And time, like the flame, is not continuous. It arises and passes away in the present moment. Live each second as though it were your last.”

Monks continued chanting. Piko continued breathing. The sun continued shining with the earth slowly spinning. In the dark center of the void Ajahn Piko had a vision: A shama thrush burst into song, as the first monsoon rains poured down. The rains pelted mountains stripped of timber, bare as a camel’s back, arid as a Cancer desert. Where roots once absorbed the rain a torrent of muddy water came. Careening down the land, slippery as the palm of a merchant's hand, creating new rivers where before there were none. Villagers: more children than women, more women than men, swirled in a river wild.

The burning match flew in an arc toward the meditating monk.

"In Samsara," he once told the young reporter from his prison cell. "The raft may reach the other side of the river, but not even the most enlightened of men can predict where or when."

Young soldiers screamed as old monks chanted. Piko’s octane cape ignited and flames burst skyward: first red, then orange, and finally piercing white at the top. As the towels melted, the muscle and tendons that held the monk together became fuel for the fire. Piko remained unmoved. He would not break his meditation posture. Horrible images appeared and disappeared behind the flame. Empty holes where once lay eyes. Blackened bones where once stood flesh. Some ethereal force kept his legs locked and his exposed backbone straight. Not one scream. Not one attempt to preserve the illusory self. Pra Wichai removed a 35mm camera and knelt before the melting man. He took three successive photos, just as he had promised. Through the lens, he watched the blackened skeleton of his mentor fall over on its side.

32

A provincial ambulance rolled past Maa Pii as she chanted in front of a small cooking fire in her sister’s house. She had outlived her son. No greater curse could befall a mother. News of the immolation spread to surrounding villages. Hundreds of farmers descended upon the forest hamlet.

As villagers arrived, the army retreated. Sunkorn scrambled into a military transport and ordered all soldiers to evacuate a publicity nightmare in the making. He did not want his face, or the faces of his soldiers, in the same photos with an incinerated monk. Maha Tawui remained behind. He would do everything in his power to deny Piko his martyrdom. He would remind the headmen from nearby villages and reporters from Bangkok that an ordinary man, not a monk, had just committed an unholy act.

From a distance, Lek stared at the corpse that was her uncle. What had she done in this, or a previous life, to deserve such a view? Behind the body lay the remains of her family’s home. She passed by the chanting monks and stood upon the broken boards of her childhood. Medics in white uniforms approached her uncle’s blackened body. Monks continued to chant. Children continued to cry. Village elders from Ban Posai gathered around Tawui looking for an explanation. All stared at the charred body trying to make sense of it all.

Lek watched from afar as her sister sobbed and pressed up against her mother. The thought of Nok following in her footsteps sickened her. Perhaps she would start in the factories. Many girls did. But what then? Nok’s beauty would catch the eye of some opportunist like Mole. She knew so little about the outside world and what men are capable of. The cycle of suffering would begin anew. She shook with rage at losing her uncle, her village, her house, and in time, the innocence of her sister.

When rage subsided, a very dangerous woman remained.

How long had she been a victim in a man’s world? Hope and humanity seeped out of her. She stood numb atop the room where she cried herself to sleep the night before she left for Bangkok. Still, her eyes remained fixed on Tawui like a sniper locking in on its target. She took his every word personally until finally she could feel no more.

Maa Pii arrived and villagers parted on either side to let her pass. Tears collected in the folds of her wrinkled cheeks. She stared down upon her son's blackened body, let out a solitary wail, and collapsed before the corpse. Santipap knelt down and placed his arm over his mother's shoulder.

Maa Pii reached into her snakeskin bag. She retrieved a gourd filled with dried seeds. She shook the rattle over the three sections of the body. “Do not fear the lost souls that live in the clouds,” she whispered. “They will ask you many questions, but do not let them slow you. I will meet you in the third heaven where the flying people live. Wait for me there. Wait for your mother above the clouds. I will be there soon.”

