St Mary's

Vietnam and Cambodia

Journey to the ancient temples of to Angkor Wat and Ankgor Tom

Just as we are all on a journey which is unfolding here at St Mary’s in Exile, this homily is also about a journey  …  a journey I made recently with my family thru Vietnam and Cambodia to the ancient temples of Angkor Wat and Angkor Tom.

I would like to begin with a poem by Rumi, the 12^th century Sufi poet and mystic:

…..

“A human being is essentially a spirit eye

Whatever you really see

You are that”

Rumi

…..

When Peter asked me to give a homily following my brief description to him of this recent journey thru Vietnam and Cambodia, my heart temporarily froze as I hate public speaking and I immediately questioned myself whether I  would have anything relevant to offer in such a forum but I found myself hesitatingly agreeing if I were given sufficient time…

So , I offer my observations and insights about our journey in the hope that I can tell the story of the people I encountered, how they effected me,  the environment which enveloped us and the history  we encountered along the way.

For some time now, I have been drawn to the eastern traditions which nourish my own faith and provide me with food for life’s journey. So it was no surprise that I felt drawn to the great temples of Cambodia.

My view is that the whole world is sacred and there are as many different ways to express one’s faith as there are different people in the world but always one God whether she be manifested as Buddha, Vishnu, Earth God, Jesus, or Yahweh or indeed in the simple acts of loving kindness which surround our ordinary daily lives. I am particularly drawn to the Buddhist doctrine of non duality..

At the beginning of the trip, I was sitting in a restaurant in Saigon drinking coffee and talking with Ted (my husband) and our Vietnamese guide (Luc), when along came a Vietnamese man with a bible and (to my surprise) speaking in perfect English said “repent or you wont go to heaven” I thought to myself: “I don’t know about you mate, but I don’t know if there is a heaven when you die any more.. I know heaven and hell are here on earth now. And so began the journey.

Confrontation with Poverty

I was speaking to Peter about the poverty I saw and this homily and what can I do about it and he suggested talking about refugees and I thought: “how can I do that? How can I connect the poverty I saw in Cambodia and refugees waiting desperately for some country to receive them? “

And it came to me thru my direct experience of being confronted with the poverty I saw (such as people having to wash, drink and defecate in the same water and where the average life expectancy is 54, where houses are built of sticks and a piece of corrugated iron and children don’t go to school because they have to help their parents work for food and the family cant afford to send them to school any way!). It came to me  that I can  do everything  I c an to change the Australian government’s stand on accepting people who have suffered such poverty and trauma,  whose very existence is  threatened, who have left  family friends, culture and homeland to sail on a sea of uncertainty and await the generosity of our country to receive them. I think in our hearts we think we are somehow separate from these people, but these people are just like you and I: they have families, hopes and dreams. These people are the anawim who embody Jesus and await our compassion and some times more often than not, die waiting for it!  

Although I cannot race off to Cambodia/Vietnam and volunteer just yet!!, I can take a stance in my own life and  do some small action where I am, whether it is sending money for aid to poverty torn areas, or lobbying the government to accept refugees or working with them to settle in to new services and going the extra mile for them to the best of my ability: these are the things I can do

Social justice and the Mighty Mekong: (the interconnectedness of us all)

As we travelled further and further up the mighty Mekong into Cambodia,   I saw how many people’s entire existence depends on this river system. The Mekong Delta is the food bowl of Viet Nam, and Cambodia. It supports the growing of rice crops and many fruit and vegetables. It is also a transportation system and a home to many millions who depend on fishing for their livelihood.

Arising  in Tibet it flows thru China,  Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and finally across Vietnam where it fans out into the Mekong Delta and ends its journey  in the South China sea off Viet Nam. It is one of the richest biodiversity areas in the world and has more biodiversity per unit area than the Amazon.

But I was to learn that this river is now in jeopardy due to the building of dams for hydroelectricity further up stream and over fishing. China is engaged in an extensive program of dam building on the Mekong. It has already completed 3 dams and another 12 are under way. Poverty stricken Cambodia is one nation that completely depends on this river for food as does the vast majority of its fledgling economy. The Mekong River Commission consisting of Laos, Viet Nam and Cambodia have accused China of blatantly disregarding the nations down stream in its plans to dam the river but to no avail! Since the building of the first dam in China, many species have become endangered including the Mekong dolphin and dugong, water levels have dropped, ferries get stuck crossing the river and the fish catch has halved

Hell on earth

We visited one of the Killing Fields of Cambodia about 40 minutes out of Phnom Penh which was a devastating monument to the genocide of an estimated 2.2 million Cambodians who were brutally tortured executed, or died of starvation when Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge seized power during the Cambodian civil war from 1975 to 1978. Nothing can prepare one for the horrific atrocities that we were about to witness. After being tortured in Teul Sleng prison, people were blind folded, herded into the back of trucks, taken to the Killing Fields in the middle of the night and then made to kneel on the ground and were struck on the back of their head, then decapitated, their bodies thrown into mass graves. As we walked through the Killing Fields, pieces of bone and clothes surfaced through the ground from those that were killed there. There in the middle of the Killing fields I saw a stupor or monument of human skulls!  I knelt down on the steps to honour those who had died and to offer a prayer but no words would come. .. Just a paralyzing sadness for what had happened.

