Simplicity, Serenity and Peace - A Lesson from the East

I suppose one of my primary hopes is that one or all of these stories will become the cornerstone for a highly publishable book someday but despite my earlier and repeated declarations, that isn’t the driving reason behind my putting down in writing these travel tales. Steinbeck writes that “a journey is like a person in itself; no two are alike.” And so it is that I write about this journey for I do not wish to forget my recently departed friend. So each chapter of this greater journey meanders through a different characteristic of the trip like describing the physical and mental attributes of a companion in an attempt to create an introduction from me to you of my journey. To endear you to my experiences and give you a personal connection with them. Because honestly what more is a story that one person’s attempt to find connection with another person’s soul?
I have so enjoyed introducing you to my journey and sharing with you the characteristics and personality of my time abroad that I often neglect the lessons this journey taught me. Perhaps the greatest gift a journey gives you is the insight into yourself. It acts like a mirror showing you what you most enjoy and what you most despise.
I despise rudeness, for example, and laziness. My eventual bitter aftertaste from Cambodia was a direct effect of the overwhelming presence of both of those characteristics in that country. But as surely as those characteristics drive me to distraction, simplicity, serenity and peace flood my soul with a childlike joy. Most of what I knew about those three things came from the Good Book and Mother Nature prior to this trip. I believe that no matter what your religion, there are two types of sanctuaries in this Earthly realm: those built by the hands of man and those created by the hands of God.
Before venturing to SEA, I had experienced many of God’s handmade sanctuaries from golden ocean sunsets to mountain top perfection, all of which felt natural and comfortable. But never had I set foot in a manmade sanctuary without a Christian cross affixed atop it. This was soon to change.
During our travels we met Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and more. I saw idols of old adorned in gold and glass and covered in moss and decay. I walked in awe through wats that put our most elaborate chapels to shame and stood in the shadows of statues whose presence eclipsed the birth of Jesus by several hundred years.
This isn’t a story of religion or a debate on the rights and wrongs of the universe. This is a story about a lesson. A lesson about three things I assumed were introduced and perfected by Western Society: simplicity, serenity, and peace. It turns out that I was very wrong. These are three gifts that God saw fit to share with all mankind.
A wat is a funny name for a place of worship and can so easily be used for a reader’s amusement by any semi-creative writer. Wats it to you? Wats it all about? Wat to see and wat not to see? But the essence of what a wat really is, is not so easily manipulated into words.
I visited wats that were solely Buddhist, solely Hindu, and an elaborate mixture of both. I saw wats that were modern and ancient, empty and crowded, glitzy, poor, crumbling, manicured, hidden, advertised, and incomplete. I walked the halls of stone at Ankor Wat in Siem Reap, so massive and majestic that one’s mind can no more comprehend its enormity than one’s mouth can describe its beauty.
I climbed ancient stairs and touched carved stone recently reclaimed from the forest trees. I rode around the garden of Sukotai in Thailand whose endless pillars and enumerable lotus flowers echoed the very principle of serenity.
I watched as monks draped in brilliant orange robes humbled themselves and their benefactors as they walked crowded streets collecting the daily alms or gifts of food that would feed them that day.
In silence, I watched peace and serenity working as a common laborer bent over in the sunlight cleaning the ancient image of a simply smiling Buddha in a lost corner of a Sukotai temple.
And I watched as man’s pride overtook godly worship as it so often does in religions around the world. In Bangkok’s overcrowded Royal Palace Grounds, I saw royalty build ever more elaborate wats under the guise of worship but driven by the principles of bragging rights and pride. I saw again how true it is that God always desires man’s heart – not necessarily his gold. For I stood at the feet of the world’s largest reclining Buddha adorned entirely in gold and detailed with Mother of Pearl and precious gems and felt only the depressing, crowded feeling one gets at any overly-touristed sight.
But as I wandered without direction through a small but well maintained garden whose trees held hand-painted signs proclaiming the timeless and borderless truths like “Every honest work is honorable work” and “There is no saturating the fire with fuel,” I felt again the simple smile of God and heard His whisper in the rustling of leaves and monks robes. He seemed to say, “I am bigger than your religions, your divisions, and your decisions.”
It was there that I learned that there is no simplicity save what we sacrifice for daily, there is no serenity other than that we discover anew each journey, and there is no peace aside from that which we find within.
In Luang Prabang, Laos I gazed with a calloused eye at the minute detailed mosaic of small glass tiles depicting scenes of daily life in the surrounding area and watched with an untouched heart as the monks walked to and fro. But as I turned around, I saw one wall covered entirely in a picture that was immediately familiar to me. I have since showed a picture of this wall to many people back home and they all inevitably say the same thing: “Ah, the tree of life!”
And so it was – a large mosaic built by foreign hands in a distant place depicting a universal concept: A beautiful tree rooted deep in eternal love and feeding mankind with the fruits of compassion and kindness and hope.
And so my journey taught me that principles are bigger than theories, that people are more important than places, and that simplicity, serenity, and peace feel the same in every place and to every person.
Like any lesson learned from a good friend, it is one worth repeating and like all of life’s lessons it is one you cannot truly comprehend until you learn it yourself on your own journey home.