State-Journal.com - Monk makes life simple

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Charus Changchit takes a one-hour meditation walk. (State Journal/Kelly Mackey)

Charus pays respect to Buddha. (State Journal/Kelly Mackey)

Charus says he lives a simple life. Most of his possessions were donated to him, including his rug. (State Journal/Kelly Mackey)

Charus Changchit knows about change.

He grew up in northern Thailand in a province of more than a million people.

Now he lives in Bridgeport where gentle ripples of Benson Creek can be heard from his back yard on summer afternoons. The water speaks to him daily as he walks a straight and narrow meditation path beside the creek.

His simple clothing - an almond-colored robe - would stand out in a crowd. But Charus tries to avoid crowds.

Before moving from Bowling Green to Franklin County he ate at Thai Smile restaurant in the Century Plaza shopping center, just ahead of the lunchtime crowd.

Now as an act of kindness and generosity, the Thai Smile owners, formerly of Thailand, deliver Charus his daily meal – the only one he’s allowed.

It must be eaten before noon. He is not allowed to cook, and he can’t ask for food - or anything.

As a Buddhist monk, Charus is called Phra Abhijoto. He has 227 rules to follow. But it’s obvious he enjoys the spiritual path he’s chosen. His perpetual smile mirrors his contentment and happiness.

One of the many teachings in Buddhism is about impermanence.

“Our lives change all the time, every moment, “he says, sitting in his living room on a platform padded with brown carpet. “Everything is changing all the time.”

When he goes to the platform or leaves it, he bows deeply to the five small Buddha images surrounded by vases of roses and other colorful flowers on a table by a window. The prostrations express humility, reverence and gratitude.

On the afternoon of Sept. 9, three Franklin County visitors sit in front of him on a soft beige-and-maroon rug, looking up slightly and listening to him talk about his life.

The simple life of a monk was not so simple at first, he says, smiling.

He came to America 30 years ago, living in Lexington where he earned a master’s degree in nutrition from the University of Kentucky.

His bachelor’s from a university in Bangkok was in agricultural science and he had worked “in industrial research and development.”

Charus also lived in Los Angeles two years and “worked a little bit helping my brother, a medical doctor, in his office.”

Later he moved back to Lexington to work on a Ph.D. in toxicology at UK. Then his father, who had been a goldsmith, became ill with cancer while living in California. One of 14 children, Charus “was the one most available” to take care of his father for two years, he says.

Charus returned to Thailand with his father before he died at 73.

“It’s a tradition in Thailand when a parent passes away that one of the members of the family – the more the better but at least one - go to become a monk. I was the only one available.”

He says more than 90 percent of the people in Thailand are Buddhists, including 700,000 monks.

Charus, who will be 60 on Nov. 1, has been a monk for 20 years.

His only possessions are his clothes and glasses. He has seven brothers and six sisters. About half of them live in the U.S. A sister from Lexington, who works at UK, owns the small yellow house where Charus lives.

His 90-year-old mother lives in Texas.

He moved to Franklin County from Bowling Green this summer.

“I like Frankfort,” he says. “There are a lot of trees. It’s beautiful, peaceful and good weather.”

He says his next-door neighbors are friendly and have given him tomatoes.

Before becoming a monk, Charus lived in the mainstream and ate three meals a day.

It was difficult at first eating only one meal, he says. He would get hungry and “a little bit weak sometimes, but not now. After a while you get used to it.”

Since Thai monks can’t cook, “they have to depend on others,” he says. “And it would be inconvenient for people, who have to go to work, to come back to prepare more than one meal for the monk.”

One meal a day is also “good for meditation. That’s the most important thing.”

He usually gets up about 5 a.m. and goes to bed around midnight.

He sleeps on a “mat, not a mattress,” he says.

After chanting for 30 minutes at 6 a.m., he does a silent meditation for about two hours. He says his longest meditation at one sitting has been nine hours.

Why is meditation important?

“To purify the mind,” he says. “The world is full of suffering and stress and meditation is the only thing you can do to escape from the world. There is no other way.”

A humble man, Charus says his meditation practice isn’t perfect.

“Not yet,” he says, laughing.

Random thoughts still enter his mind and when they do, “I just let them go.”

He says he never feels lonely, sad or depressed. He practices living in the present moment.

“The future has not come yet, so don’t worry about it,” he says. “And the past has already passed, so we should be in the present.”

He usually eats around 10:30 a.m. and can have coffee and tea - without milk - throughout the day and evening.

In the afternoon, he can drink apple juice or other liquids, “but not all.”

If the fruit is bigger than the palm of his hand, “such as a pineapple or coconut, it’s too big,” and he can’t have the juice.

Alcohol is forbidden.

Although he’s not vegetarian, Thai monks can’t hunt, fish or kill any animal for food or accept meat from anyone who killed an animal specifically for them.

Also, he says, monks can’t eat these meats: human, dog, horse, bear, elephant, lion, tiger, cheetah, cougar and snake.

On Sept. 9 Charus’ Thai Smile meal was shrimp and vegetables.

“It’s something different every day,” he says. “We take what we are given.”

He says he doesn’t have any favorite foods.

After his meal he often goes outside for a slow walking meditation on a tiled-brick pathway that Thai and other friends in the area built for him.

The path is supposed to be 25 to 40 steps in length, “so it’s not too short or long,” he says.

He also does a two-hour sitting meditation in the evenings.

He isn’t allowed to cut trees or use a lawn mower, but he can gather grass clippings after it’s cut.

He can’t drive a car or watch TV, but he can read a newspaper and listen to a radio as long as it’s not for entertainment.

Books are limited to those that help with his spiritual path.

He’s allowed a telephone and a computer with Internet access to stay connected to his Buddhist order in the U.S.

He can do his laundry and wash his food bowl, and do housecleaning and repairs. Another form of daily meditation is “sweeping the floor in mindfulness.”

While at UK, he used to enjoy jogging about 5 miles but running and swimming are prohibited now. However, he can go on short walks.

In Thailand, a nun in a Catholic elementary school taught him Buddhist morality. She was accurate in her teaching, he says, “because she followed a book.”

He says he respects people of all religions.

As a child he says he never thought about being a monk.

“Like everybody, I thought about getting an education, making money and having a good life and entertainment.”

As an adult, he drove a small Datsun and says he never had a desire to make a lot of money - just enough to live comfortably.

He had a girlfriend but he never married. He also enjoyed drinking an occasional beer at home.

Now as a monk he must remain single and abstain from sex and alcohol.

In the monastery he was taught meditation by a Buddhist master, and says he must “practice a lot more” before becoming a master. “My master was in the first group of Thai monks to come to the West.”

He’s lived in Bridgeport since early July and says he has no idea how long he will stay there.

“We don’t look at the future too much.”

But one goal is to “attain enlightenment in this life, where my mind is absolutely pure.”

While on his spiritual journey here, Charus says he wants to help others as much as possible by providing guidance to Thai and Asian people in the area and anyone else interested in Buddhism.

Several who have met him say his pure, genuine smile is contagious and uplifting.

Bob McClain, a retired state government employee who enjoys studying philosophy and spirituality, says Charus’ presence in the community is a gift.

“He lives in a calmer world than the hectic, materialistic one many of us seem to be caught in,” McClain says.

“Whether or not one would be interested in Buddhism, there are certainly some fresh perspectives to consider learning from this man who aspires to live in tranquility in a higher consciousness.”