What Does the Temple Tell Us?
A sprawling meditation on the intersection of art, religion, spirituality, human suffering, and modernity as prompted by three contemporary temples in Chiang Rai
The following was composed almost a full year ago—while we were still in Thailand, after returning from the mini trip we took to Chiang Rai for my birthday. Since then, I’ve toyed and tinkered with the below a handful of times in hopes it would become less dense, resolve itself of its borderline academic tone, and arrive at a new depth of thought. Weeks turned into months as this piece remained in my proverbial desk drawer (i.e., a folder on my computer); yet every time I gathered the grit to take another crack at it, I left my editing session feeling defeated. I still feel there are more threads of thought to explore, more research and more history to mine to bring into conversation. Nevertheless, I’m sharing it now—as a practice of letting go and allowing my writing to remain imperfect.
After trekking north to Chiang Rai, where we first immersed ourselves in the beauty and artistry of nature, high up in the region’s lush hills and mountains, Brooks and I ended our journey with a full-day mini-pilgrimage to three of the providence’s most famed temples/landmarks of today: White Temple (Wat Rong Khun), Blue Temple (Wat Rong Suea Ten), and Black House (The Baan Dam Museum).
All three landmarks, nestled in and around the outskirts of the city, are products of the last 50 years, designed by three of Thailand’s great contemporary artists. White Temple, conceptualized by the artist Chalermchai Khositpipat, sits on a complex that used to be home to a dilapidated temple; it was renovated between 1997 and 2008 to become a privately owned art exhibit. Black House, the oldest of the three structures, was built beginning in 1975 and continues to be added to, piece by piece, to this day. Like White Temple, Black House was created with the intention of being an artistic space; more accurately, it’s a collection of buildings and exhibitions on one property, previously the home of the creator, Thawan Duchanee. Only Blue Temple, imagined by the artist Putha Kabkaew, a student of Khositpipat, functions as a traditional Thai temple, and it is the newest of the three designs; the construction began in 2016 and remains ongoing.
Now, the use of the word temple (in the traditional and denotative sense of the word) to describe and define White Temple, Blue Temple, and Black House is a bit of a misnomer—potentially even borderline blasphemous, seeing that two of the three were imagined and designed first and foremost as art pieces, not religious sites. Referring to all three as temples therefore challenges and expands the concept of what a temple is—both in its form and its function, particularly in the modern age. Given more thought, these structures and the spaces they command can be better thought of as sanctuaries, where one’s understanding of art and the role it plays is brought into question; where art evokes a spiritual essence and recalls and critiques religion; where there is a (re)imagination of form and use of imagery to communicate timeless morals, messages, and stories; and where our reasoning of life, death, and the human experience are filtered through the lens of modernity. Ultimately, the form becomes the function of each of these structures, as the art and aesthetics are the true focal points through which the visitor is invited to explore not only the symbolic meaning of the imagery and colors but also their own experience and existence in the world they live in and have come from.
Such an emphasis on aestheticism, on form and artistry, suggests that the art and the artists’ devotion to crafting such spaces was (and remains) a spiritual practice. This understanding of art as an expression of and practice in spirituality, in turn, can be understood as either an extension of the religiosity that influenced these spaces or as something else altogether—an inspiration that transcends any understanding. Architecturally speaking, all three designs mediate tradition with modernity in various ways. All three structures maintain traditional lines, shapes, and colors of customary Thai temples; decoratively, they all display conventional Buddhist iconography, while concurrently taking the liberty of turning tradition on its head by introducing and/or repurposing unconventional elements to create three entirely new experiences. Therefore, as a result, Buddhism is brought into conversation with modern images , ideas, and cultures and a tension between tradition and modernity is born and remains omnipresent as a result of religious iconography being repurposed, represented, and subjectively interpreted in unconventional ways.