Lek’s attention alternated between her sobbing grandmother and the gloating monk. She knelt behind a broken cupboard to avoid being seen. Reason could not explain her fixation. She simply had to hold Tawui in her sights; listen to his every word. When darkness descended on the broken village. Tawui walked past the covered body with an air of indifference. He followed the forest path toward his Lexus in wait. Lek knelt before her Uncle's body. Amidst the scent of charred flesh she removed the amulet with his likeness and immersed it in ash. “I must leave you now Uncle. If you are watching over me, you must close your eyes until I return to the village. Promise me that you will not follow me. You have had your protest. Now I will have mine.”

33

Lek tucked the ash-covered amulet back under her shirt. Her small feet carried her through the forest until she walked in stride with Tawui. As the monk reached the car, she extended a hand and placed it on his shoulder. "Did you mean what you said outside the courtroom?"

Tawui spun around to identify the soft voice. At the sight of Lek he motioned for his driver to leave him in privacy. He knew exactly what she referred to. "And if I did?"

"My home has been destroyed and it will take money to rebuild. I have nowhere to sleep tonight."

Tawui's tongue grew moist as he stared into the oval eyes of the village beauty. "Get in."

His hand slid down her black hair and over the contours of her spine. He shut the car door and entered on the opposite side. Through a corridor of trees Pra Wichai saw the unimaginable. He had followed Lek, who had followed the devil in a man. Spinning tires kicked a cloud of dust skyward. The monk stood alone at the edge of the forest and watched his dreams of the future disappear from view.

Tawui sat delighted at the good fortune upon him. If only for a night, he would own the woman whose photographs he had pleasured himself to. He would know Lek the way he knew his maids as a boy, and numerous prostitutes as a man. The thought of controlling something so beautiful made him tingle with delight. And, the union would serve as a final insult to Ajahn Piko beyond the grave. It would payback Gunnar Ray for his damning photos and accusatory articles.

Lek stared with glazed eyes at the endless fields of eucalyptus. The monk's hand slid off his robe, toward her knee. He watched for the slightest reaction as he caressed her leg. Lek did not move. For Tawui, that alone was a victory: confirmation that she wanted him.

City of Angels. After four hours on the road they entered a red-light district: Neon-lit discotheques, massage parlors, and Go Go bars passed by either side. Lek remained silent. Indifferent. She had not said one word the entire trip. Tawui gawked at the women outside the smoked windows of his car. He again placed his hand on her thigh. Lek calmly reached into her purse and retrieved a stainless steel nail file with a pink teddy bear on the handle. She raised her index finger and studied the impressive red nail that she had nurtured since childhood. At a downward angle, she passed the metal swiftly over the left side. An edge formed. The shavings went airborne and Tawui sneezed. Lek next worked the right side of the nail. With each pass of metal the cuticle began to look less like fingernail, and more like a dagger. When she had finished, a point that could puncture leather remained. She returned the file to her purse. Calmly, she ran the razor tip over the palm of her hand again and again.

The Lexus pulled up to the gate surrounding Tawui’s clandestine residence. The monk reached beneath the seat and retrieved a large overcoat and brown derby. He placed the coat over his robe and escorted Lek toward the gate. He punched in a three-number code and the steel gate opened into his secret world. His cousin backed out of the driveway and left for the evening.

Artwork from Japan, Italy, and France covered the walls. A large screen television with speakers on either side sat opposite a leather couch. Lek took a seat while Tawui disappeared into an unseen corner of his house. She brought the sharpened nail to the center of her tongue and nicked the flesh. The monk turned man emerged in Giovanni slacks and a Polo dress shirt. A wrinkled Buddhist robe peaked out of his duffle bag. In his other hand he carried a bottle of expensive champagne and wine glasses. He filled Lek's glass and admired his transformation in a large mirror. He could pass for a Sukhumvit diamond trader. His father. The man he wanted to be.

"So tonight are you a monk or a man," Lek said, caressing his hairless arm as it rested on her thigh. Tawui winked at her. He placed his hand over hers. “Beneath every robe beats the heart of a man."

