The Long Path to Wisdom

by Jan-Philipp Sendker

  By this time the father, too, recognized that his son posed a danger to others. But he would never be able to kill him himself.

  At the urging of the other villagers he resorted to a trick. He claimed to be suffering severe stomach pains, which, according to the healer, could be alleviated only by a serving of tiger meat. The son set out at once to hunt the predator and returned a few hours later with his kill.

  Now the father claimed also to need the blood of at least half a dozen cobras. Once again the son set out, and within a short time he stood in the door, six dead snakes in hand. “I hope you get well soon. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  The father asked for a khonran, a bird as rare as it was dangerous, and his loyal and credulous son set out at once. He strayed for days through the forests without finding a single trace of the bird. He wandered farther, climbed trees and hills; for his father he would leave no stone unturned. On the fifth day, high atop a towering tree, he finally discovered a khonran nest. He scrambled up, but it was empty. Patiently he awaited the bird’s return.

  In the meantime the father was suffering from a guilty conscience. How could he have listened to the other villagers? How could he have dreamed up such a wicked trick? Risking the life of a good-natured son to cure a father’s imaginary illness? And so he set out to look for his child. After a long search he found him in the crown of a tree. Just as he was about to call his name, two khonrans flew into view. With a mighty blow the boy killed one of them, but the other flew high into the sky, then dove straight down at the intruder and drove its long hard beak into the boy’s heart.

  With a great clatter the son fell from the tree and landed at his father’s feet. “Oh, Father, I’m about to die. Tell me, where should I put my strength?”

  The old man’s heart was breaking. “My son, forgive me. Give your strength to the water and your breath to the wind.”

  Long ago there lived a mother and father who had only one child, whom they loved above all else. The well-to-do family lived in a lavish villa, and wanted for nothing. Even so, they worried constantly about their son, and were very protective of him. For fear of sickness and bad influences they forbade all contact with other children. The boy’s teachers came to the house, and otherwise the parents and the servants tended to his every need. The parents believed their child was leading a life free of care, but they failed to notice how lonely he was. When he got bored, which happened often, he would run through the garden startling birds or hunting insects and geckos, until that, too, grew wearisome.

  One day he could stand it no longer; he slipped unseen out of the gate and into the street in search of diversion. He discovered many things that were strange to him, and he marveled at them. Three evenings in a row he watched the comings and goings, and he noticed that each night many of the people were walking in the same direction. His curiosity eventually got the better of his trepidation, and he asked a passerby what all the fuss was about. The stranger told him that the people were going to listen to the sermons of a famous monk who had many things to say about the teachings of the Buddha and about how to lead a moral life. This was exciting news for a boy who until then had known only his parents’ house!

  The very next evening he went to the monastery and hung on the monk’s every word. He was immediately swept away! That benevolent voice spoke with such wisdom and serenity. He knew at once that his only purpose from then on was to become a novice, to follow the path of the Buddha and to seek enlightenment. Anxiously he ran home to beg his parents to send him to the monastery. Any feelings of shame he might have had about his unsanctioned forays into the world were quickly forgotten.

  His mother and father listened to him sadly and shook their heads. The request seemed to them the mere folly of a child who had ventured for the first time into the dangerous, filthy, seductive world. What’s more, he was their only son, and they had no desire to let him go. They needed him so that he could marry and carry on the family, and so that he could care for them when they grew old. The boy was crestfallen. The monastery would not accept him without his parents’ permission. He begged and pleaded, but all in vain. His parents stood their ground.

  Full of disappointment, the boy withdrew. He stopped talking to his parents. He would neither eat nor drink. He lay in bed sad and angry, and he refused to get up. Over the course of six days the already lean child grew thinner and thinner despite his parents’ perpetual pleas.

  On the seventh day, the father said to his wife: “We are afraid of losing our child to the monastery, but the way things are going we’ll lose him a different way. We can’t let our son starve!” The mother agreed that they could not go on like that. Quietly they walked into their son’s darkened room and told him the news. Forgetting all his weariness and exhaustion, the boy leapt from his bed and ran to the monastery, where they shaved his head, and he donned the robes of a novice.

  He stayed with the monks for several years, and everyone praised the devoted, perceptive, and studious young man he became. He was the most disciplined at meditation, the most diligent at the daily chores, and the most knowledgeable in the discussions of the Eightfold Path, the Five Moral Precepts, and the Four Noble Truths. As time went by, however, he noticed that in the hustle and bustle of the monastery he was not coming any closer to his higher goals of wisdom, inner peace, and absolute clarity of mind in meditation. He discussed this with his master, an older monk, who sent him into the forest, where he could train his spirit and continue his studies far removed from all distractions.

  The young monk lived a long time in the woods devoting himself fervently to his goals, yet even after twelve years in the solitude of nature, his desire for enlightenment was still unfulfilled. To be sure, he knew a great deal about the Buddha’s teachings, but his thoughts were too scattered, fragmented, unfocused. He was too restless.

