Phra Farang

The following extract comes from "Phra Farang" by Phra Peter Pannapadipo. He talks about life as a new monk and the difficulties dealing with putting on the robes and going outside for the first time.

The first thing any new monk needs to know is how to dress himself. I had exchanged clothes kept up and held together by zips, belts, buttons, press-studs and Velcro for a large rectangle of cotton and unless it was actually tied in a knot somewhere, I couldn't see how it could stay on. Often mine didn't. It didn't only fall off, it actually seemed to leap off me. I was familiar with monk's robes from my years at the London temple and had often seen monks wrap themselves in their outer robes, but it always seemed to be done so quickly that I still hadn't a clue how to do it myself. Of course, I had never had the opportunity to wear one before. I think any monk would be genuinely horrified if a layman put on the robes, even for practice, before being properly ordained.

In modern times, the monk's wardrobe consists of his outer robe civara (jivorn) and an under-robe antaravassaka (sabong) that is worn around the waist, covering the navel and falling to just below the knees. The sabong is held up by a fold and a tuck and a cord belt. On the top part of his body, under the jivorn, is worn a sort of sleeveless one-shouldered waistcoat (ungsa) which is joined together on the left side by tying tags. For religious services inside the monastery, the monk also wears an additional robe (sanghati) which is folded in a very particular way into a long rectangle and hung over the left shoulder. The monk may or may not wear sandals, depending on the tradition of his particular monastery, though most do. He may carry a soft bag, called a yarm, which is like a shoulder bag but which is carried in the crook of the arm and should never be worn on the shoulder or slung over the back.

The robes come in different sizes and nowadays are usually made of cotton, silk, nylon or some other man-made fabric, but they are always cut to the same pattern and design. They are actually made from many pieces of cloth sewn together in, according to legend, the pattern of the paddy fields of Magadha in Northern India. They are made in many pieces to recall the days when monks made their own robes from bits of cloth found in charnel grounds. The size and way of wearing the outer robe has changed since the Buddha's time and may vary a little from country to country, but however it is worn, the monk should always look neat and his body should be well covered.

In Thailand the jivorn is large and is generally wrapped around the body with the two ends rolled together. This roll is taken over the left shoulder and under the left arm so that its end can be held in the left hand or pressed firmly between the arm and the body. Inside the temple the robe is worn so that the right shoulder is exposed, but outside the temple both shoulders and arms are covered. The colour of the robes varies from monastery to monastery--at Wat Mahadhatu they are a reddish-brown but at others may be anything from very dark brown to brilliant yellow, or even 'day-glo' orange.

On the morning after my ordination I got up at 5 am and tried to dress myself in my outer robe in preparation for breakfast in the section. Then I tried again. And again. The breakfast bell rang and still I seemed to have either too much robe left over or not enough. Chanting from the dining hall signalled the end of breakfast and by then I was in an absolute sweat and still looked like a sack of potatoes, with lumps and bumps and bunches of cloth exactly where they shouldn't have been. One moment the bottom of the robe was at knee height, the next flapping around my ankles. Wrapping the outer robe is actually not a difficult task--once you know how--but I didn't know and I found myself getting intensely irritated. Each time I tried to wrap the jivorn it looked worse than the last time. Even in the early morning my tiny room was stiflingly warm and both my robe and I were wet with sweat. I was quite close to tears of anger and frustration.

"Calm down, calm down" I told myself repeatedly. One of the problems was that I am six feet tall and the ceiling of my room was only inches more. To get a neat roll of cloth to pass over my shoulder, I needed to raise my left arm quite high while rolling the ends of the cloth together. As my room was on the top floor, I eventually clambered out onto the roof, where I had sufficient space to get the robe wrapped around me in something vaguely approaching the correct way, but only very vaguely. I looked a mess and the pigeons were not impressed. Phra Maha Laow's room was in Section 24 at the other end of the monastery, but I managed the distance without anything falling off and he was able to dress me neatly in seconds, as well as offering me his breakfast 'left overs'.