Lek wrapped her lips around the glass. Her tongue, visible through the pale champagne, increased Tawui's excitement. He continued to caress her leg. She slid her face past his cheek and whispered into his ear. "What I can give you costs money."

Tawui's hand stopped mid-thigh. With a condescending smile he fished through his pants' pocket and retrieved a role of bills. Lek placed the money on the glass table without counting it. Tawui led her to his bedroom. With the press a button, white light gave way to red.

He lay down and stared up at his reflection in a oval ceiling mirror. He played with the lighting as he waited for Lek to emerge from the bathroom. Lek entered wearing black panties and a black lace bra. Her tight stomach flowed into perfect hips. Tawui stared with longing at brown nipples visible through the soft weave. She reached for the champagne and swirled it over her tongue.

Tawui pulled her mouth toward his. Champagne poured into him. He swallowed and smiled like a teenager. Lek's bra fell upon his stomach and the love act began. As he licked her body, Lek placed her hand atop the smooth skin of his scalp. Tawui moved toward her firm belly and she let out a slight groan. As he worked his mouth around her thighs his lips met a red tattoo in the hollow of her pale hip. “What’s this?” he said. He rubbed his nose against a haunting image of the Hindu Goddess Shiva wearing a necklace of human skulls. Below the image was a message written in Sanskrit.

“Read it,” Lek answered, pushing his head gently away from her body. "Do you understand?"

Tawui smirked at her insolence. "I am third level Pali scholar. Of course I know what it says. It is Sanskrit . . . an ancient saying that dates back to the Upanishads."

“Translate it out loud so I can hear if your voice trembles.”

"Love Equals Death." Tawui resumed his conquest, indifferent to the message.

"You do not sound afraid . . ." Lek said. Atop the smooth skin of his head she made a figure eight with the dagger nail. "I wasn't afraid either until a stranger gave me this tattoo. He loved many women. And now many girls walk the streets with the markings of the goddess of love and death."

Tawui chuckled. He ignored her words completely. What could she possibly say that would interest him? He licked the tattoo in defiance. Lek sat unmoved, indifferent. At his urging she opened her legs.

Four months had past since her last paying customer. Since her arrival to Bangkok, she had slept with a hundred men . . . actually more. In times of drought; or when the letters from her mother dwelt on the government's threat to relocate the village, she did as the other bargirls did: sometimes for a night; other times for a week or more. She went home with men for money. The lifestyle sustained her body, if not her spirit. It kept her family in health and power. And she had a full line of cosmetics that village girls dreamed about, but could never afford.

Then she woke up with the tattoo.

When doctors explained its meaning she never took another man. She reduced her hours at the bar and started to volunteer at the orphanage. Lek pulled Tawui's wet face toward her and rolled him onto his back. He lay panting. Mumbling. Aching to penetrate her. She grabbed the champagne off the table, filled her mouth, and emptied it into the fragile man. She repeated the ritual until Tawui’s eyes rolled back in intoxication. She slid the dagger nail inside her body. With a forceful swipe, she cut into the wall of her vagina. The blood began to flow. She reached down, took hold of Tawui’s penis and pushed him deep inside of her. Tawui let out a scream of pleasure. Lek winced as the union opened the wound. In the ceiling mirror, the horror revealed itself. The red light could not hide the scarlet blood that flowed onto the drunken man. She slid her hand down her stomach and into her blood. With her nail, she gently passed over the contours of Tawui's penis. He smiled. His eyes remained closed. Lek took a deep breath. She pressed the point of her dagger nail into his skin. With a furious swipe, she severed the base of his penis. Tawui groaned in drunken agony as the wound opened. Before he knew the depth of the cut, Lek thrust her hips down upon him again and again. Pleasure replaced pain and he exploded inside of her.

