SONS OF ISAN
How do you expect to arrive at the end of your own journey if you take the road to another man's city?
-Thomas Merton
While this story took place in Thailand ,
it is not just a book about Thailand.
It is a book about adventure, transformation and the renewal of spirit. It’s
about intentionally ripping oneself away from everything one knows and loves
and exchanging it for the wonders of the unknown, knowledge and experience.
In Thailand
and took refuge in the northeast in a region known as Isan, where the people
taught me how to sit like a Thai and then as a monk, how to walk like monk. In
a rural Buddhist temple I learned the art of stillness without the aid of
television and from some very fine monks I learned that there is still an awful
lot of grace and beauty in this world if we are willing to see it, but more
importantly if we are wiling to fully engage ourselves.
My experiences did not result in my transformation, or
enlightenment in the Buddhist sense. That would take more than a year anywhere,
Buddhist temple or otherwise. It did teach me that spirituality and knowing
ones purpose in life is a difficult journey on an unmarked path.
William Mathew Reyland currently lives and works in Bangkok, Thailand. Excerpts of Sons of Isan and other short stories have been previously published in Gwangju News S. Korea and XPAT magazine.
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