The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton by Thomas Merton

Author:Thomas Merton
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8112-2309-6
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 1973-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

BANGKOK

December 7-8

December 7 / Bangkok

I find that I was secretly enraged and humiliated by the fact of having overweight luggage yesterday. Today, first thing after getting up and saying Office, I went all through my baggage, ruthlessly separating out things to be somehow disposed of. For instance, all cold-country clothes can go into the zipper bag which perhaps I can get the abbot from Hong Kong to take there. Which means, however, I won’t be able to go back to Sikkim, Bhutan, or Nepal. Stupid books I bought can be discarded here or somewhere. I make a desperate plan to finish several books here in Bangkok. But of course with the conference this will be impossible. I sent contact prints to John Griffin with a few marked for enlargement. Took nine rolls of Pan X to the Borneo Studio on Silom Road, hoping they will not be ruined.1 Better finally burn up that incense. Threw some useless pills in the toilet. But I find it hard to make any firm plan that positively excludes a return to India, South India that is, in January.

After arranging my flight for Djakarta on the evening of the 15th, I went dutifully to the palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. I didn’t see the palace—it wasn’t open to the public today—but went through the temple. I saw some of the paintings but was distracted by a Thai soldier who had four U. S. quarters and wanted to change them for 20 baht. But 20 was all I had. The temple itself was impressive in a dark, ornate, spacious way and the small, precious, green Buddha enshrined high up in a lighted niche was somehow moving. The buildings and sculptures of the temple compound I thought precious and bizarre rather than beautiful. They are saved by a kind of proportion which is very evident as soon as you get away from them a little. The guardian deities are not frightening, only grotesque. I kept remembering a picture of one of them on a calendar in the infirm refectory at Gethsemani sometime back in 1965.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.