In the mirror above she admired her work. The monk's saffron robe had given way to a red cape born of two blood types. Lek wrote the imposter who drove her uncle to suicide and evicted her family, a brief, but telling note. She washed herself with a wet rag and moved swiftly out the door and toward the gate.

Pra Wichai sat with camera in hand on the sidewalk outside Tawui’s house. He had spent four hours in the back of a taxi searching for Tawui's Lexus. He found the car an hour outside of Bangkok. He followed Tawui intent on taking a photo of the monk outside a hotel, or a residence just as this. Surely the Sangha Council would defrock the monk when they learned of his preferred method of release. After he took the photos, Wichai planned on pulling Lek away from Tawui’s clutches before the damage was done. One way or another he would get her the money she needed: anything to prevent her from sleeping with Tawui.

In the back of the taxi, when he could no longer bare the thought of Lek's betrayal, he removed his journal to fulfill his promise to Ajahn Piko. Words of witness from Ban Nam Sai poured onto paper. In thirty-minutes, he penned a passionate article about a doomed forest and the monk who immolated himself in its defense. His piece would soon circle the globe: bring an international spotlight to crimes against humanity and nature in this Land of Smiles.

The plan backfired. Wichai arrived just after the Lexus disappeared behind the gate. Barbed wire surrounding the compound prevented his entrance. For the rest of his life, he would have to live with the knowledge that he was two seconds too late.

Lek pressed three numbers on the keypad and the gate opened. Pra Wichai sprang to his feet. He now saw her for what she was: a predator, a sing puuchai . . . a lioness hunting men on the streets of Bangkok. He darted out in front of her before she could hail a taxi. Lek's cool indifference gave way to panic as recognition set in. "But how!" she said, yelling at him. "How did you find me?"

"It doesn't matter how," Wichai yelled back. All that matters is WHY! How could you do this to your Uncle's memory! TO ME! I was ready to dedicate my life to you. How can I love a prostitute? Tell me that. Every time I look in your eyes I will see the face of the evil man you just slept with. How much money could he possibly pay you to justify what you have done?"

Lek did not have enough power to mount a defense. Gunar's love, more than his scorn, weakened her. "Your words add to my curse Gunnar Ray," she said in Thai, using his given name. "If you care about me, really, really care, you must never call on me again. This must be the last time I see your face."

Lek turned away and walked toward the intersection. Wichai stood in shock. The sincerity in her eyes convinced him that she had left for good. "No Lek!" he called out over the grind of passing cars. "I will forgive you. Don't leave me. We can build a life together. We can help your village. Just don't leave!"

He dashed in front of her and spread his arms to block her passage. "I'm confused too," he lamented. "I just don't know why you did this? Anyone but Tawui. There are other ways to help your family. Why this!" With nowhere to run, Lek sobbed openly. Wichai pulled her head against his chest and wrapped her in his arms. "It will be alright," he said in a soothing voice. "We can make this work."

Lek placed her hands on his robe and slowly pushed him away. Every word made her more human and him less a monk. His face and his touch magnified her suffering. The more he loved her, the more she died. She spoke to him for the last time. "The wrong monk died in Ban Nam Sai today,” she said with anguish. “The gate code is 917. Inside you will find Maha Tawui asleep in his room. You will also find the note I left him. Read the note. Then you will understand why we cannot be together."

Lek turned away and jogged down the side of the busy street. She opened the door of a taxi and disappeared from his life. He could hardly breathe. The robe. Wichai regretted every vow that prevented him from unleashing his fury on Tawui. He punched in the three numbers on the pad and watched with anticipation as the gate opened before him. One deep breath. He entered a side door that led into the living room. On the glass table, a thick roll of Thai currency. “Why didn’t she take the money?” he wondered. Wichai approached an open door open. White light gave way to red as he entered the room. In the mirror above the bed, he saw a reflection of Tawui beneath a white sheet.