I think my biggest fear as a new monk was of my under-robe falling down in the street. The sabong is held up by a one and a half inch-wide woven belt with two very long cords. The belt and cords are passed around the waist twice and the cords are tied in a bow at the front. The cords are a bit like over-sized versions of round, nylon shoe laces, which I never found stayed tied together as well as the old, flat cotton type. Many monks, including me, wear a key ring at the end of one of the cords and if the ring has several keys on it, they make that end quite a bit heavier than the other--enough to gradually pull a poorly-tied bow undone.

In my first month as a monk, this happened to me as I was descending a very rickety staircase, when for safety I needed to support myself with both arms outstretched. As I came down, I felt an unusual movement under my jivorn and was horrified when my belt slipped down past my knees and around my feet. I knew the sabong wouldn't be long after and it wasn't. I couldn't make a grab for it because I would quite likely have fallen down the stairs, which would have been even less impressive to the group of Thai people who were waiting at the bottom to come up. I sort of hopped out of my sabong, calmly gathered it up, put it in my yarm and walked away with as much dignity as I could salvage.But at least I didn't expose myself to total ridicule as I did on another occasion.

At that time, I was living in a remote country monastery and had to shift some very large rocks. Being in an isolated part of the grounds and as I was working alone, I had taken off my outer robe and ungsa, just leaving my sabong wrapped around me. Staggering under the weight of a huge boulder, with my body arched backwards, I didn't notice that my belt had come adrift--until my sabong started to slide down my legs. There's not a lot one can do when both hands are full of boulder and before I could drop the rock, my sabong was around my ankles, leaving me totally naked (except, perversely, for the belt, which was still hanging loosely around my waist). I had thought I was alone but loud screams of delighted laughter from behind a bush told me that, as usual, some of the village children had come to see what the strange foreign monk was up to. After that, I started to tie my belt so tightly I often gave myself stomach ache!

I'm not sure at what point dressing myself neatly and securely became second nature, but of course it did eventually and now I can't see why I ever thought it was such a problem. I had to learn to dress myself and learn many other practical daily matters as soon as I could, because Phra Maha Laow was due to return to London a few weeks after my ordination. He devoted endless hours in trying to teach me not only how to dress but also how to walk in the robes, how to sit on the floor, change position,get up, how to make a triple bow to a senior monk and so on. I had already picked up a lot of tips simply from watching the monks at Wat Buddhapadipa, but there was a great deal more I hadn't noticed nor even thought about. Many Thai men, especially in rural areas, wear little other than a sarong for much of the time and many of their daily activities are done at floor level. They know instinctively how to make these movements neatly, politely and modestly. But I have also seen 'city bred' new monks who don't, and they are frequently as immodest as I sometimes was.

Just about every aspect of the monks' behaviour is governed by the Vinaya--the 227 training rules--many of which were laid down by the Buddha himself. They include almost every daily action and it is very necessary for a monk to know all these rules and to understand the reasons for them. At the time of my ordination, I knew the most important rules but there were many other 'minor' ones and even more Thai traditional rules and customs that I didn't know.

It is especially important for a Western monk to be aware of the training rules and he must be constantly mindful of his public behaviour and deportment. A Thai monk walking too quickly in the street, or swinging his arms as he walked, would probably go unnoticed by most Thai people simply because there are so many Thai monks. But a Western monk is such an unusual sight anywhere in Thailand that his every movement is watched with great interest and he is more likely to be remarked upon than is his Thai counterpart.

I remember Phra Maha Laow once told me that if there were two monks sitting on a bench, one Thai and one Western, and both were smoking cigarettes, a Thai observer would be quite shocked by the Westerner, but probably wouldn't even notice that the Thai monk was also smoking.* So,my education and training were to be fairly intensive for the first few weeks and Phra Maha Laow would not allow me to go outside the temple until he felt I would be able to conduct myself in public reasonably well.

