It’s the boy’s favourite time of day. It’s that magical time when his old relatives tell stories. Sprawling, squatting, reclining in the flickering half light, they gather to drink beer from heavy misty glasses with molded handles or Chinese tea from flower-painted but chipped earthenware cups and - create magic.

The gnarled sun-baked old faces crease into delighted smiles as the elders listen, as if it were the first time, to tales of strange creatures and visitors who, lost in the rice fields, stumbled upon this sleepy isolated hamlet. Hand gestures in the flickering light paint shadow birds or ghostly marauders on the drooping mosquito netting and the earthen floor. The old ones and the boy gasp in unison with delighted mock fear at certain points and add ribald embellishments as appropriate.

In their minds, objects in the storyspace under the battered wooden house become supernatural visitors and a sack of sticky rice transforms into a greedy government official. The story-teller’s words imbue life into inanimate objects in order to flesh out her story. Everyone knows it’s just a story but agrees to participate in its expression.

Sadly, these days, this rural lifestyle has been almost swallowed up by blaring TV screens and rasping transistors.

I mentioned this story because it demonstrates how imagination and great story-telling can transform a piece of hand-woven checked cloth thrown over a flimsy tin fold-up chair into a terrifying demon or a greedy government official, for a fleeting moment at least.

Intrinsic essence

Now I would like to tell you of another transformation – one that takes you deep into the intrinsic essence of an object as opposed to an object being given imaginative gilding from the outside.

Fast forward to 1989. It was at the time of the slightly cooler season that Thais refer to as winter – late November. The location is an unimpressive suburban temple on the outskirts of northern Bangkok. Wat Boonsrimuneegorn is in Minburi. It could not be seen from the main Ramindra Road nearby, as it was set back behind the row houses that lined the road. It was far into the rice fields that still characterized the area at that time. The narrow track that led to the temple was accessible by two-stroke motorcycles with extended sidecars. An intrepid taxi driver might sometimes attempt the drive but usually gave up halfway, when he realized that the unmade track skirted swamps that were barely visible through the tall yellowing grasses. The track changed direction sharply and unexpectedly many times. Negotiating the part of the track nearer the temple was similar to blind flying.

The area is home to many Muslim families. The temple community woke in the early morning to the sound of a novice, at the top of a high and rickety wooden platform tower, creatively ringing the morning bell and, almost simultaneously, by the haunting amplified call to prayer by the muezzin from the neighbouring mosque.

It’s not long after dawn. Warm golden light slants across the polished wooden floor. After about forty minutes of walking meditation, it is time to change to a sitting position. In walking meditation, you look six to eight feet ahead on the floor, not focusing on any particular feature of the floor but maintaining a loose focus so that you don’t bump into anything or lose balance.

Wooden planks in the sun

Having been walking outside on the narrow balcony, which had a floor made of wooden planks that had been exposed to the sun for many years, the change in the quality of the floor planks was noticeable as I was about to step inside the simple room. One of the white robed nuns, called Mae Jiis in Thai, had left, just near the door, an orange plastic plate such as are routinely given to monks. On the plate will be offerings of food, simple medicine and other necessities, all wrapped up in orange cellophane with a shiny orange ribbon bow to top it off.
The kindly Mae Jii would sometimes put some food on the plastic plate for a thin, grubby white cat that often came to this building for food scraps and cuddles. On this particular morning, the plate was empty but not so clean. Presumably the cat was already full and had gone away to sleep somewhere nearby.

A ray of sunlight lay diagonally across the warm sun-bleached planks, across the plate and about three feet into the room. As I lifted my right foot to step across the slightly raised piece of wood that served as a threshold, I saw the plate. It was extraordinary. The orange plastic glowed with fiery radiance - seemingly from within its own substance. The colour was so intense, it took my breath away. It shone with an inner fire. As I moved my head slightly, more shades of orangeness revealed themselves. A slight inclination of the molded surface, defined by the sunlight, sparkled with gradations of saturated orangeness that, as it moved beneath the edge of plate, almost hummed with chestnut depth.

The plate was on the wooden floor just outside the door. There had been some cover from the direct glare of the sun there, so some polish was still apparent on the wooden planks. Parallel threads of golden and deep brown wood seemed to flow with the direction of the sunlight falling on the floor around the plate. The shadow it cast was crisp and almost ebony in its shade.

The vital in-itselfness of that moment of perception is still etched on my memory more than twenty years later. The conditioned analytical mind was in disarray. ‘How’ it asked itself ‘could a cheap bit of mass-produced plastic have so much significance – so much integral beauty?”
No answer presented itself and the thinking part of myself gave up and dissolved into direct participation in the experience.