Given the fact that all three temples embody and comment on the ethos, stories, and imagery of Buddhism, they cannot solely be interpreted and discussed through a lens of subjectivity. Despite the argument that art is subjective and that an artist’s intention in creating and designing a piece ceases to matter once a piece of art is released into the world, context remains important to consider and can serve as a valuable lens through which to consider how a piece of art is operating in the larger cultural and social sense.1 (For some continued existential art ramblings, take to the footnotes, dear reader.) All this to say: a crash course on Buddhism is in order.2
In their encyclopedic article on Buddhism, National Geographic Society writes: “Buddhists believe that the human life is one of suffering, and that meditation, spiritual and physical labor, and good behavior are the ways to achieve enlightenment, or nirvana."3 The Buddha, pre-enlightenment, was a prince named Siddhartha Gautama; in witnessing the sick and dying around him, he soon realized that life was all suffering. In renouncing his wealth and living as a poor man, he soon found, though, that neither extreme path in life—be it one of wealth or one of poverty—could erase his suffering. Instead, he discovered that only by finding and following the “middle path”, or the Middle Way, is where true enlightenment (a state of no desire and thus no suffering) can be found.
From Siddhartha Gautama’s story and his transformation into the Buddha, Buddhists believe that until one learns the lessons one needs to achieve enlightenment, one will keep living and will be unable to escape the cycle of life and death (i.e., reincarnation). Furthermore, one’s karma (or how one’s actions, bad or good, can influence one’s future) determines how many and what type of lives one lives. Only once one reaches enlightenment does one enter into a state of nirvana: a state where the cycle of reincarnation is broken, and one becomes free from suffering. So, how does one go about achieving this state? The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism clue us into the how: 1) Suffering, 2) Origin of suffering, 3) Cessation of suffering, and 4) The path to cessation of suffering.4 What do these mean? Life is suffering, and we all suffer in some way, in varying degrees (1), and the suffering we experience comes from desire (2). However, we can put an end to our own suffering through enlightenment (3), and how enlightenment is accomplished is by following the Middle Way, or the middle path, and taking the necessary steps (4).
There are three main schools of Buddhism (Mahayana, Theravada, and Vajrayana); for our purposes, we’re just going to focus on Theravada Buddhism, which is popular in Thailand and the countries surrounding it. This school “emphasizes a monastic lifestyle and meditation as the way to enlightenment”.5 As someone who was raised Roman Catholic and studied Catechism in CCD for 12 years, I can’t help but draw some parallels between certain sects of Christianity and Buddhism. In actuality, all five of the world’s major religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism) possess commonalities surrounding foundational beliefs and “ideal lifestyles”. All five religions hinge on establishing dichotomies (e.g., good vs. evil, impure vs. pure), promise a reward (e.g., eternal life, life after death, escaping the cycle of life and death), and ultimately encourage followers to seek out a way of being that aligns with those who have become the pinnacle of being, those who have transcended humanness (think Jesus or the Buddha).
Being human is cast as being susceptible and vulnerable to vices and the pitfalls of human folly. Of all these iniquities, there is a strong focus on desire; it is often painted as a force and emotion that is “evil” or “inhibitive” because it leads to temptation and draws followers’ attention and focus away from the higher power or the divine example, the Middle Way, etc.—whatever one should be working towards. Therefore, to help avoid and overcome the temptation of such innate and detrimental human attributes like desire, one must work toward escaping their human mindset and way of being by sticking to a clear regimentation and “right” way implied within the religious dogma.
Although culturally here in the West we tend to think of Buddhism as very “go with the flow” (likely because most of us in the West are exposed to a water-downed, commercialized form of Buddhism through yoga), it is more regimented than it lets on. There is a path. There are steps. Even though it’s called the “Middle Way”, there is only one. And it must be found and followed. To stay on the path, one must follow a code of ethics and maintain self-control, determination, understanding, awareness. There’s a focus and commitment required of a Buddhist. That’s why meditation (I guess you could equate it to prayer) is a large part of walking said path. When one finds the Middle Way, achieves enlightenment, and thus reaches a state of nirvana, the cycle of life and death, of suffering, is said to come to an end. But this can only be achieved through no attachment. There can be no wanting (i.e., no greed); no hatred, just love and kindness; and there must be self-awareness (i.e., no ignorance). On this path to escaping suffering, I imagine there would be suffering, a type of internal struggle, a hardship. Ultimately, to escape suffering, one must first endure it and one must be committed and attached—mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually—to this path that works towards no attachment.
Since followers of Buddhism are striving to achieve nirvana, like the Buddha did, most of the traditional Thai-Buddhist temples, unsurprisingly, depict murals of the Buddha and his story from prince to enlightened one. There are also paintings, statues, and statuettes of the Buddha depicted in different postures (i.e., poses), symbolizing the different phases of his life along the path to enlightenment. On occasion, different figures aside from the Buddha are depicted as well, and they are believed to either act as helpers or hindrances on one’s path to enlightenment. In White Temple, Blue Temple, and Black House, archetypal images that encapsulate life and death, the cycle of life and death, and suffering are all highlighted.
