Please excuse me for reminiscing. It’s been almost two years since I returned home from Thailand, and I miss it dearly.
It was July 2017 that I was blessed by a Buddhist monk with the ink on my back. I referred to it in my NPR cover letter and am often asked about it when I take off my shirt. But this is no ordinary tattoo, and I’d like to take this moment to underscore its significance in both Thai culture and my own personal growth
https://expertvagabond.com/sak-yant-tattoo-festival/
For the ultra-inquisitive, check out this article. It details a little bit of history around the tradition.
For me personally, getting a Thai tattoo was a way to take ownership of my body. I wanted some way to display externally how much my time in Southeast Asia had changed me internally.
The process took a total of 3 or 4 hours, several of which were spent talking in broken Thai about my hopes and dreams. In order to provide the best blessing, the monk would need to know my aspirations and how I saw the world. We talked about the meaning of life and how I made decisions. We talked about my shortcomings, my flaws. We talked about what I wanted and what I thought of myself. We talked and talked and talked.
When he was satisfied that he knew how to best bless me for the life-long journey ahead, he took a few moments to sketch out his design and presented it to me with a smile. He was proud of this one.
He used a long metal rod with a bamboo tip and free-handed the whole thing as I clutched a pillow to my chest. When he was done with the excruciating process, he lathered my back in oil and muttered a blessing as he pressed gold leaf onto my skin.
The circle symbolizes the monk that walks before Buddha and represents overcoming adversity.
Each line of Ancient Khmer text contains a different blessing: adventure, wisdom, truth.
Breaking it down a little further, the first line is about living a long full life of fulfillment. The second is about learning a great deal along the way. And the third is actually somewhat of a mis-translation of “theatre.”
I didn’t know how to talk about theatre, so I said something along the lines of how storytelling was my passion, which somehow turned into truth-telling.
And there you have it!
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