Never Turn Your Back on the Buddha
Sandali wished she were at home, sprawled over her bed. She could no longer endure the weight of her own body pressing down into her calves, which were losing all feeling. She tried to distract herself from the pain, slowly twirling her fingers into the dusty Persian carpet, outlining the red peacocks beneath her as if she were crafting the designs herself.
She glanced to the back of the room and smirked at her younger brother, who had fallen asleep. She stifled in a laugh – Nishan’s hands were folded between their mother’s, his neck sloped to the side, where a pool of saliva began to form onto her white kurta. Sandali wondered how her mother could stay so still and recite her prayers while holding onto her brother for what had felt like an hour. Sandali watched her mother’s lips move in sync to the recitation of the orange-robed monks seated above them, the Pāḷi words rolling off her tongue and joining in the low-pitched hum of the entire room.
She was a completely different person, Sandali thought, from the woman who had left home with her hours earlier. Then, she had been running around the house, chastising Sandali for forgetting to set her alarm while frantically covering the trays of kaha bath and wambatu moju that she volunteered to make, handing them over to her husband who had been packing the trunk. Her family had been expected to show up to the temple well before the start of prayer to prepare flowers and other offerings to place on the altar.
Kaha bath...Sandali’s mouth watered just thinking about the aromatic yellow rice. The singular slice of toast she had before rushing into the car was not enough to curb her hunger. She wondered how much longer it would take until she could move her crisscrossed legs. She stared at the calendar pinned on the wall beside her, still flipped to April, even though it was already May. The picture over the grid showed a set of photos of Sri Lanka: Sigiriya, the Temple of the Tooth, and a group of Kandyan dancers were depicted inside of the letters that made up ‘2019’. She continued to shift her focus from one object to the next until her ears perked up at the familiar sounds of the head monk’s rhythmic chants: “Ehipassiko, Opanayiko, Pachchantan Veditabbho, Vinyohaythi.”
While Sandali knew the words by memory, she knew nothing of what they meant other than that the emphasized stretch of each syllable signaled the end of prayer–for now, anyway–and the pain she had felt everywhere below her knees would finally subside. After seconds of silence, the head monk lifted his head above the straw fan he had been holding by his chin, signaling for the children seated by the front to receive their pirith noola. The long white thread had been freshly cut by the monks sitting to the side, ready to be tied to the right arms of the crowd adorned in white fabrics.
“Come forward, children,” the head monk said in soft Sinhala. The youngest group of kids were reluctant, and their mothers gently nudged them to sit by him. Sandali went to her mother to get Nishan, who had woken from his all-but-graceful nap, to tie his strand of lasting blessings. He followed his older sister, sitting beside her as the monks recited a short prayer and tied the string on their wrists.
The head monk finished cutting the excess string off, and Sandali folded her hands and bowed. He smiled and asked, “You are in college now, no?” She smiled back at him, responding in Sinhala, “Yes, just finished my first year,” and the head monk asked routine questions about her school life and exams, to which she gave a set of routine answers. “Yes, it went well.” “No, not too many exams.” “Yes, I study hard.” “I will graduate in three years.” “Thank you.” “Yes.” “Ok.” She then excused herself to the kitchen, where the adults had begun preparing the food to be served. Amongst the group of focused women, she found her mom.
“Did you get the noola tied?
Sandali nodded, “Do you need help with anything?”
“No need. Just get your brother and the others to come serve the food soon,” her mother instructed, busy cutting into a pan of date cake and placing them neatly on white ceramic plates.
“Are you sure you want Nishan serving food? He can’t even fill up a cup of water without spilling it. What if he drops parippu on the monk’s robes?” Sandali chuckled. Despite his ninth birthday approaching, her brother still made a mess at the dinner table.
“How embarrassing it would be if that happened…” her mother spoke sternly, “but he is old enough to do these simple things. It won't look good if he isn’t participating.”
“I guess not.” Sandali shrugged and walked back out to the prayer room, where she found Nishan huddled together with Sanvi and her older sister Ruksana, who Sandali had known since they were kids in preschool. The three of them were playing an intense game of bubblegum.
“No! Not fair!” whined six-year-old Sanvi, who had just lost the round.
“We let you win, like, three times, nanga. We can’t just keep changing the rules for you,” Ruksana lectured.
