World According to Khemra, Part 2

I've been thinking about Mr. Khemra, my Siem Reap tour guide. My account of our day together below seems ... somehow incomplete. As much as I try, I find it difficult to avoid my reductionist tendencies. Hence, I give you my follow up, imaginary conversation with Khemra. This is the conversation we would have had, if I spent a second day with him, if he could express himself fully in his self-taught English, and if I were not so hungover the day after and had the energy to spend a second night out with the worldly ex monk.

Khemra, how are you feeling today? Aren't you tired after our bender?

Yeah very good, I sleep only a few hours a night anyway during the high season. All customers want to see sunset at Pre Rup or Phnom Bakeng temples, so I get home around 10 p.m., then I study English until midnight, then I wake up at 3:30 a.m. because all customers want to see sunrise at Angkor Wat. So I am fine, feel good today, only sleep a few hours.

Yesterday, you told me everything about yourself, and took me to see your master, your grandmother and your best friend who is now the associate head monk at Angkor Wat. Why did you do that, for a complete stranger?

Maybe you find it strange, but I grow up in temple, not many chances to make friends aside from orphans and monks, I don't know any other way to make friends. I do this with people I meet, sometimes they call me the next day and say "Khemra, I cannot be friends with you, you come from bad family and poor family". Sometimes they become my friends.

Khemra, don't you have any ... misgivings about getting drunk and chasing girls, as an ex holy man, a spiritual man?

I'm not a monk anymore, I want to enjoy life. There are 33 levels toward heaven and 33 levels toward hell. What I do in this life simply determines where I come out in the next life.

Perhaps my Buddha is more forgiving than your God. Perhaps my Buddha better understands human frailties, that it is not easy to abandon the flesh and forsake the wants of the flesh, and that there is nothing inherently bad about getting drunk or chasing girls, it is more a matter of what consequences these acts have on the journey toward nirvana. If I do not lead a good life, then the consequence is simple, that my karmic wheel continues to spin, but I have maybe 33 or 65 or even an infinite number of more chances (if I can put up with the suffering of all that is entailed). You on the other hand have no margin for error -- your God seems wanton and cruel, he doesn't even allow for the sampling error of one short lifetime!

And I am an honest person. My master tells me honesty is the most important thing. Am I a bad person because I get drunk? I do not understand why (very occasional) drunkenness is worse than lying. I do not understand why giving in to the wants of the flesh is somehow worse than deceiving another man.

That's very interesting, what you say about actions as having consequences vs. having a value attached such as "good" or "bad". I wonder if that's why your country or other Buddhist countries like Thailand are so ... non-judgmental, so live-and-let-live?

"Live-and-let-live", you mean "live-and-let-die", the Guns N Roses song? Yeah very good, rock n roll!

Umm, ok, you said yesterday that your friend stayed in the temple to become a monk, because he is uneducated and cannot survive outside of the temple. But what about the spiritual component, that he must also want to pursue a spiritual life?

Yes it is true, my friend will spend his life helping orphans. He already set up one orphanage. He wants to help kids like us, poor and desperate, without any other means to survive. But you cannot deny the practical. My best friend is illiterate and is blind in one eye, he has no skills to get a job, if he did not have the temple he would be a beggar and starve.

In practical terms, you can look at our temple as your orphanage and nursing home and hospice equivalent. The villagers give temples food and drink, and pay money to the monks for funerals. The temple in turn takes in the orphans and the ill and the old and the feeble. The temple is our village safety net. It is not so different from the role of medieval monasteries in your world.

Ok, so what's on the schedule for today my friend?

We eat amok fish and lok lak beef and drink beer. Yeah very good!