Just now, I got on a chair to examine a container of Luang Por Thoon’s relics. I picked it up, unscrewed the top, and yelled to my mom that they were still in the same form. Somehow the lid slipped from my hand and as I tried to catch it, the container jerked forward, spilling some relics on the chair and floor.
I scrambled to pick up the relics scattered all over the room and exclaimed, “Luang Por, am I messing around too much? Are you trying to tell me something?”
My mom walked in and asked what happened. She said, “You know, people wonder how relics travel from one place to another. It’s instances like this when the relics get away from us. Hey, why is your foot bleeding?”
I looked down and saw that maroon-colored blood was oozing out of a V-shaped gash on my big toe. My mom and I quickly picked up all the relics we could find and carefully screwed the top back on the container. Then we sat down to put a band-aid on my toe.
My mom said, “People tend to look at situations like these as omens. As Luang Por trying to tell you something. What do you think?” I thought about it. Was I afraid? Happy? I know that my hands aren’t as steady as they used to be. They shake, just like the hands of my mom and many relatives – it’s probably hereditary. And even before today, I’ve felt that the lid of the container was goofy and difficult to close. Plus, I was still reeling from a long and exhausting week. So, in a sense, the accident was easily explained.
But if I were to consider it an omen, what would be the hidden meaning? Yesterday, I gave LP Thoon’s relics to a friend. At the time I thought, wow, they’re so pretty – pink, greenish, round, and shiny. I can’t believe they turned so quickly. And in the car ride home, we discussed the reasoning behind why only the bones of enlightened people (arahant) turn into relics. Today, I was checking on the relics at home to see whether the spongey-looking relics they had turned into shiny, gem-like relics, too.
I asked myself, what do I think of all this? Well, I believe that whether someone’s bones turn to relics or not isn’t as important as whether you have learned and improved your life as a result of their teachings. I think that countless people who forsake the readily available teachings of arahants to worship their relics instead, are really missing the point. And not so deep down, I can’t help but feel that it’s silly that while bodily fluids (like the blood on my toe), hair, and bones are disgusting on a living human, once cremated and turned into relics, people scramble to get their hands on them.
At the same time, I feel that relics are important to keeping Buddhism alive, because they are the only proof we have that someone has purified their mind and body to the ultimate point of enlightenment. It is proof that LP Thoon’s teachings are legit, that if we follow in his footsteps, we may get to the same place.
So, what do I think of this omen? If I were to be guilty of something, I would probably think that LP Thoon was reminding me to get my act in order. If I was on the fence about something, I would consider what happened today as a decisive omen. But ultimately, I can’t know for certain if it was just an accident or an omen from LP Thoon.
So? What I can know is what I think – what I think about relics, about Buddhist society, about enlightened people, about my path, about where I stand. In the end, what I see is that, today, I still have an attitude towards the way relics are treated in Buddhist society. It’s not what I would consider moderate. So if anything, this incident shined a light on the fact that my attitude could use some work. Back to the matrix!
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