Lek's perfume lingered in the room. The scent that once stirred his passion now sickened him. He again felt the urge to redeem his loss through violence. This charade of a monk now had intimate knowledge of the only two women he had ever loved. First Kelly . . . and now Lek. What cruel karmic weave had bound them together? Wichai regained focus and continued his search for Lek's note. He moved into the bathroom and searched the counter and sink. White porcelain. No note. In her haste, Lek had forgotten to tell him where the note was. Or perhaps she did not forget. Wichai placed his hands on the counter and stared at his bald image in the mirror. "Where!" he scolded himself. "Where did she put the note?" He heard the bed sheet rustle as Tawui changed positions.

"Damn it!" he said, shaking his head in dismay. "She must have left it on the bed."

The thought of coming within inches of the naked man sickened him. Still, he had to see that note . . . some explanation as to why she would abandon him so completely. He re-entered the red room to find Tawui passed out on his back. Wichai leaned over the man. Lek's scent grew stronger: not just perfume, but the essence of a woman. It stirred carnal feelings of violence, lust, and jealousy. On either side of Tawui he found no note.

The sheet.

It must be under the sheet. Tawui's alcohol-stained breath bathed his face as he took hold of the cotton that covered him. Wrinkles and folds, a hairless forehead flowing into an inadequate nose, Tawui bore an unflattering resemblance to a sleeping fruit bat. Wichai lifted the cloth off the naked monk. With surgical precision he brought it down toward the man’s waist. As the cotton lowered, Lek's scent increased. Then he saw it. He saw the nightmare in full color.

Tawui’s penis, thighs, and waist were bathed in crimson. With blood as her palette, Lek had painted her three-letter life sentence across his hairless chest.

The Horror. Infection through Viral homicide + motive.

The three letters that marched across Thailand at the same rate as deforestation comprised Lek's note with tombstone brevity. Wichai released the sheet and covered his mouth. His body shook with anguish as he stepped back toward the door. Tears streamed down his face. He punched in the numbers to open the gate and made his way to a dark alley. Free from the watchful eyes of the city, he collapsed to the pavement. He leaned against a crumbling cement wall and looked to the heavens for solace. H I V +. He would see those scarlet letters etched across Tawui's chest every day for the rest of his life. His head swirled and stomach contracted. He leaned over the edge of a dumpster and vomited in wretched fashion. Violent contractions emptied him until only heartache remained. He had witnessed a murder. No. Two murders. Someone had killed Lek as well: killed her for being poor, for being beautiful. And ghost that she was she had just unleashed hell on a man. Wichai again sank to the pavement, his head pounding, and every organ in his body exhausted. Minutes became hours. A taxi turned down the alley and halogen beams illumined his robe. He lifted a weak arm to call the ride.

"Burriram," he said softly.

"Are you crazy?" the driver accosted him in Thai. "It's 2:30 AM! That's a four hour drive from here." His eyes met Wichai's white robe and he placed his hands together in respect. Embarrassed, he apologized. "Forgive me Ajahn. I did not know you were a monk. May I humbly ask why you want to go to Burriram in the middle of the night?"

Wichai pulled out $150.00 dollars worth of Thai currency and handed it to the driver. "This is why."

The driver rolled down his window to lessen the stench off his robe. He shifted gears and merged into Bangkok traffic.

"Stop at the Bangkok Times first," the monk insisted.

Wichai placed his article in a makeshift envelope and scribbled his editor's name, the number for the Associated Press in New York, and the word URGENT on the top. He slipped the envelope and a roll of photos in the drop box and returned to the taxi. Raindrops pelted the roof of the car as they sped toward Isan. Wichai closed his eyes to a world that had crashed down upon him. He fell into a deep sleep. The taxi reached the village at dawn.

With his begging bowl slung across his shoulder, Wichai watched as villagers unloaded their belongings back into their houses.

"Pra Wichai!' Anan said with excitement. "You have returned!"

The monk stared zombie-like at the man who somehow found a way to smile. He reluctantly asked the question whose answer he did not fully want to know. "What's next?"