Of the three temples, Blue Temple is the most traditional, in both its functions as an active temple and in its use of conventional Buddhist imagery. The most striking aspect of this temple is its bright, monochromatic aesthetic. Blue dominates. The hues are striking, and they’re amplified by the gold, green, and minimal red accents. Color, in the case of Blue Temple, is what makes it unique. Most traditional Thai temples prominently feature red and gold, so blue evokes a new energy. It is serene and intense; it calls to mind the sky, the cosmos, calmness. Once inside Blue Temple, a psychedelic vibe takes over; however, the artistry exhibited here is still quite traditional in the use of geometric shapes and mandala details. What makes Blue Temple contemporary, in my eyes, is the use of the blue contrasted with the purely white Buddha that sits in the center hall. And the use of the white is archetypal, symbolizing the Buddha’s pureness. Overall, Blue Temple remains traditional via what it’s communicating and, aside from the use of the bold blue, it’s not doing anything surprising—overtly.
Compared to White Temple and Black House, the suffering at Blue Temple is hidden. The blue and white captures a celestial, other-worldly quality. It feels positive and whimsical and vibrant at first glance. High-energy vibrations radiate throughout the space. Suffering is not on display here; rather, it is unspoken, present in the life that moves in and around the temple. It is not the building itself that embodied suffering, but the people that visited it. In this way, the temple acts as a physical contrast, a beacon, a shiny foil in all its bold beauty and artistry, serving as a symbol of nirvana.
Though Blue Temple maintains a religious functionality, the temple’s attention and celebration of artistry suggests that the act of creating and making it was treated as a religious and spiritual undertaking, one that perhaps served as a means to understand suffering and the escape from it. This understanding of art as an expression of and practice in spirituality, in turn, can be understood as an extension of the religiosity that influences such a space or as something else altogether—an inspiration that transcends any understanding.
Like Blue Temple, White Temple uses a monochromatic color scheme—all white, with silver mirror accents—to communicate a feeling, a destination. The stark white and glittering silver of the main temple and surrounding structures in the complex shine brightly in the sunlight. The white color symbolizes purity and the use of all the mosaic mirrors, through their reflective abilities, represents the notion of radiating light and kindness. White Temple is also a beacon. It’s beautifully contemporary—and it’s haunting. With all its flame-like details and movement, it looks to be alive. From afar, and even close up, it looks to be made of bone, reminiscent of the White Witch’s ice castle in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. This sultry, gothic undertone along with the rest of the imagery sprinkled within and around the White Temple complex contrasts with the use of the blinding white—a color archetypically associated with solely goodness and virtue.
Crossing over the bridge into the main temple, the visitor is confronted by hundreds upon hundreds of sculpted hands reaching upwards as if begging and pleading. Hundreds upon hundreds of Baht coins litter the bowls and ground around them. From afar, the temple boasts beauty and pureness, but, up close, the real underbelly, the yang to the yin of life, is depicted.
When we think of suffering, it spans a spectrum and takes on many forms. Suffering can be tied to violence, but it doesn’t stem purely from violence, nor is the act of suffering itself always violent. For some, it can even be pleasurable; for others, pleasure is the most potent after a period of suffering. It can be visible and it can be invisible. As Blue Temple suggests, suffering doesn’t have to be depicted outright to be noticed or felt. In the case of White Temple and Black House, suffering is less ambiguous and more grimly portrayed upfront. The hundreds of hand sculptures and their expressive figures exude desperation, a type of suffering.
There is a suffering and a longing to escape that is encapsulated in the expression of all those hands—like souls in the Underworld trying to claw their way out of the river Styx. Conversely, the hands can serve to symbolize those caught in the cycle of death and rebirth as a result of greed, desire, and temptation, and the coins (a symbol of greed) cast down on them further illustrate this idea. However, if the hands are read to be reaching up in desperation, not hungry desire, there remains a level of hope. A desperation for salvation suggests a willingness to change and, therefore, those suffering can be helped. Those witnessing their suffering can provide aid; resources can be shared; and kindness can be shown. It sends the message that suffering should not be ignored—nor can one ignore it. It’s everywhere, and it must be acknowledged for one to eventually move past it.