Even though I am usually a very shy person, I was desperate to walk in the streets as a monk and show myself off. This was pure vanity of course and I knew it even then, but I had to start learning to be patient. Happily, after a few days, Phra Maha Laow decided that I was probably able to behave myself reasonably well and he suggested we should visit Wat Phra Kaew, the Temple of The Emerald Buddha, which is only a short walk from Wat Mahadhatu. With my robe properly arranged for walking outside, my totally empty yarm placed on my left arm, and my new and somewhat less-than-stylish plastic sandals with the irritating squeak doused with water to quieten them down a bit, we walked to the gates of Wat Mahadhatu. I was tremendously and unreasonably excited about my first 'public appearance' though of course I could not let my excitement show. Phra Maha Laow had instructed me that I must walk slowly, calmly, with eyes downcast, being careful not to brush up against anybody.

"But Phra Maha Laow, how can I avoid brushing up against people if I'm looking at the pavement?", I asked. "Don't worry", he said, "They'll see you". And see me they did. We must, I suppose, have presented a curious spectacle. Phra Maha Laow is very short, even for a Thai, and I tower over him. It is actually quite impolite in Thai society and especially in Thai monk society, for a junior to have his head higher than that of his senior, but there was little I could do about that except to walk a few paces behind him. Unfortunately being tall I also have a problem about walking slowly. It's not that I walk fast, but my legs are so long that I take huge strides. I tried to walk more slowly by shortening my strides but I found this quite awkward and ungainly, so Phra Maha Laow was constantly whispering to me to slow down as I was frequently close to overtaking him.

Almost the instant we stepped over the threshold of Wat Mahadhatu, I heard someone say "Phra Farang"--foreign monk. The first of dozens of times that day and the first of many hundreds of thousands of times since. Phra Farang ... Phra Farang ... Phra Farang. Even many Thai People who know me quite well, frequently refer to me as Phra Farang rather than as Phra Peter and I have never understood why, not that I care really. I know that many Westerners who visit Thailand feel quite insulted when they are referred to as 'farang', though the Thai people rarely use the word in an insulting way. I have been told by a linguist that Westerners may find the word insulting because it has two syllables, like many of the racially insulting words or taunts that are used in the West. But I wasn't insulted, I was proud to be a Phra Farang. As we walked people smiled at me. I smiled back. In fact I positively beamed until a warning glance from my teacher made me lower my eyes and fix a more neutral expression on my face. But I couldn't keep my eyes downcast for long, not with so many lovely Thai smiles being offered to me.

We certainly didn't have to worry about brushing up against anybody for although the area around Wat Mahadhatu was at that time a market and the footpath was crowded, the crowds simply parted to let us through. "Phra Farang.....Phra Farang.....Phra Farang". Besides smiling, many people also offered me a very graceful wai as we passed--a lovely Thai gesture of both greeting and respect, in which the palms are held together as if in prayer and the finger tips brought up level with the nose.

Of course, my vanity and ego were so inflated by all this that at the time I didn't realise I might just as well have been carrying a big placard saying 'brand new monk'. My head was newly-shaved and shining brightly, whereas Phra Maha Laow's black hair had grown noticeably since the last general head-shaving day two weeks before. My robes still had their brand new sheen and creases, like an unironed new shirt, and although I tried to walk like a monk, it must have been obvious from the way I kept having to hitch my robe onto my shoulder, and my whole general demeanour, that I was new at all this. That didn't stop people smiling or wai-ing of course, for in my experience, Thai people are usually genuinely delighted that a Westerner has chosen to follow Buddhism and has become a monk in their country, even though they often don't understand why.

But a monk like Phra Maha Laow, with more than 15 years spent in the robes, has developed an air of serenity that cannot be falsified. It cannot really even be learned--it is a reflection of true inner peace and comes from a genuine understanding of what the Buddha taught and from long practise of Buddhist meditation techniques. Thai people seem to instinctively recognise this natural serenity and I didn't have it. None of that occurred to me at the time. There I was, in my lovely new robes and my lovely new hair cut, walking on the streets of Bangkok while total strangers smiled and paid their respects to me. Oh, I was the bee's knees! But not for long......