Teachings
Quiet Compassion
Motif of white deer on sixty year old sarong made by a Tai Daeng woman from Hua Phan Province
It is the time of year in Luang Prabang, Laos when the air is heavy with the smoking fires of the yearly burn of the rice fields. The heat and humidity are almost unbearable as the days reach toward May and the promise of the monsoons. I am here to assess the possibility of opening a new clinic for the poor. I have been told that there is no adequate medical assistance even though the Chinese have built a modern hospital a few years ago. There simply are no well trained doctors to operate the facility. I am giddy with happiness to be in the city of temples with some of the gentlest people on earth.
I stand by the desk as the night clerk of the Shambala Guesthouse in Bangkok makes phone call after phone call. After thirty, I wonder if there is a room left to rent in all of Luang Prabang. I ask for help knowing that few proprietors of a budget Laotian guesthouse would speak English. I begin to imagine myself camping on the edge of the Mekong and glad that my eldest son is with me to ease the transition from bed to dust. I am surprised when I am handed the phone. The woman on the other end would rather speak broken French with me than wade through the small differences in the Thai and Laotian language. I feel this feeling of relief to be able to communicate for myself and a sudden awareness that this woman must be close to my age, someone educated during the French occupation, a woman who has lived through many of the life transitions that I have but from the other side of the earth. We call each other Madam.
She is my height. I am her height. We are full of babies, husbands, those we love and for whom we care. She has keloid scars on her neck. I am wilted and swollen from the heat and smoke. Her breathing is raspy. Mine is labored. We do not ask. She does not say. I am polite. We share age and the number of children, counting fingers. She says I must be younger than sixty. I wonder what has aged her beyond sixty years. We laugh at each other for a moment, remove our shoes and enter a world of polished teak which is Madam's home and guesthouse.
I view the chicken yard from my veranda and hear the sounds of the city through a window. I lay on my bed as the fan beats a rhythm of relief from the heat. I drift. Images dance through the periphery of my mind. I am visiting villages, climbing steps of golden wats, watching monks at sunrise receiving alms, meeting doctors, setting in motion a glimmer of hope of medical care. I sleep. It is too hot to move. My son slips out the door.
Each day I set the intention to make the journey to a village. Each day I say I will visit the temples. Each day I walk a block to eat breakfast and return to Madam, the veranda and the fan that beats the rhythm of the heat. Each day I am drifting into an unchartered territory of my being. Unaware.
One morning the clouds and smoke become a shield to the sun. I venture beyond breakfast. I want to visit an antique textile shop in hopes of buying a flavor of culture. If I cannot journey to a remote village I will at least wear it as a woman's hand loom. Pathana Boupha Antique House, where are you? It takes what seems to be an eternity to find it. I am passing golden spires and mingling with people. The heat is beginning to enter my head. I push one last block. I ask directions, turn around, and find myself there.
I move through the door with relief. The fan is blowing a breath of air. The woman behind the counter asks me about myself. I tell her the dreams of a clinic. She tells me she is a western trained doctor selling textiles. W e discover our shared age. Her husband? Dead. Three children to feed and educate. No regrets. I grasp to understand. I know in a moment that I will not start a clinic this trip. My body will not carry the rounds of questions needed to understand, assess and build. It is too hot.
My eye moves around the room. The piece is sitting in a dusty pile. The motif of white deer move across the hem, calling to be worn. It is a sixty year old sarong made by a Tai Daeng woman from Hua Phan Province, Sa Neua District. My age. I forget to ask the meaning of the deer and where is Hua Phan.
The deer rest in the sun. I am airing sixty years of dust and smoke on the veranda rail. I notice bits and pieces of their white coat have slipped from the weft of the fabric. They become more apparent by the hour. I debate. Shall I leave it as she left it? Or repair the years of wear, my hand meeting hers?
I search for my needle. I want to be closer to the deer, closer to something I do not intuit.
Madam sees that I am struggling with a small needle. She returns with two crochet hooks. She sits on the teak floor and I against a pillow. We mend together in silence. The deer rest in our arms. Only then do I remember...
I ask about the time when I hid with my husband in Afghanistan, so he would not be drafted into the Vietnam war. The time she had nowhere to hide as carpet bombs bathed her country, leaving her neck a river of pain. This was our shared war. Madam is quiet like the deer, eyes limpid with compassion.
My eyes meet hers as I reach to my soul to stand before the ONE for forgiveness. I am met inside myself by quiet compassion. The deer move in our arms as we shift to rise, our task done. Madam is still. I reflect. The doctor's face moves across my inner eye. Truths reveal themselves in a patina of clarity. She, too, witnessed the war, losing a husband. She is quiet.
Three weeks have passed, since I returned to the United States. At first I thought it was the adjustment from traveling five months or the fact that I came home with Dengue fever and needed a week to recover. It was the quiet. It seemed to be everywhere. There were so many moments it absorbed: the time the butcher yelled in exhaustion; the hours of fever and head pain; the view of the dead body that lay for hours at an intersection near my house while the police tried to discern a crime; the thin voice of my father-in-law as he struggled to speak from his wheelchair; the ease with myself as I move the weight of sixty years through daily existence, preparing to travel once again.
I wear my white deer each day, feeling my way back to the moments with madam as I wrap my waist. I am thankful to meet myself in quiet compassion after forty years of mourning the Vietnam War. I am quiet as I reflect that there are a people in Laos who live without forgiveness, because there was nothing to forgive. Quiet compassion absorbed it all.
Now I become curious. I want to know more. I open textile books to trace the origin of my skirt. Sixty years ago, it was woven by a woman who lived within 53 kilometers of the Vietnam border. It had lived through the war, as had we: Madam... Nura ...Doctor. And the weaver... ;had she?
There was yet another mystery unsolved. What was the meaning of the herd of deer? As women weave, they tell a story that reflects the intricacies of their lives. The answer came through a sister. There is a story about Gautama Buddha in a former life as a bodhisattva. He lived as a deer herder in a small forest. After much indiscriminate plundering of the herd by a local king, an agreement was made that no deer would be killed unless there was dire need in the kingdom. The deer agreed. A time came when it was a doe's turn. She was to give birth shortly and wished to delay her death until after the birth. The Bodhisattva offered himself instead. This act impressed the king so much that he not only resolved to refrain from killing deer in the future but also gave the park to them. It was named Deer Park.
It became clear that the deer are a symbol of harmlessness, even in the face of death. It had been Buddha's spirit that sat so still in our laps as we linked hands, bridging a lifetime of memories. It was he that drew me toward a river of quiet compassion, opening the door to a deeper understanding of the principle of right resolve (samma-sankappo), expanding my resolve to be free from ill will, to carry harmlessness to myself and others, no matter the circumstances.
Nura