The Thai boys who were lost in a cave are spending time as novice Buddhist monks. Does gratitude offer an alternative way to recover from trauma?
I only really connected with the story of the boys lost in the caves of Northern Thailand when I saw the footage of them when they were first found, looking remarkably calm and harmonious despite being stranded in pitch darkness for eleven days with nothing to eat. I was intrigued that their coach, a former Buddhist monk, was encouraging and reassuring them, advising them to stick together and leading periods of meditation.
This week, less than a fortnight after their rescue, all but one of the boys entered a Buddhist monastery for nine days, following the Thai tradition of temporary ordination. As novices, their heads have been shaved to show they’re renouncing worldly concerns, they wear robes and they won’t eat after midday or handle money. They’ll spend their time in meditation, prayer and cleaning the temple.
The point of this custom is to foster a sense of appreciation and gratitude. The boys are focusing on thankfulness to their rescuers, including the Thai diver who died when his oxygen ran out, as well as their parents and the Buddha, who they consider the ultimate source of protection.
This is a striking, and to me refreshing, contrast with what we might expect in a western culture that often focuses instead on individual rights, placing blame and perhaps a sense of entitlement. Classical philosophers like Seneca considered gratitude the root of society, and research showing the powerful benefits of gratitude and similar emotions has prompted a Positive Psychology movement that’s reshaping the discipline as a whole. Some people keep regular Gratitude Journals and report that these shift their perspective, counteracting the mind’s inbuilt tendency to dwell on threats and problems.
The Buddha said that emotions like these can dispel negative states of mind ‘as one nail drives out another’. So for Buddhists, cultivating gratitude is an important practice. It means recognising that we’re part of society, not isolated individuals, wholly dependent on other people and the fabric of existence. Selfishness puts us at odds with that truth, Buddhism teaches. It isolates us and lies behind much of our unhappiness.
I don’t know whether the monastery will give the boys all they need to recover from their ordeal and whether it will be an alternative or an adjunct to counselling. But this episode is a striking insight into a culture based on the belief that the benefits we receive should not be taken for granted, and that gratitude can help to heal even the gravest trauma.