“I don’t want to play this anymore,” Sanvi groaned.
Sandali chimed in, “Maybe we can play something else outside.”
Sanvi looked up and smiled, “Yeah, let’s go!” Nishan got up to leave with Sanvi, but Sandali stopped him. “You have to help out today.”
Nishan groaned. “Why me?”
“Not just you, all of us. And don’t complain, Amma told me to get you.” Sandali said unwaveringly, hoping to invoke the same kind of authority her mother had.
“Alright, help me up though. I have no strength in my body after yesterday,” Ruksana stretched out her arms, which Sandali grabbed and playfully tugged on.
“Oh right, you had your shift. How’s that going?” Sandali asked. Ruksana had taken on a summer internship at a local hospital as soon as the semester ended.
“Terrible. I mean, taking care of patients is amazing. But having to deal with–” “Alex?” Sandali completed her sentence.
“Yeah,” Ruksana sighed, “sucks. It’s not like I can complain though, he’s not being hostile or anything… it’s just… questionable comments…”
“You mean microaggressions? You’ve told me a bunch of times how you try to correct him, but he never listens,” Sandali scoffed. “Anyway, I think you should. Complain, I mean. Why is it fair that he gets to say whatever comes to his mind while you sit there uncomfortable all day?”
Ruksana looked defeated. “I guess you’re right…but I don’t want to make a big deal out of it. Sometimes I feel like if I say something people will think I’m being too sensitive.”
“Who cares if they think so? Stand your ground! Do you want people walking all over you?”
“I can’t believe I’m taking advice from you,” she said, chuckling and shaking her head.
“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, I don’t know. You’re not so different, either.”
Sandali was about to ask her again what her friend meant, when an austere voice sounded from the entrance of the room, “You know, you should not stand like that.” Sandali and Ruksana looked over towards a woman standing before them.
“Sorry?” Ruksana asked, confused by the sudden intrusion.
The middle-aged woman gestured at Sandali. “You should never turn your back on the Buddha! Do not stand in that way.”
Sandali noticed her brother and Sanvi had been long gone, and that she and Ruksana had been standing in front of the white Buddha statue in the otherwise desolate prayer room. The two of them eyed one another, as if confirming the awkwardness of this situation together. The lady continued, speaking matter-of-factly. “It is extremely disrespectful to show your back to the Buddha. You should always face the front.”
Sandali stepped to the side and apologized. “Oh… sorry.”
“You should know better at this age.”
Sandali wasn’t sure what to say back to her, or if she even could. How was she supposed to know when no one had ever told her? And, forget that, what made this random woman think she had the authority to lecture someone else’s daughter? Would it be wrong to say something back to her? Instead Sandali simply nodded her head and made her way out of the prayer room. Ruksana followed her. “Jesus, what’s her deal? Do you even know who she is?”
“No idea.” Sandali returned to the kitchen and began to fill an empty porcelain bowl with golden disks of pappadam, her favorite side dish. Ruksana heated up the curried green beans that her mother made and brought them out to the dining room. Sandali and Ruksana joined their mothers in circling around the table with bowls of food, placing them in neat piles on the monks’ dishes as they ate. Soon, they ran out of side dishes to distribute and dismissed themselves outside, where Sanvi and Nishan were playing on the wooden swing set.
The summer sky was gloomy and the air was hot and moist, contrasting the air-conditioned temple. Sandali’s mother walked by the swing set and grabbed one of the black ropes that held her youngest child. “You were out here the whole time, why?” she scolded. “Sanvi dragged me outside, Amma.” Nishan hopped off the swing seat and looked innocently at his mother. She shook her head but said nothing more, going to fix his hair and wiping the sweat from his brow. Sandali was accustomed to her mother’s leniency towards her brother, but it still surprised her to see her so easygoing and affectionate towards him. Sandali felt a pang of jealousy rise in her, and left to go find her father. As she looked around, she noticed the adults were huddled into small groups, fanning themselves with their hands and speaking Sinhala in hushed tones.
“Schools are still closed! My niece is stuck at home and she has to wait to take her O-levels!,” one lady says.
“My nephew can’t go to his tuition class anymore because everyone is told to stay home. It’s so scary that something like that could’ve ever happened,” another one added. “It could have been avoided. Such a shame,” said a younger man.