Anan looked back at the monk with resolve. "The military has given us another month to leave the village. As you can see, we're not going anywhere. They will have to carry us out! We are willing to go to the grave just as Ajahn Piko."

"And you may," Wichai said without celebrating. "Where is Santipap?"

"He is meeting with the headmen from neighboring villages. They are planning a protest march from Khorat to Bangkok. The villagers living in the shadows of Sua Yai Forest finally understand that they too are at risk of being relocated. What happens to our village will happen to them. And what happens to them will happen to settlements throughout Isan. Ajahn Piko was right. The tyranny must be stopped."

With the death of Piko and the loss of Lek, Wichai felt like a stranger in the confines of the village. He needed time. Maybe he would re-join the fight. Maybe not. His story of the immolation was in the production stages at the Times and various newspapers around the world. As instructed, his editor had faxed his article to New York. The wires of the Associated Press lit up like a Christmas tree. His account of the immolation was picked up across America, Britain, Brazil, and Africa. He had fulfilled his promise. The eyes of the world were now on Ban Nam Sai and the Sua Yai Forest.

Anan waited for Pra Wichai to respond. Nothing. Distant. The farmer continued. "People are saying that Ajahn Piko was an arahat. That is the only way he could have remained unmoved when the flames were upon him. Armed villagers are guarding the body to see if his ashes turn to crystal. That is the surest sign of Enlightenment. What do you think Gunnar . . . I mean Pra Wichai? Is this not a miracle? Ajahn Piko, an arahat from our own village."

Pra Wichai nodded if only to be polite. The emptiness in his heart and pungent taste in his mouth were his sole reality. He accepted handouts of dried buffalo meat, bananas, and sticky rice. Once he finished his meal, he made an arrangement with Anan to deliver provisions to him atop Fon Maak Mountain.

As he passed Wat Sua Yai, Pra Visalo and Pra Ripansa rose to their feet to greet him. "Pra Wichai," Visalo said with concern. "Sit and have tea with us. You do not look well."

The scent of vomit remained strong on Wichai's robe. Pra Ripansa retrieved a washcloth and offered it to the empty man. In silence, Wichai sipped the tea, his eyes unmoved from the ground in front him. The American who had known death as a chalk drawing on a Michigan street had, in the course of twenty-four hours, played a role in burning a man to death and witnessed a murder plot.

"Why did he choose us?" Pra Wichai said softly to Visalo. "That man was alive and breathing until we poured gasoline on him. People can call it a suicide, but the truth is we killed him."

Visalo stood up and retrieved another tea bag. He saw the match leave his hand, a flame turn into fire, and his mentor transformed into charred bones. He offered no response.
Ripansa interjected. "Maybe Ajahn Piko wasn't a man at all. Maybe he was the forest in human form. The day that we meditated on interdependence on Fon Maak Mountain I saw something that I could not explain. Our Ajahn told us to observe the fish in the pool and watch how all things defined each other. But the truth is I meditated on Ajahn Piko. What I saw frightened me. That is why I wanted to stick to the rules of the vinaya. Perhaps I am just now coming to understand the full implications. Ajahn Piko changed form right before my eyes. First he became a tiger sitting next to the water. His eyes were closed and his mouth open. With each breath, thick ribbons of muscle contracted beneath black and yellow stripes. I closed my eyes for a second. When I re-opened them he had become a deer. His ears twitched and he smelled the air as if aware that the tiger had passed through. Finally, I saw our Master take the form of an owl. A brilliant cape of white feathers rimmed with brown edges covered him. The owl turned his head and looked right at me. He did not blink; he did not turn away. He just stared at me until I could bear it no longer. From that day on, every time I looked into Ajahn Piko’s eyes I saw the tiger, the deer, and the owl. His body perished in the courtyard but his spirit lives on in the forest."

