Road to Mandalay

Joseph Ong, June, 2001

We had been travelling on the road since 6.30 a.m. and it appeared unlikely that we would be stopping any sooner. The mini-bus simply kept running on, its wheels rolling over the humps and bumps of a narrow gravel dirt track, my body shaking and dancing to its rhythm as I struggled to keep my balance and composure.  The late afternoon sun shone mercilessly on the wide expanse of land around us, with green grasslands covering every patch of brown earth, threatening to swallow up the few padi fields and huts here and there, a vague reminiscence of human existence. In the farther distance, a chain of hills laid bare and plenty, a sleeping dragon too absorbed in its dreams to be aware of our intrusion into its lair. That is all, the central plains of Myanmar, it is the cultural heartland of the Burmese, yet this is all it leaves for certain in the mind - Space, Silence and Soulfulness.

Space. The emptiness becomes obsessive and frightening. I was subverted by the sudden falling of a vast area of a world I do not really belong to. The immensity of the earth overshadowed all the pretensions of my ego that it should be larger than the world it engages. A furtive glance at the map of Myanmar I've brought along began to nag and deepen until the wilderness seemed less to be empty than overlooked, the names, labels and scales are but a contortion of the reality looking straight into my eyes now. Insidiously, it began to infect me. What is the anathema of space, that which I've been used to throughout my life - the towering skyscrapers, the well-paved flattened roads and its accompanying lamp-posts, crowds of people scuttling to and fro and the wide array of sensual pleasures so captivating to my six senses in which I soon lose myself in a wild senseless pursuit. But there's absolutely nothing at all here for me to engage, interact or react. I was reduced to a mere spectator, redundant and unneeded. It's plain space, emptiness and nothingness. And without any stimuli from the external world, the space in my heart suddenly becomes glaring and apparent. Where are my thoughts, perceptions and feelings? I made a frantic search within - there's only space and I hate the dreaad feeling of boredom and redundancy. I do not want to be reminded of the transient and insignificant nature of my existence. I want to live in the world, to be involved and to fill up every bit of space I can find. Now, Space is all around me and there's nowhere else I can seek refuge. Can loneliness find somebody to protest?

Silence. The entire bus is surprisingly quiet now. Long gone are the seemingly endless chattering, bursts of uncontrollable laughter and the repetitive Burmese songs played by the driver. Everyone is asleep or pretending to be sleeping. So what if I am alone by myself. I can accept, withstand and embrace silence. I opened the window and listen to the onrushing wind rustling against strands of my dried knotty hair. That's all I can hear. I scrutinized the space before me till the horizons, there's only silence. I had the sudden urge to shout out 'Can anyone hear me?' The answer is obvious and I rather live in my fantasies that there's somebody out there who will hear me than to be disappointed. The only signs of human existence are the few little huts and stupas that popped up occasionally as the bus thundered along its tracks. I wondered how one can survive here for so long. The Burmese are a simple people, they do not have many wants in the world and they seem to be contented with their lot. Not me. I yearn to be heard. But who is the speaker and who is the listener? We live in a world of cacophony - there're so many different noises, voiices and sounds, and together with the other sensory bombardment we are subjected to in daily life, don't you realize we are in fact under siege? Our inner world sang to the chorus of the world, every thought, perception and feeling, each fighting for an opportunity to manifest itself in the flowing stream of consciousness that marked the existence and characteristics of being human. Where is the real Self in the midst of all these? In silence, one's senses are subdued, there is calm and peace and that's when one can start looking deeply within. Can Silence find its way around in space?

Soulfulness. The sky is darkening as the sun finally abandons its watch over a bleak, forbidding and hostile landscape, not one which inspires faith, joy and delight in the backdrop of Space and Silence. They have returned the Earth to its place, innocence and pristine goodness and they have removed the facade I so confidently put on for the past few days. Beneath its blatantly nonchalant exterior lies a persistent state of tumult and chaos, a Self torn and wrecked by inner conflicts. loss of orientation and a spiritual barrenness awaiting to be voided. My heart is stirring and I can feel the guttering of thoughts and emotions within, scrambling to be released.  We had a most wonderful and fulfilling trip. When I saw for myself how many people we have benefited and the active participation of my friends in this meritorious good deed, I felt relieved and glad. All the time and energies I have devoted on the planning and organizing of this mission over the past half a year have not gone to waste after all. No doubt that things are not perfect and there are moments of anguish, disappointments and even bitterness, they are now but mere fading memories not deserving of another mention. My primary concern now is the coming exhibition and whether we can organize a follow-up to rectify the remaining problems we failed to address during this trip. I've been away from home for a week and I can't help wondering how my parents and little sister are. It's amazing how far we have progressed over the years as a family. My sister is in Secondary 4 and it seemed only like yesterday when she was a small little girl playing hide-and-seek with me in Grandmother's two-room flat. In my eyes, my sister will always be the 'ge ge', just like my parents still address me as 'boy boy'. Grandmother passed away on New Year's Eve last year and her flat was sold. My parents have aged a lot over the past few years too. They have worked so hard throughout their lives in order to bring both of us up. Ge Ge is growing up fast and in a few years time, she will be heavier than me ! How I wish I can start earning money soon so that my parents can take a break, relax a bit and enjoy life more and my sister will be able to proceed on to further studies without any financial concerns.  I do not know where my life is heading in the future. Should I engage the world, be more involved and devote myself in the service of others or should I withdraw from the world, be aloof and detached and spend more time instead on meditation and spiritual cultivation. These are two wants of my life which cannot be reconcile together. I have to give up one at the expense of another. The mind is difficult to tame and guide; more than often not, it's in a state of unrest and distraction. A simple life with few administrative hassles and duties is essential for one's practice and these are precisely the conditions lacking in my life now. However, should I choose this path, I will be isolating myself from my friends, society and the world around me. Maybe there's another way out which I'm not aware of. As a perfectionist and idealist, I make too many demands on myself, many of which are impossible to fulfil all at the same time. Perhaps, the only course of action I should take now is to give myself more Space while abiding in Silence. Can Soulfulness be replaced by Space and Silence?

Over the lowlands of Myanmar, the bus-wheels putter pathetically and continuously, like old men running out of breath. The mountains look too shallow to form a decent barrier segregating the Golden Land from external influences for the past centuries. Even after the whole of Lower Burma was annexed by the British in 1852, the Burmese monarchy still insisted on his Kingdom, or whatever was left of it being addressed as the 'Center of the Universe'. Beyond my window the palisades of trees and shrubs part to disclose sleepy villages and little towns by weed-smeared pools. The railway banks are glazed with flowers, a train churning rustily behind us, struggling to keep up, oblivious to its surrounding human clearings which shut on and off like lantern slides: wooden huts and vegetable patches lay idyllically in the open, cattle grazing on the grass and village children waving their hands at the rare sight of visitors from a different world. Dusk arrives suddenly, as if this were the frontier also between light and darkness. I'm sliding out of Singapore into somewhere which seems less a country than a region in people's minds, for the boundaries, states and divisions of Myanmar was created as an administrative convenience during British colonial rule, the many ethnic minorities and tribes in the frontier regions never recognizing the Central government's rule or existence. It was now pitch-darked and we continued our foray into the unknown armed with only light from the bus's front lamps. I shivered at the thought of this country's past and future. The violences of history, geography and time feels a little diluted, too remote or vast to be precisely real. It impends through the darkness as the ultimate, unworldly, unmodern abode. This is Myanmar, a place you will never feel quite like home.