“What could have been done? It’s all because of those Muslims–they have become even more radical.” Sandali’s ears perked up at the comment, to find a familiar face behind it–the lady from the prayer room.
“You know, this kind of attack, it did not surprise me. I went last winter, and all those women were covered head to toe! There really is no need for them to do that, how can we know if they are hiding something or not?” the lady laughed. Some around her enthusiastically agreed, while others nodded silently. Sandali could not believe what she had heard. Not that she was unfamiliar with this type of rhetoric–she had heard enough of it at family functions a month earlier, when the news of bombing on churches and hotels on her parent’s island home were pasted across the television screen. It was disorienting to hear something so abundantly prejudiced said with such loud confidence. She glared in the direction of the group, hoping her cold stare would reach them somehow; but they were too invested in their conversation to look around.
Sandali continued on her way to her father, who was standing by a bird bath at the side of the building. He turned after hearing the dew-dropped grass shift under his daughter’s shoes. “Duwa, look at this,” he smiled, pointing at the black bird perched on the stone basin. Its wings were a shimmery green, and its beak a blazing yellow. Sandali usually enjoyed bird watching with her father, who had, in her mind, a crazy hobby of feeding any wild animal scraps their family kept, but she gave him a nod of her head before looking back towards him.
“Is something the matter?” he asked, noticing her demeanor.
“Nothing really…well…” she started, and naturally began speaking on what had happened moments before. “It was so gross but everyone just stood there without saying anything,” she finished.
Sandali’s father looked over her shoulder. “What? Who said so?” He looked visibly displeased. “The one over there, wearing the whi–I mean, the lady near the front? Short hair, black skirt?”
“Ah,” he spotted her and nodded. “I don’t know her. What she said is extremely inappropriate.”
“It’s annoying. She even came up to me and Ruksana earlier and told me that I shouldn’t have my back turned on the Buddha statue since it’s disrespectful? She said I should know better.”
“What?” her father raised an eyebrow. “That custom, some people follow it, yes. It is out of respect. But it’s not a law. No need to take those things seriously. What matters is your intent.”
“I didn’t intend to be disrespectful, thaththi. But she made me feel weird. Like I’m not a good Buddhist or something.”
“Sandali, listen to me. That woman is clouded in her understanding. If anything, in my view, you are more of a Buddhist than she. You have never badmouthed anybody, and you are always kind.”
Sandali did not know how to handle praise, she dwindled with her fingers. Her father continued.
“I know you might not understand everything about Buddhism. You don’t have to. Even I don't know half the things your mother knows. We all believe differently and feel differently. Only you can cultivate a relationship with the Buddha’s teachings; no one else can tell you what or who to believe. I certainly won’t.”
Sandali nodded slowly.
“All these people–even me, admittedly–we step out of the temple doors and suddenly we forget our conduct. Whatever we learn often gets washed away and we go back to being selfish at times, loud, impulsive, and needy,” her father spoke softly, but officially. “You should try your best to detach yourself from those traits, and to move forward. Don’t let others' words get to your head.”
“I try not to, but when that lady says things like that, don't you think others should tell her off? If she said something completely crazy, don’t we get to correct her?”
“Of course, that’s not what I said. You should always stand up for what you believe. But it is best to bite your tongue and bide your time. Let that woman be vile, let her say those things. You do not want to talk the same way back to her, especially here, at the temple. Most importantly, you should not engage with people who are unwilling to listen. Okay?”
Deep bell chimes sounded from the inside of the temple–the second set of prayers would begin soon.
“Let’s head inside,” Sandali’s father patted her back and walked with her to the temple's doorsteps. Slowly, people began to make their way back into the incense-filled house. Sandali sat next to her family by the front of the crowd, right below the flower offerings. She stared at the white statue above her, tranquil and unmoving, and thought back to her father’s word.
As the crowd got situated, the head monk began to pass the spool of thick yarn made up of yellow, red, orange, blue and white string, to those sitting below. Twirling the yarn between her folded hands, Sandali listened to the head monk’s words.
“Let us be connected to one another, to the teachings of the Buddha, and for our blessings to be shared, so we can understand his words and embody his teachings.”
Together with the crowd, Sandali chanted,
“Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu.”