The Empty Bowl

by Laura Parker

The Buddhist monks walk the streets of our neighborhood every Sunday morning.

They ring a gong every few paces, masculine shoulders wrapped in bright orange cloth.

And in their hands they each carry an empty bowl.

Our Thai neighbors, retired women clutching robes, shuffle to driveway’s end and place in the monk’s bowl an offering of some sort– rice or money or fruit or a breakfast of rice-porridge, warm from the stove.

While churches in America pass the plate, locals in Thailand fill the empty bowls.

And this concept of the empty bowl is based on the belief that whatever the Universe hands the monk, will be enough for that day’s provision of clothing, food, and money.

It is a dependence on Bigger Forces to supply the need.

And I watch respectfully from my window in the early morning light, and I witness the curbside ceremony of giving, recieving, and blessing from a religion so new to my observation. And I am handed a beautiful picture of practical trust and simple dependence, played out by shorn-headed men and pajama-clad women.

But I wonder about another scenario, too – one I’ve never witnessed by these monastic men on Sunday mornings, but one I’ve seen played out a million times and lived a million more. What if the monk were to walk down the street pushing a cart-full? Of grocery bags stuffed with food, bank account statements with positive balances, extra pairs of shoes, wallets crammed with cash?  What if he carried all of that and the empty bowl, held up to the Universe.  What if the mass of all he already possessed made it physically difficult to hold up the bowl in the first place, and harder-still to wait with baited-breath expectancy for it to be filled?

The monk would then be meeting the world with competency, not dependence.

Enough-already, not desperate-for-just-enough.

And I watch orange robes disappear around the next corner, watch as neighbors walk back up driveways.  And I am left chewing on questions as I sip quickly-cooling coffee–

How do I practice empty-bowl dependence when I was handed cart-full after cart-full after cart-full, by nature of a first breath taken with Western lungs?

and

When I do taste the reality of need, do I have the faith to lift my bowl and trust that whatever is placed inside it will be enough?  The daily manna of spirit and supply?

**********

And a religion of luck and flower-offerings on altars, teaches me leagues about a Relationship of redemption and life-offerings on crosses.

And so I empty coffee cup,

and bowl,

and begin the day.

Laura, her husband and three children left their home in the mountains for the jungles of Thailand, where they currently serve as directors of a children’s home for at-risk girls.

Laura blogs at Life Overseas and you can also find her on Twitter.