Engineering Monks

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After a day of wandering around Luang Prabang, we took an overgrown path at the end of the peninsula that led down to the Nam Khan (Nam means water in Lao and Thai, or river, so saying the Nam Khan is like saying the Khan River). The mud on the banks was cracked like honeycomb and there was much activity on the river: men and children on the opposite banks fishing with nets, small boats chugging home after fishing expeditions, and young monks building the beginnings of a bridge. The piers made to support the bridge had already been constructed, and ten or so novices were moving the fully constructed piers out into the river and correctly positioning them by hand. The young monks let out gutteral groans and winces as they hitched the huge structure further out into the water. Every step seemed a gigantic effort. Eventually, one novice had an idea, and rowed over a long boat. The boys lifted some of the pier's support beams onto the boat, so they weren't carrying quite so much of the weight. One older monk supervised their trials, but didn't offer any suggestions, letting the boys figure the engineering puzzle out themselves.

Being a monk here certainly entails more than hours of seated meditation and prayer. First of all, their garb is hands down the nicest fashion I have seen on the continent. Who wouldn't want to be swathed in airy, clementine robes? They do devote a good deal of time to prayer and study of Buddhism, but also have time to devote to English and other language studies along with other subjects, whereas a lot of other Lao kids don't even get to go to school. They clearly pursue physical tasks as well, and during our time here, we have seen novices using cell phones, watching tv, using the internet, smoking cigarettes, etc. so it doesn't seem that the faith puts the kabosh on modern indulgences. If I was a little girl here, I would be very envious that I couldn't become a monk.

Women can become nuns, however, according to scriptures attributed to Buddha, “…A nun, even one who has been ordained for a hundred years, must respectfully salute a monk, even one who has been ordained but a day.” …and “Nuns should not receive food, beds, seats, or lodging ahead of monks”. Nuns' primary duties consist of cooking for and serving monks in exchange for their room and board. Women can be ordained in Sri Lanka (the home of Theravada Buddhism) and some women who can afford it have made the pilgrimage there to become ordained. “This is a conflict between ignorance and right understanding,” said Dhammananda , quoting Buddha as saying the health of the religion depends on four pillars-male and female monks, male and female laypeople (Los Angeles Times, 11.11.01). There is in fact, historical precedence for female monks- over 1,000 years ago in Thailand, the tradition of bhikkhuni, female monks, was going strong, having been established by Buddha himself to give women equal access to spiritual practices. Most accounts say the orders 'died out naturally' (although I'm curious to know what that means) and when two females attempted ordination in 1928 they were jailed, and Thailand's supreme patriarch issued an edict prohibiting the ordination of women. So, ordanation remains off limits for most women, despite seeming approval by Buddha.

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Photos

Novice in a long boat
rowing to help lift up bridge piers

Novices manually positioning
bridge piers in the Nam Khan, the beginnings of a bamboo walking bridge from town across to neighboring areas

the mouth of the Nam Khan,
with the beginnings of piers