Overall, the positioning of and the whole experience surrounding the sea of hands recalls and physically illustrates The Four Noble Truths. This metaphor is further supported by what greets the visitor when they enter the main temple. The colors evoke the feeling of moving from enlightenment to a state of nirvana. After being blinded by the purely white exterior, the visitor is hit with a burst of yellow—of light, of happiness—inside. There are different hues of yellow, some as golden as French’s yellow mustard, others like a healthy egg yolk.
Schematically, the colorful vignettes encoded in the yellow walls are overcome with characters and other-worldly landscapes that tell different stories, those born of and grounded in the modern age and future. Aside from the main Buddha in the entrance and hints of the Buddha here and there, the temple is overrun with colorful pop culture icons and characters. Neo from The Matrix appears in the temple’s mural, along with a bunch of other sci-fi characters that were spawned in the late-1990s and 21st century. Futuristic, mechanized, and extraterrestrial details engulf the space—and these sci-fi and fantasy elements are depicted not only inside the main temples but around the rest of the grounds as well.
White Temple’s use of traditional Buddhist imagery is overshadowed by modern stand-ins, eliciting an overall aura of whimsy and pop culture that is vastly different than that of Blue Temple and Black House. Hanging from a tree, you’ll spot Gollum’s head. In an elevated sculpture garden of stalagmites, an alien lurks. Humor and many fantastical allusions are pigeoned into the construction, existing among elements that call in historical iconography of Buddhism, albeit demonstrated in a contemporary fashion.
Why would such contemporary elements be included by the artist? If we think of the story arcs and conflicts endured by these characters, they illustrate and all share an archetypal framework akin to many archetypal religious stories. There is a code of morality, there is a fight of good versus evil, and there is a Truth being sought out. Suddenly, it’s apparent that something so contemporary is (re)telling an age-old story. The same story is being reincarnated over and over again, and White Temple illustrates this reincarnation. But that’s just one reading suggested as a result of Kositpipat putting such contemporary pop culture elements inside a Buddhist temple; ergo, pop culture is forced into conversation with Buddhism. What could he be trying to say? Is pop culture as powerful as religion? Is pop culture a new religion? Is religion all fantasy? Is Buddhism in everything, including pop culture? Is everything all the same?6 Alas, I have no clear answer, which is likely the point. Art like this can be everything and nothing, absurd and sincere all the same.
Unlike Blue Temple and White Temple, Black House is, well, the black sheep of the three. It embodies a more understated tone, in some aspects, and concocts a heavier mood; yet, it also taps into a primal underbelly. It screams to the viewer in a guttural tone, one that the other two structures dare not speak. There are little to no mirrors and no sparkle. There is no nod to purity or the heavens; the space is grounded to the earth through the use of earthy tones and materials. There is ample black and therefore austerity and mystery. The only pop of color is that of red, which dominates the majority of the important spaces, the monstrous framed art, and calls to mind drama, death, violence, blood, finality.
At Black House, the darker aspects of human life and nature are focused on across the exteriors and interiors of the 40 buildings that make up the complex. Overall, the tone feels punk rock, vulgar, evocative, underworld-esque, hellish, and evil, yet Paleolithic and primal and pure in its minimalistic tendencies and use of natural materials, which includes wood, gourds, bones, animal horns and antlers, rough wood, animal skins, and furs—specifically in the domed exhibitions that dot the properties. The materials are very much a nod to the local ecosystems, animals, and earth on which the structures are built, and therefore the buildings and the land they reside on become one. There’s a deep connection to the land and the life surrounding it. There is even a nod to one way in which life is made: many phallic symbols, made of gourds and other dried pods and wood, are embedded in the designs and displayed around the property. (There is literally a whole bathroom with dick-gourds on the walls.)
One symbolic interpretation of Black House is as follows: “Baan Dam is Thawan Duchanee’s artful portrayal of hell. The opaque decor and dead animals adorning each room make Duchanee’s estate the complete opposite of the White Temple, the glimpse of heaven designed by his teacher Chalermchai Kositpipat.”7 Black House embodies an intensity, a haunting rawness that is in opposition to the opulence and color of White Temple and Blue Temple alike. Unlike the former two temples, Black House nods to death through life first and foremost. The life being represented across Black House is not that of a life to be achieved; it does not portray the existence of the heavens or a state of nirvana but of a life being lived by so many now: imperfect, impure, uncomfortable, human. A life we all experience suffering in, a living hell.
