13. Time

I stop walking to watch an elderly monk cross in front of me.  I don’t think he sees me…  His head is down, and I can hear a faint shuffling sound with every step he takes.  My initial instinct is to help him, or at least offer him my arm to lean on, but I know that is not appropriate.  He’s making his way toward a chair that’s sitting in the sun.  I assume he does this at the start of his day, perhaps every day.  I feel a slight chill in the air, and I watch the monk grip the fabric that is bundled around him.  This scene is unfolding at the base of the Shwe Yan Pyay Monastery, which sits on stilts and towers above the man.  His fragility and its strength seem to contradict each other, but I appreciate being able to see them together this morning…  The shuffling stops as the monk sits down.  I bring my camera to my eye and take his photograph — first from the side, and then I carefully move in front of him.  We don’t exchange words.  I simply offer a small smile.  He looks directly into my lens, barely revealing the whites of his eyes under the weight of his heavy eyelids.  As I bring his image tighter into my frame, I can’t help but notice all of the age lines on his face.  I think they are so beautiful.  To me, the lines represent life experiences, wisdom and character.  Soon, a list of questions I’d like to ask him runs through my mind.  I wonder whether he was a teacher at this 150-year-old monastery, and whether he has lived here for his entire life like many monks have.  I wonder whether he came here as a young boy to learn from the Buddhist scriptures before deciding to devote his life to that way of living.  I respectfully take his image and walk away, leaving him in peace.  I look up as I walk, and I admire the large oval windows that this teak monastery is so well known for.  Then I watch as a little boy, actually a wide-eyed novice monk, looks out of one.  I bring my camera to my eye and take his image,  and I immediately notice how childlike and innocent he looks.  That is especially true of his skin.  Time has not yet left its mark on him, but gradually it will…  Just like time will leave its mark on the depth of his relationship with Buddhism, his spirituality, and his development as a man.  As I walk away from him and look at his image on my camera, I find it serendipitous that there is a clock, the keeper of time, in the background over his right shoulder.  Now it is captured in my image as a reminder of time…