  The dejected monk gave up his search and took the road back to the monastery. He had no idea what he would do next. Along the way he met his former master, the old monk, who told him a story of a previously wealthy but now impoverished couple whose son had left them many years ago to enter a monastery. The two must have bad karma, the old man sighed. After the son left, the servants had taken to stealing valuables from the house, and then the family had lent money to various parties who subsequently disappeared without a trace. Victims of lamentable circumstances, the couple were now advanced in age and could no longer work. To make matters worse, the son who might have cared for them was gone.

  Full of foreboding, the young monk set out to find the elderly couple. Could it be his own parents? Along the way he passed by a familiar monastery. The words of a sermon drifted into the street from somewhere inside. He hesitated. Monks were not allowed to have close contact with their families, much less to care for them. The young man found himself confronted with a difficult choice: Should he lay aside his robe and search for his parents or should he abandon his parents and remain in the monastery?

  The young man put this question to the Buddha in prayer, and to his surprise it seemed to him that the Buddha answered. He advised him to remain a monk, but to seek his parents and to find a way to integrate these two aspects of his life. Relieved, he contemplated this as he continued on his way.

  When he came to the place where his childhood home had stood, he saw nothing but a field of refuse where a few cows grazed. Even at a distance he could make out two elderly individuals sitting by the side of the road. They crouched down in the customary posture of deference as the unknown monk approached them. Touched and ashamed, he recognized his mother and father at once. They had grown old and looked wretched.

  Overwhelmed by emotion, the son stood before his kneeling parents. He wept bitterly and could not bring himself to speak. But a few of the tears dripped from his cheek and fell on his mother’s exposed neck. Puzzled, she looked up and recognized the son she thought she had lost.

  All three now wept tears of joy and embraced warmly. T
he son made countless apologies for having left his parents, but they would not hear it. All was forgiven and forgotten. Together they discussed what was to be done, and in the end the monk found a place in the vicinity of the monastery for his parents to live. In the days that followed he shared with them the food he collected as part of his daily alms. Again he conversed with the Buddha. Was this infraction of the rules and norms allowed? The Buddha reassured him and even permitted him to divert donations of clothing intended for the monks to his needy parents.

  The other monks eyed the young man suspiciously. He would often disappear with alms and offerings only to return later without them. Finally, the incensed monks demanded he explain himself. At that moment the Buddha intervened and spoke to them: Respect for one’s parents and a readiness to help the needy are the supreme virtues, he declared. It is not enough to lead a contemplative Buddhist life; one must also put teachings into practice. As in the pagoda, so in the home.

  And so it happened that the son cared for his parents till the end of their days and then eventually returned with a pure heart to the forest, where his childhood dream came true and he finally attained enlightenment.

  Epilogue

  JAN-PHILIPP SENDKER

  ince my first trip to Burma in May 1995, I have traveled to the country about two dozen times—first as a journalist and later in order to research my novels and to see friends. Over the first few years little changed from one visit to the next. The short flight from Bangkok always felt like a journey back in time. At the airport there was the same little terminal. The streets of Yangon were pitted with potholes. The familiar rusty, dented cars shared the lanes with children playing soccer. Old buildings crumbled; construction sites were as rare as new businesses; the power went out several times a day.

  A military junta continued to rule the country, which remained an economic and political pariah. The Western sanctions were still in place, and even tourists gave the former British colony a wide berth. The violently suppressed uprising by the monks in the fall of 2007, the destructive cyclone Nargis one year later, and the military’s refusal to accept foreign help finished the job of isolating Burma. Years passed. A crippling standstill prevailed across a country that seemed frozen in time. While in other parts of the world the Internet was accelerating the pace of change, here there were few computers and even fewer mobile phones.

  In the fall of 2011, for the first time in decades, parliamentary elections were held. They were, however, neither fair nor free, and were consequently boycotted by the opposition. To no one’s surprise, the military party won and the former general Thein Sein was elected president. Just when it seemed as if Burma’s future would be no different from its past, something suddenly happened that no one had anticipated. Thein Sein cautiously opened a dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader under house arrest. An economic and political reform process was set in motion, at first slowly, but then gaining in momentum. Political prisoners were released, censorship was eased, and opposition parties were permitted. In response the West gradually reversed its sanctions until they were all but completely lifted.

  During those years I could see subtle changes on every visit. Traffic picked up slightly; new private airlines sprang up; the first large supermarkets opened their doors. I noticed an increasing number of mobile phone users. The price of a SIM card dropped from several thousand U.S. dollars to just a few hundred. Tea shops were decorated with flags of the NLD opposition party, waitresses wore T-shirts bearing the likeness of Aung San Suu Kyi. The joy and pride in their faces were harbingers of the even more radical political and social changes to come.

  In the fall of 2015 the political spring led to the first free elections in almost thirty years. The opposition won in a landslide, but still had limited powers. The constitution guarantees the military 25 percent of parliamentary seats and three of the most important ministries.

  Even so, the country was changing from visit to visit at a pace I had only ever witnessed in China.