Arriving at the main exhibition (located in the main “temple”) at Black House, the black and red colors dominate. The paintings on the walls burst with vibrant red backgrounds and harsh black lines. Monsters and deities, monstrous deities, or monstrous figures—whatever the viewer makes them out to be—inject a ferocity and otherworldliness into the space. The blood-red color harkens a violence that the prior two temples’ structures and decorations do not, nor do the rest of the buildings at Black House. The art in the main “temple” does the job of a lot of great art: It makes the viewer simultaneously marvel and cower in un-comfortability. Perhaps the art at Black House is commenting on a type of violence that can accompany suffering, or it wants to bring to the surface a type of violence that often remains undepicted in mainstream Buddhist imagery.
Although most of us in the West, at least, associate pacifism with Buddhism, it, like all organized religions, has a violent history; or, stated another way, some of the societies and cultures that practice Buddhism have a violent history. Although non-violence is a cornerstone of Buddhism, that does not mean that virtue is always upheld. As other religions have demonstrated, violence is often justified in the name of virtue. Followers of any religion, including Buddhism, are human—and humans not only suffer but inflict suffering. They willingly incite violence and cause war for the sake of peace, for the sake of upholding and championing religious beliefs and dogma. And we can see this reality depicted in the art inside the spaces at Black House. Violence lurks in all the ornate patterns; it is tiled into the mosaics of the walls and is depicted in the murals. It reminds us of our human wickedness and the feelings surrounding that dark part of ourselves, the parts of ourselves that stray from a path of goodness.
All three of these contemporary temples in Chiang Rai embrace, to varying degrees, the complexity and all-encompassing nature of not only Buddhism but humanness. In each of their own ways, these temples embody the ethos and everythingness of Buddhism. By presenting and recontextualizing traditional Buddhist iconography in the modern age, Buddhism’s traditional philosophy is invited to interact with and critically engage with modernity in a new way. There’s a detectable paradigm shift of Buddhist iconography that these three temples offer up, and the expansiveness of the language used to communicate an array of archetypal colors and images in a contemporary space mediates the past, present, and future. In visiting White Temple, Blue Temple, and Black House, the viewer is confronted with and encouraged to meditate upon the evolution of religious thought, the vastness of spirituality, the pitfalls of being human, the experience of suffering that unites us all across time and space, and the ability art has to communicate it all, to leave the viewer wondering and in wonder all the same.
This is not to say that context should override our subjective experience and reading of a piece of art. The experience of art, after all, is first and foremost a subjective one, even if we try first to look at it objectively. When we look at something, we can’t help but connect it to and filter it through our own knowledge and map it onto our own experiences. Art can be a mirror reflecting both ourselves, the world around us, and each of the small, insulated worlds we inhabit. We are projectors of interpretation and filter art through our own experiences, taint it with our own emotions. Overall, how we immediately connect with a piece hinges on our own knowledge, stories, understandings, and even emotional headspace at the time of viewing. A fascinating transference, indeed.
I don’t know about you, but the class I took in high school on religion has faded in my memory, and I’m ashamed to admit that my collegiate art history education and knowledge skewed more Western; so, I brushed up on my middle school-level knowledge of Buddhism by doing some digging to better and further decode the structures I observed, simply at a beginner’s level.
“Buddhism.” National Geographic Society, National Geographic Society, https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/buddhism.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Credit to Brooks here, as a lot of these questions and ideas were extrapolated in a conversation we had while I was in the early stages of writing this post.
Ugc. “Baan Dam - Black House.” Atlas Obscura, 14 June 2013, www.atlasobscura.com/places/black-temple.
Also, I’m glad you didn’t try to make it less academic / more personal. It feels like this piece is how it’s meant to be! 🙌🏼
When I read your disclaimer, I wasn’t sure if I would like this piece, but I actually really enjoyed learning about Buddhism and then reading about the three temples through that lens. I love the picture of the hands and the reflections on suffering / enlightenment as a lack of suffering + desire. Kinda scares me.
Can you send me more pictures of the Black Temple, ones that show the colors you mentioned?