Return

Now that I have returned to California after 13 some months abroad in Cambodia, it is a bit intimidating to write about my experiences there. I suppose it is only myself who would be capable of such intimidation, but nevertheless I remain in awe of the sheer amount of territory I have observed and experienced without putting it into words. Back in the comfort of life at Stanford, glorious September weather and the eerie security from hazards, Cambodia suddenly seems far away, connected to this realm only through memory, books, sounds, images, and the occasional person I meet who has roots there.
Then there is the issue of the validity of the work I was doing there. The world of scholarship is one that it not entirely foreign to me, but it is certainly one that I have never had a voice in. And now that I do have the knowledge and the experience to make a contribution, will my voice be a valid one? This is where, perhaps, I am looking for a mentor, to search for real meaning in my work and rediscover what I innately know to be the real joy of writing.

But where to start? Cambodia unfolds like waterfall in my memory-- slow at first, then falling in separate streams, each of great intensity, before rushing on into the roaring stream below. The lines between scholarship and memory and also unclear. To what extant can I authoritatively write about my experience? Then again, I suppose, to what extent can I really write about books and the experiences of others. I somehow sense that there will be a voice that emerges from all this, from the growing pains of nascent adulthood, the trials of moral decisions, the quest for a spiritual life, and the struggle to “save” traditional Khmer culture. It’s a journey all right, but who is it really for? I may understand a little bit of my own place in it, at least in terms of my own journey. But how will I contribute to the journeys of others, the journeys of Khmer students, monks and musicians, of masters and apprentices?
I have only begun to unearth the mound of material I have collected, which looms above my desk and fills my consciousness with the thirst of discovery. And for so long my writing has stalled, and I knew inside that I just needed to let this writing come out, without judgment or pre-planned outlines. It feels wonderful, really quite wonderful, to be writing again.

Yesterday I went to Nagara Dhamma temple in SF for their Phchum Ben ceremony, which above all struck me as an American affair. Unlike my previous visit, in which I mostly listened to a bhikkhu for Surin talk in his heavily-accented Khmer, I barely said a word to the monks this time around. The same familiar chants were a always a deep joy to partake in, and I felt a genuine spiritual atmosphere that I had not really sensed in Cambodia. In particular, it felt much more tender and genuine that Wat Campuh k’aek, and the community feeling was much stronger than at Wat Bo. The Thai chanting in Pali was beautiful and unforgettable in a way, and it carried the same kind of resonance of the chanting of the Tibetan Gyuto monks. I also felt like I was building my first connections in the Khmer American community. Obviously, but perhaps surprising as well, was the reaction to the attendees when I spoke Khmer, which was basically the same reaction as in Cambodia. Almost every conversation I had was bilingual, which made for a rich interplay of language and idiom, and it was especially refreshing to be speaking the tongue that had become so natural to me when I was in Cambodia. A chance encounter with a Christian monk in beautiful purple robes who has close connections to Buddhist monks in Cambodia, Father Nazarene, seems to be a fortunate opportunity to continue to connect with the Khmer Buddhist community.

But what I am really here to write about is my research on the Cambodian Dharma song tradition, one that continues to speak to me and pervade my inner life. I continue to hear the strains of “yo vo ananda” and “thvay phka” in my head as I walk around campus, and I often wonder if these songs aren’t the most beautiful thing on earth. The Dharma that they proclaim is slowly ripening as I understand them more and more.