Ruins

Look a the ground. What are your feet touching? A carpet? Tiles? Asphalt? Look at your hands. What are they holding? Something precious? Something new? Something old? Something useless? Look arund you. Wehre is the nearest wall? What color is it? How high is it? What is it made of?

Look around you again. THink about where you are. Fix it in your mind: Where are you?

Imagine this place exactly as it was a thousand years ago. Look at the ground. Loot at your hands. Look around you. Where are you?

Imagine this place exactly as it will be one thousand years into the futures. Look at the ground. Look at your hands. Look around you. Where are you?


When biologists talk about evolution, they talk in thousands of years. When geologists talk about the formation of rocks, they talk in millions of years. And when we first looked into the night sky and looked at the stars, we learned to talk about billions of yers.

But we humans build things that last only a litle while. WE live our lives, laughing and creating, hurting and loving, learning an dexporing. We make families and made decisions. WE witness disaster and recovery. OUr lives feel so rich, yet they tak eplace in the time it takes the univers to blink.

Many people before me have observed and comented on the brevity of human existence. Kingdoms rise and kingtom fall. Ages come and ages go. War arrives na war passed. Stones is carved and stone crumbles.

Nowhere is this lesson more eviden than in the great cities of old, crumbling and dusty today, where pilgris from all corners flock to drin k in and sna photos of the wisdom and power and ingenuity of peoples long gone.

While I've seen glinmpes of thosebastions of old vicilizations in the past year--in the aqueduct and in Florence, never before have I stood before such great reminders of the past, so full of old secrets, old ghosts, old art, and old ways of life as I have here. Before the great ruins of Sukotai and Angor Wat, I stood in humbles awe, a small of of a human.

Sukothai was the first capitol of the empire that would eventually become Thailand. It's in a pretty large area, filled with old temples and monuments that are browned and weathered and crumbling today. I had the wonderful chance to explore these ruins by bike one beatuful day.

It was overcast, and windy. LIttle did I know that I'd see my first sight of rain in two months that day. The ruins were deep red and brown and black, dotted here and there with broken white statues. Sukotai is in a vast park, taken up by stretches of green lawn, stands of rees and resoviors. It's hard to believe that it once was a great city, where in between the tembles and palaces lived regular people in wooden houses, going about their daily business.

Amongst the dark colors of age,it seems impossible that these ruins were once whole, once bright and filled with color. It's so difficult to imagine the park filled with people and city sounds. The creek of carts and the barking of dogs, the calling of vendors and the shouts of children, the pushing and shoving and good neighbors in the streets. Moving through Sukotai on the two wheels of my bike, I could not help but reflect on the great power of time, how easily is changes great cities into ruins.

Only a few days later, I found myself in Angkor Wat, a name which I'm sure many of you have heard. These ruins, are spread out on an even greater area, the tembles are even larger and grander. A visitor could spend days losing themselves there. And once again, looking at the pillars now grounded, cracked statues and faded faces, I tried to picture what they might have looked like hundreds of years ago.

They must have been a riot of color. Statues would have been wrapped in brights hues, and altars would have been covered in offerings like flowers and food and insence. The temples would be filled with sound, the monks chants and people's prayers, and somewhere in the distance, the sound of building, for projects were ever present in Angkor.

But here, too, time has had it's way. Colors have faded, and bright fabric is no longer seen. The monks and thier chants are long gone, so is the perfume of incense. Today, Angkor stands tall and proud as ever, but so much of its original spirit is gone. Now, people walked in silent awe through its halls, brushing shoulders with old ghosts and echoes of the past.

For me, the message found in these ruins is important. Sukotai and ANgkor Wat are aat once evidence of humanity's ingenuity and a caution against pride, for time is the winner of all races. The creations of humanity are all governed by it, be they built in 800 AD or 2014, they will all crumble one day. Buddhists understand this so very well, but us westerners easily forget. But that is not to say we should not create in fear that it will dissapear one day, but that we should create, despite its temporary life.