How
to Build a Pagoda
Gerry Kopelow
I
have a lot of respect and affection for my meditation teacher because
over a period of twenty five years he helped me establish and
maintain a wholesome, resilient state of mind. My teacher, a westerner,
found his first teacher fifty years ago in Burma. When I heard last
fall that my teacher's teacher, now ninety-four years of age,
was traveling to North America on a special mission, I decided to
get involved if I could.
Sayadaw
U Thile Wunta likes to build pagodas, those spiky, conical structures
that populate the landscapes of Buddhist countries. (Sayadaw is
an honorific for an especially learned abbot at a Buddhist
monastery.) These structures are said to be collectors and radiators
of elevated consciousness, and the Saydaw comes out of his
forest retreat every decade or so because he wants to build a pagoda
in every country in the world.
To
say that the Sayadaw actually builds pagodas is somewhat inaccurate.
This I found out after I secured the support of my Winnipeg meditation
group, and made a formal offer to help build one here. Sayadaw
sent out an English-speaking monk to evaluate
our situation, and once our sincerity was ascertained and a lovely
site located at the St. Norbert Arts and Cultural Centre, we
were set to begin the work.
The
fun began when we tried to find out from the Sayadaw, who was due
to arrive within a week, what was required in terms of preparations
and materials. We were politely stonewalled. Officially, the Sayadaw
spoke only Burmese, and translation over
the phone was, to say the least, inefficient. A simple
sketch was forwarded, and from this we determined that the foundation
was to be 12ft square at the base, and the pagoda itself was to
made of solid bricks and cement. But how high and how big in
diameter? This was not forthcoming. In self defence, we obtained
the advice of a structural engineer and built a super-solid steel
reinforced foundation, with piles and
provisions for good drainage.
So
we were prepared, but for what exactly we didn't know.
At
first the volunteer force consisted only of my group of about twenty
meditators, but as the word spread through the media that a real
Burmese Sayadaw, and three builder monks where in the city
working on a real Pagoda, literally hundreds of people, mostly ethnic
Buddhists form Sri Lanka, Laos, Burma, Thailand, and Viet Nam came
enthusiastically forward to assist with money and labour and mountains
of provisions for the monks and workers.
It
fell to me to be the project manager, coordinating the flow of supplies
and labour, and running up an $800 cell phone bill in the two weeks
it took to do the job. My task was not easy, since the seeming
reticence of the Sayadaw to provide specific details about
the exact size and mechanical nature what we were building
continued throughout the whole construction period. Orders for more
cement, bricks, mortar, sand, and steel were
issued only hours and sometimes minutes before they were needed. The
proposed size of the pagoda was initially twelve feet but grew daily
to a final figure of twenty-two feet.
At
first I assumed the haphazard planning was the result of a cultural
mismatch, a collision between third-world laissez-faire slackness
and first world, goal-oriented get-up-and-go. But over several days
of observation, I realized that this was an incorrect view. The
monks, who ate only two meals a day and wore only simple robes,
worked steadily and continuously regardless of the weather
or the presence or absence of volunteer helpers. They were totally
consistent, patient, energetic, and cheerful in every circumstance.
They asked for what they need when they needed it, confident that
what was needed would materialize at the appropriate moment. And
I eventually realized that my urgent cell phone requests to various
contractors and suppliers around the city were regularly being
met with unsolicited discounts, donations, and instantaneous
services which in ordinary circumstances would not have been forthcoming.
The Sayadaw, who
had spent fifty years meditating at the foot of a tree in the forest,
presided over all the activity in quiet dignity, while small
children and animals and flocks of grinning people
competed with each other to sit at his feet .
The
Sayadaw, more or less without spoken instructions, had organized
the construction of the Pagoda to be a two week lesson in mindfulness,
in conscious living, in harmonious action for a wholesome purpose.
The Pagoda is a reminder of the metta - the loving kindness
- radiating into the world from those compassionate beings, like
the Sayadaw, who have devoted their lives to the alleviation of
suffering.
