Ganden Sky Burial

A mango tree shaded our old house in Sri Racha. Birds roosted on the branches. Our next-door neighbor hated the tree. Its leaves fell into their yard, even though the tree's spread of shade cooled down both houses.

My neighbor only saw the leaves and the other week she called up the electricity office to trim the tree, while we were away in the country.

Upon my return I wanted to confront her about this assault on my tree , but Mam advises to keep a jai yen on these matters, since a cool head is easier to live with than a hot heart.

The next day I smiled at my neighbor without humor. She smiled back wondering how I would right her wrong. I smiled again communicating that my revenge was only in my mind and she smiled with gratitude. The Thais have more names for a smile than a Wall Street banker has for ripping off money from the taxpayers.

This week a small bird fell from the tree in front of Fenway and me. Its mother swooped to the ground and attempted to get its baby to fly, but the little bird was grounded by a broken wing.

Fenway was almost four year-old. He grabbed the little bird and put its body in a box, promising to heal its wing.

"I want to be doctor."

"Good boy." My grandfather had been a doctor in the Great War. I hoped that his skill might have been passed down to my son, but his mother knew the truth.

"Let him dream." It had been a long time since either of us had been so young.

"Bird will die." Mam was a fatalist.

"Not up to us. Up to Buddha."

We fed the little bird rice and its mother came to visit the stricken bird. Our efforts fell short and three days ago the little bird expired in the night. In the morning Mam asked me to bury the bird.

"Is that what Thais do with dead birds?"

"I not want cat eat." The Thais buried nothing.

"Okay." I sat down at the computer and searched google for 'thai bird burial'.

Tibetan sky burials covered the first five pages and no narrowing or broadening of the search words returned a traditional Thai bird burial ceremony, so I decided to give the little bird a sky burial.

Years ago I had been trekking around the Ganden Monastery in Tibet. Tim Challen and I were accompanied by two Canadian women who had been attending the Women conference in Beijing. Scores of golden vultures were gliding to a cliff top overlooking a fog-shrouded river. A gargoyle of a man stood over a human body. He held a savage cleaver in both hands. His bald head glistened with sweat, as he hacked the corpse into smaller pieces. A monk watched from a short distance. His prayers were a mantra caught by the wind. The vultures came to his call and swallowed chunks of flesh whole.

"What are they doing?" The girl from Toronto asked with wide eyes.

"It's a sky burial. Tibetans and Zorasterians believe that putting a body in the earth defile the world, so they let the vultures take them." I had read about this rite in Francis Younghusband's journal about his invasion of Tibet.

"It's disgusting." Ann was a homeopathic nurse. She hated the sight of blood.

The burial butcher waved for us to come closer.

The two girls argued against our interference with the sanctity of this moment.

Tim and I hadn't traveled thousands of miles to miss such a sight.

"If you want to keep walking, go ahead." Tim was a young man of 18.

"You can't be serious." Ann's friend was a squat feminist who had little use for men other than cadge food off them.

"Dead serious," I said and Tim and I joined the sky burial, as the two women stomped off in anger.

The vultures hobbled over the rocks to pick at the flesh. Their skull dipped blood. The sun broke through the clouds. Tim and I looked at the dead man's face. He wasn't wearing a smile. The monk lifted his hands from prayer to indicate that this was the way of the eternal wheel. We left before the butcher chopped apart the skull. Some things were better left to the imagination.

"What are you going to do with the bird," asked Mam that evening.

"A sky burial." I wrapped the little bird in plastic.

"Nang fan?" Thais burned their dead.

"Yes." I went outside and chucked the still body onto the roof. I didn't bother to say any prayers. I didn't know any for dead birds.

"So that sky burial?" Mam asked with Fenway hugging her legs.

"Same as they do in Tibet." I didn't explain about cutting up the bodies.

"I not sure."

"I've been to Tibet. I know what to do with the dead bird."

Farang bah." The Thais thought all westerners were crazy and I know what they would do with my corpse, if given the chance.

It had nothing to do with the sky.