34

Pra Wichai reached the Cliffs of Kalipattu by mid-afternoon. He set up his mosquito netting and reclined in the shadows. For a forest on the verge of destruction, life went on pretty much as normal. A yiaw (hawk) pounced on a lizard and finished the meal in full view. Clouds drifted overhead and merciless humidity gave way to a downpour. Wichai retreated into the mouth of the cave and watched as the dusty ground turned to mud. He covered himself with a light blanket. Minutes later, he entered a dreamless sleep to the sound of rain meeting earth.

The next morning he awoke to clear skies and a sambar deer drinking from the nearby stream. As he watched the deer, he considered Pra Ripansa’s account. Memories of time spent with Ajahn Piko returned in full color. He reflected on learning the medicinal uses of plants during their first walk through the forest. He remembered the timeless image of the two brothers standing shoulder to shoulder before setting the greenhouse ablaze. And he saw the man who turned inward in a Bangkok prison for the sake of a forest.

Above the deer, the same black-crested bulbol that had challenged Piko, called out Wichai. Its lively call helped lighten his somber mood. Wichai approached the stream. As he stared into the water, his thoughts turned from the Ajahn to his niece. He remembered the look of shock on Lek’s face as they crossed the Mekong River without a driver. He smiled as he revisited the first time they met: her painted face doused with silver sparkles. The little things touched him: the thick sneakers she wore to add a few inches to her height; the look on her face as she listened to a banjo solo in the Grey Ghost; her head resting on his shoulder on the train to Khorat. Lek's perfume lingered if only in his imagination.

May 23

The monsoon rains became a regular afternoon visitor. When humidity reached its peak and the forest canopy grew still, the heavens opened and thunderous cracks ripped across the sky. Roots, vines, and long-established channels absorbed the torrents just as they had for thousands of years. What the forest did not need, the ancient streams accepted. He saw Ajahn Piko in the Integrity of it all: the harmony of individuals contributing to the greater whole.

And while the cycle remained intact in Sua Yai Forest, 150 miles to the north, nature's wisdom had fallen to the ax. The same Phetchabun Mountain Range that Khun Sarawat had lobbied to save before he was assassinated had become a lawless land. Without trees, native birds flew south and exotic weeds marched north. All the while, villagers went about their daily lives beneath the slippery slopes of a fated land. When the monsoon arrived, the ancient meeting of cloud-cover and rainforest misfired. The trees that braced the land lay stacked outside a paper mill. Without forest cover, the slopes acted like a windshield in a rainstorm. Muddy torrents careened into the Phetchabun River. Children playing on swings, women mending fishing nets, men sleeping in hammocks . . . all were swept away in the worst flood the province had ever known.

May 26

On his sixteenth morning atop Fon Maak Mountain, the once clean-shaven monk donned whiskers and a sweat-stained robe. In his tawdry state he had a vision. Wichai saw what looked like a nun, emerge from the forest cover. Even without hair, the woman's beauty, more so than her religion, captured his eye. He rose to his feet. By all indications he was awake, yet the vision remained.

"Lek . . .?" He had said the name to himself a thousand times over the past two weeks. Still, in spoken form, it sounded strangely unfamiliar.

The vision became flesh. "Lek is no more," the woman said, rolling the syllables of the Thai langauge. "Only Mae Chee Rattana remains. I have become a nun to honor Ajahn Piko. I will spend the rest of my life at his forest temple."

Wichai could not find the words to answer her. His eyes caressed the contours of her tan face. From her satchel, Rattana retrieved her amulets. On an east-facing boulder, she placed Took-a-Tae and her Ajahn Piko image yet stained with ash. Wichai stared with amazement at the woman whose journey through Samsara had come full circle. He reached down and lifted the amulets off the rock. Both contained chapters of Lek's life. To the man behind the robe, they held memories of times shared and the promise of a day that would never come. Perhaps Rattana could say good-bye to Lek--good-bye to the bad luck girl from Ban Nam Sai--but Gunnar Ray could not. He caressed the amulets with longing and placed them in his carry bag.