Whilst at the Killing Fields, I was surprised to see the photo of a young Australian man who was murdered along with many of the Cambodians. His photograph became engraved on my mind and I saw it again the next day when visiting the Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh .  … I will tell you what I have learnt about his story.

The young Australian in the photo is David Scott: He was one of several foreigners held in a separate section in shackles at S-21 prison before being brutally murdered (along with millions of Cambodians) by the Khmer Rouge. According to a report in the Australian (August 15, 2009), he and his fellow yachtsman (Ronald Dean) were intercepted by a Khmer Rouge patrol boat on their way to Thailand in November 1978 and taken to Tuol Sleng Prison. He, like many others, was tortured and murdered after signing a confession.   I made a vow to him that he would not be forgotten. (When I got back to Australia, I told Ted’s brother about him. I was stunned when his brother said “He was my good mate at school. I used to go up to David’s farm for holidays!”)..This statement demonstrated to me the interconnectedness of us all. David Scott, you are not forgotten

Buddhist country

Because we were travelling in predominantly Buddhist countries, I want to tell you about bodhichitta . “Bodhi” means awake or completely open and “chitta” means mind/heart/ and also attitude. It is equated with our ability to love and feel the pain that we share with others. This story comes from a book by Pema Chodron ( a buddhist nun). It tells the story of witnessing bodhichitta in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge reign. And I quote:

“Fifty thousand people had become communists at gun point and threatened with death if they continued with their Buddhist practices. In spite of the danger, a temple was established in the “re-education” camp and 20,000 people attended the opening ceremony. There were no lectures or prayers but simply continuous chanting of one of the central teachings of the Buddha:
“Hatred never ceases hatred, But by love alone is healed, This is an ancient and eternal law”

Thousands of people chanted and wept, knowing that the truth of these words was greater than their suffering. …Bodhichitta has this kind of power. It is like discovering wisdom and a courage we do not even know we have”.( end of quote). The Places that Scare You (2002) p7.

Heaven on Earth: The Temples: Angkor Wat, Angkor Tom and Ta Prohm

This is what we had come to Cambodia to see and we were not disappointed! Amazing temples of grandeur built from 8^th to 12-15^th century reflecting Khmer civilization and architecture steeped in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions. These temples were built for the many Gods who were enshrined there to bestow beneficence on those that built them.  History was carved into the magnificent sand stone walls telling stories about wars and depicted scenes of ordinary daily life such as child birth, cock fights, cooking, bargaining in the market. Here are some lasting images in my mind:  awe inspiring temples of beauty and grandeur, built so long ago! , French funded restoration work being carried out at Angkor Wat, a Buddhist nun meditating in one of the temples, the jungle encroaching on the beautiful temple monastery of Ta Prohm, the massive moat around Angkor Wat, the Kings swimming pool which was the size of about 15 Olympic  swimming pools around which sat 200 concubines!  4 libraries contained in the Angkor Wat temple, Hindu and Buddhist symbolism carved everywhere, lots of tourists, stifling heat and humidity, moments of deep peace and tranquility, overwhelming beauty and history of an era so long ago!

I was stunned at the enormity of the empire and the Khmer civilization of that time.  It was a very appropriate end to what was an amazing, enriching journey through different cultures, different religions and different periods of history and time. .

Whilst it is another story to tell you about the deeply religious symbolism we encountered everywhere, which bears timeless meaning for our lives today, one symbol which spoke to me was the lotus flower on which the Buddha is often seen sitting. We encountered these beautiful flowers which grow on meter long stems in the Cambodian King’s garden in Phnom Penh. The flower reminds us that it is out of the mud of our human frailties and weaknesses that arises something beautiful on which the Buddha or awakened mind can rest…

I would like to end with a quote from Thomas Merton which pretty much sums up the experience of my journey to the ancient Khmer temples of Cambodia:

“When you accept what you have

You see all that you have received is more than enough

And you are overwhelmed”

Thomas Merton