  Burma, early 2017: Even as I land in Yangon the differences are striking. In the outlying districts of the city, one finds the first heralds of globalization: factories emerging out of thin air with their red, blue, or green metallic roofs, beside them long rows of apartment blocks for the workers. Not far off are the rich relatives of the factories: designer neighborhoods of cookie-cutter, single-family homes for the well-to-do. In the distance one can make out the first hints of something like a Yangon skyline: isolated skyscrapers towering up into the air. On the tarmac stand planes from Singapore and Dubai. There is a multistory terminal with arrival and departure gates. As I go through customs I present the electronic visa that I applied for online.

  The city center is no longer just twenty minutes away; now it takes over an hour and a half. Traffic. The air quality is poor; the city is draped in smog. There is a construction site on every corner. There are new hotels, shopping centers, and car dealers. Yangon’s answer to Rodeo Drive is soon to open, and the billboards promise an excess of “luxury and elegance.” Close at hand is a large Mercedes dealership.

  I think with longing of the time years ago when my driver thought “McDonald’s” might be a Scottish gentleman, when a mere handful of cars used the streets, and when it took only twenty minutes to get to my downtown hotel. Of course I recognize that it was pleasant for me back then because I happened to be sitting in one of the few cars on the road. I would probably have found the situation much less romantic if I had needed to carry my luggage from the airport to town in the hundred-degree heat, or if I had been riding on one of the few and crowded buses.

  Little has changed at the hotel in the past few years, aside from the price. Sometimes it skyrockets exorbitantly; other times it crashes suddenly. It is not always easy to discern the patterns in the Burmese markets.

  I take a walk through Yangon’s old center. It is at once familiar and strange. The streets are full of people, chaotic and loud. It is hot, as always in the spring. Vendors have spread their vegetables or books out on the sidewalks. People sit chatting on the stoops; the side streets are full of little restaurants, food stalls, and tea shops. The guests squat on the streets as they have always done, drinking coffee or tea, conversing, watching the hubbub around them or checking their mobile phones. Of the country’s fifty-three million inhabitants, thirty-five million reportedly own a cell phone. Ten million Burmese are on Facebook. Every third shop, it seems, is selling phones. I buy a SIM card for the equivalent of five dollars and next thing I know I am sitting in a vaulted arcade sipping Burmese tea and checking my emails from Germany.

  I find myself wondering if a country so long isolated, a society so shaped by tradition, can cope with the sudden and unmitigated onslaught of capitalism, the enticing promises of materialism, without being fundamentally altered.

  The next day, as on every trip, I pay a visit to the Bagan Book Shop on Thirty-Seventh Street. Sadly, the owner, my friend, died a few years ago. Since then his son has been running the business. He is sitting in the shop with two friends. One is playing guitar. In the middle of it all is a television playing a South Korean soap opera.

  Books are no longer restored here.

  He greets me warmly and we are chatting about an old Rangoon guidebook when his daughter suddenly comes into the shop. She is twenty-four years old and I ask whether she ever read any of the books that her grandfather so painstakingly restored. “Only a couple,” she confesses, and tells me that next week she will be leaving to spend three years in Papua New Guinea because she has found work there in a supermarket.

  I am flabbergasted. To me it seems that Yangon is in the midst of an economic boom; surely there must be plenty of work here for young people. She sighs. It’s true, but the jobs here pay so poorly that she would rather work abroad. Besides, her grandfather always wanted her to be able to get out and discover the world for herself. Now it’s finally possible.

  Suddenly the ceiling lights fl
icker a few times, then go out. The television is silent. A blackout. Even now, a daily irritation. But no one lights any candles. In just a moment, the power is back on. Outside the shop you can hear the dull droning of a motor. It comes from one of the emergency generators you can now see everywhere on the streets.

  That evening I am sitting somewhere on Nineteenth Street eating grilled vegetables and watching the Burmese diners around me playing on their phones or avidly following the English Premier League’s game of the season on a large flat-screen on the wall.

  A land in transition. And yet there are facets that remain completely untouched. The national railroad, for instance. At the main station in Yangon, a man still writes the schedule by hand on a large board with a black felt-tip pen. There are no computers for tickets; they, too, are still handwritten. The journey from Yangon to Kalaw is less than four hundred miles, but it takes twenty-two hours and costs about twelve dollars. The travel time is longer than it was eighty years ago. It seems unlikely that there are many other train lines in the world that have actually gotten slower over the last several decades.

  The “night train to Mandalay” leaves the station at 5:00 p.m. sharp. As on my first journey twenty-two years ago we lumber along at ten, sometimes twenty miles per hour. Sometimes we go no faster than a walk. Warm air wafts in through the open windows. Street vendors scurry up to the train and hop on. They pass through the cars hawking curries, tea, or soup in plastic bags, fruit, crackers, water. At some point they just jump off again.

  Rice paddies, narrow rivers, and children riding water buffalo roll past my window. The sun sets behind palm trees.