Many
years ago I spent a little time in Thailand.
I had gone there to try to enter, at least in some small
way, into the extraordinary inner peace and serenity
which, years earlier, I had experienced when, for the
first time, I had entered a Buddhist temple. Now, several
years later, among the many temples I visited in Bangkok
was one which specially intrigued me - Wat
Phra Keaw - the Temple
of the Emerald Buddha. According to my guide, this particular
temple had been built at the time of King Mongkut.[1]
The king, impressed by the stories he
had heard of England
and the wonders its factories could produce, had ordered
a shipload of fine English china for the royal palace.
En
route the ship ran into a typhoon
in the Gulf
of Siam.
When its cargo eventually was salvaged and unpacked,
everything inside the crates was found smashed to pieces.
Rather than bewailing his loss, King Mongkut ordered
a temple to be built in honour of the Lord Buddha with
all the broken pieces of porcelain worked into those
most beautiful patterns which now covered the temple’s
entire façade [2]
So
it is that I would like
to
dedicate
this
entire work
to
those
countless hundreds - thousands - millions,
in
the pain and brokenness of whose lives and hearts,
the
light of the God “Who Is” shines forth;
and,
on
a
more immediately personal level,
to
dedicate this present volume
to
Father
Ted Kennedy,
long,
the voice of the prophet
raised
in this land,
speaking
for - caring for -
“the
broken reeds” of our time –
and,
a
true friend -
and
my
brother
in
life - in Christ.
-
-
The
truth of this story is vouched for by the Cultural
Attaché of Thailand and Tourist Authority of Thailand.
It is included here, both because it is a perfect
parable with which to sum up the human condition,
at the same time as it gives a wonderful insight
into something which lies very close to the heart
of Siddarth’s, the Lord Buddha’s teaching - as
it does to that of Jesus, the Christ …
by
John Maguire |