Lek spoke in her native tongue. “My father and twenty village headman began a march from Khorat to Bangkok to honor Ajahn Piko. They wanted the nation to know that he died so that Sua Yai Forest could live. The world must know about the Kau Jau Kau. By the time they reached Si Khiu, 200 protestors had joined them. When they arrived to Saraburi, 1,500 marchers followed. Isan has united to honor my uncle. As the marchers continued toward Bangkok, tragedy struck in the Phetchabun Mountains. Uncle’s warnings about cutting down the forest came to pass. The Phetchabun River flooded. Over 180 villagers are missing. People are blaming the loggers and the government, not the river, for the death of the villagers. The flooding happened just like Khun Sarawat said it would.

After the disaster, more people joined the march. There were so many bodies that they blocked Highway 2--the main road into Isan. Cars were backed up for miles. The protestors refused to leave until the Deputy Interior Minister agreed to speak with them. The government volunteered a low-level official. The march continued. Fifteen hundred people turned into 3,000 people. When the government saw how fast the protest was growing, Surachai Jaratsee finally agreed to hear their pleas. Santipap and the twenty headmen who began the march went ahead to Bangkok. They spoke with the Deputy Minister for seven hours. When they came out of that room, Jaratsee announced that the Kau Jau Kau was finished. The government had no choice. The whole nation was watching. Everyone knew about the relocations because of Ajahn Piko. People understood that the Phetchabun floods and the death of the villagers were linked to destroying the forest. Ban Nam Sai will live on. Sua Yai Forest will not be cut down.”

Wichai struggled to make sense of the victory, the loss, and the ghost of a woman delivering the news. Paticcasamupadda--what humans do to the land, they do to themselves. He walked toward the nameless stream. He knelt before the clear water and said a small prayer for the villagers that perished in the floods. As a reporter, he had met, or seen, many of the smiling faces that were swept away in the river. He thought about the logging damage he witnessed and Khun Sarawat’s heroic efforts to change the course of history. An assassin’s bullet ensured that tragedy would have its day in Phetchabun.

Wichai scooped up the water and let it fall back into its flow. Ajahn Piko . . . he reflected on how one life could touch so many. The raft had at last reached the other side, but not before 180 villagers had been lost to the river. Rattana knelt beside the monk and placed a rolled up paper bag on the ground. "Open it," she said softly. "It is a gift from my father."

Wichai unrolled the top and removed a pair of pressed polyester trousers, a belt, and a button-up shirt with three bars on either shoulder.

"It's Santipap’s uniform," Rattana explained. "What a headmen wears to important meetings."

Wichai held the shirt up for inspection. The thick green cotton and gold buttons impressed him.

"My father says the nation needs Gunnar Ray more than a novice monk in a cave. There are other villages and mountains that need your help now. It is time for you to change your clothes and leave Fon Maak Mountain."

Wichai folded the clothes and placed them in his carry bag. From that same pouch he retrieved the translated version of Ajahn Graduk's journal that Gunnar and Lek had compiled in happier times. He leaned against a fig tree and turned the pages to the final entry. Mae Chee Rattana sat down next to him. Her warmth passed through his robe and into the heart of a man.

May 23, 1908

As I drank from the stream I had a vision. Cold water entered my ailing body and warm sun reflected off my back. I lost awareness of being an individual separate from the world around me. Mountain water and the flesh into which it poured; penetrating sun and the skin that reflected it; air within and without; all moving, shifting, and changing. In that blessed exchange it seemed beautifully obvious that a piece of me was in everything. Everything! The sun, water, and earth were my body. The rain, river, and sea became my blood. Great is the mystery! This subtle sense of “self” that appears to separate us from the ten thousand things is but a part of nature as well: a flower petal, a fig tree. Yes. Even that familiar sense is not our own. The freedom! A self never born can never die. Freedom I say! There is pain, but not “my” own. And without a “self,” there is no fear. Having lost fear, suffering becomes a passing cloud in an endless sky. In May that cloud becomes rain. The stream swells into a river and everywhere parched earth gives way to new grasses. Something continues. That is enough. For I know now that I am a part of that something . . .