The Teachings of Ajahn Suchart.
22 January 2024
“Growing Up”
As a child, I played childhood games just like the other kids. I would swim in the river. At first, I didnʼt know how to swim, but after training I learned how.
At that time, the kids would like to wait for a tow boat to come and then they would cling on to it as it passed.
The tow boats were loaded with rice; they didnʼt sail very fast then. I would swim out and grab onto a rope.
When there came a train of barges going back, Iʼd cling to that to come back.
Some of my friends liked to fish and shoot at birds, which I never participated in because I always felt bad about killing. However, I did play card games, though not with money.
Weʼd use cigarette packs as fake money—“Gold City Cigarettes,” “Gold Leaf,” “The Moon.” Weʼd grab them out of the trash, fold them up neatly, decide on their value, and then gamble together.
Another favorite game was “Lor Tokʼs House”—a game where coins were rolled down a sloped piece of wood to see whose would roll down the farthest. The person who rolled the farthest coin would then throw his coin on the othersʼ and collect the coins if he hit them.
As far as I can recall, when I was a kid, playing or doing whatever, I was never the one calling the shots. I would just join others. I didnʼt play in large groups—usually just two or three neighbors.
My education started in Samakkee Suksa School, a Thai private school near our house and the market in Suphanburi. In the first grade, I remember that we used to go to the temple because every observance day the teacher would take us to listen to a Dhamma talk and we would observe the precepts.
Nowadays this type of activity no longer exists due to the influence of materialism and the delusion of finding happiness from worldly possessions.
I started first grade again at a Chinese school which taught both Chinese and Thai. The teacher taught us to write Chinese with brushes and, at that time, I could write as well as speak Chinese. Nowadays I can no longer speak Chinese, though I can still understand something when I hear it spoken.
When I moved to this new school, I no longer went to the temple because our family did not really participate in any religion. My father did not believe in religion, though he did make merit.
He gave alms to the monks who came by and would always help those in need if they asked for it. My father appeared as if he had no religion, because he never went to the temple nor did he ever take his family there.
Later on, my parents moved from the south of Thailand to work in North Pattaya because my motherʼs older brother was a contractor for the water system in Pattaya and had convinced my parents to move there too. My father learned the construction business from carpentry to cement work and ended up building resort homes for people from Bangkok. Once in Pattaya, they brought me back from Suphanburi to live with them.
My younger sister, Kalaya Reungtanasarn, was born nine years after me in 1956 at Hua Chiao Hospital, delivered by the doctor with whom my mother used to work. My sister grew up in Pattaya with my parents, going to St. Paul Convent School, then later attending Assumption School in Sriracha. She entered Chulalongkorn University the same year as HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn.
I had just completed third grade at the Suphanburi Chinese School when I moved to Pattaya. Fortunately, this was during a school break. At that time, my father had yet to decide where I should study next. As luck would have it, he got to know a teacher from Bangkok who was then staying at the rental house that my father had built for vacationers. The teacher suggested that I study at the school in which he was teaching, where lessons were taught in English.
My father, who generally had a clear vision of what might be beneficial for my future, thought that it would provide me with better opportunities in the future, so he decided to send me to the Seventh Day Adventist Ekamai School at Soi Ekamai in Bangkok.
“Beyond Birth.”
By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
YouTube: Dhamma in English.
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