Arjuna at the temple

It’s Oct. 30 and I just got back from breakfast and “gin ya” – drinking the morning herbal medicine drink. Nan patiently helped me to pronounce letters in the children’s alphabet learning book that she got for me. The four year old girl, Patti, helped too, and traced some of the letters. She’s pretty good - I think she knows the Thai alphabet better than I do at the moment. Thankfully, I'm still a bit better than her with the English one!

Tonight will be the full moon, which is always a big time for Buddhists. However, this is a special full moon marking the end of the Buddhist lent -  a three month period during the rainy season when monks have to stay in one place and can’t travel anywhere. It is supposed to be a time of reflection and retreat for them. Tonight will be celebrated with hot air lanterns that are set adrift in the sky and banana leaf boats lit with candles that are set to float on rivers and waterways. I was here for the festival last year, so have any idea of what it looks like. I’ll wait to tell you more about it until later though.

What’s in my mind this morning is a conversation I had with a man who comes to the temple whenever he can. We have been talking in the breakfast line each morning actually. He always waits until the end of the line and makes sure that everyone else eats first.

... A momentary aside... I’m sitting out in the common area of the house where I stay and all of the young nains – novices – who stay here have come up and are standing around me at the moment. They are quite interested in the typing that I’m doing, but it’s hard to concentrate…  I showed them some pictures of mountains and Stewart Lake and things.   OK – they’re off to do something else now…

Anyway, this man, who says his nickname in Thai sounds like “Boy” is a five stripe sergeant in the Thai army and is a commander of a special forces unit that does things like defusing bombs, going into situations where there is a threat of terrorism, and other “first in – last out” situations where special skills are needed.  He seems to be a very kind, calm, gentle, and compassionate person and he was telling me how he struggles with his work and worries about the Karma that he is accumulating by doing what he does. He told me today that he talked to a colleague last night and six people (I’m not sure if they were from his squad of 40 or not, but I think they were) have been killed in the last few days trying to defuse land mines that were set by separatist groups in the southernmost islands of Thailand. He has to go back to this in a few days.

He made me think of the story of Arjuna in the Bhagavad Ghita. The Bhagavad Ghita starts with Arjuna, who is a young prince, standing in his chariot beside the God Krishna. Two armies are lined up and ready to join in battle and Arjuna is hesitating because he doesn’t see the point to fighting. He sees that there are his family members on both sides, good people on both sides, and the reason for fighting seems to be unclear, or not worth it. He asks Krishna about it, saying that it would be better to go away and leave the fight than to go into a battle like this.

Surprisingly, Krishna says no, don’t go away. You need to fight this battle Arjuna. Most of the rest of the book is about why this is so, and how to go about being in the fight without developing hatred or enmity or attachment to a desired outcome, but being there in a way that sees the deep truth of the world.

I have often wondered about this, and how to apply it, or if it can be applied in my own life. Sometimes I think I’m running away from the battle (some would probably say that’s what I’m doing now by being here actually. On the other hand, coming here could also been seen as taking on the challenge and entering the "battle" in a different way I suppose. It gets tricky when you allow yourself to see more than one viewpoint). Sometimes it feels like I’m in the thick of it and forget the part about not getting attached to particular outcomes. Sometimes I have moments of feeling like I touch on understanding the idea of being in the middle of “the battle” and being OK with it.

The word that they use for this here, I believe, sounds like "Tomkran". It literally means "in the center", and is used to denote being in the center of the whirlwind, the center of the battle or the center of whatever has come your way and maintaining that center so that there is still balance. It means being in the midst of the battle without becoming attached to outcomes. It is also a concept in Aikido, which is a martial art that uses the concept of circles in its philosophy and application. In Aikido, one strives to maintain a dynamic center that responds to all outside pressures and challenges, flowing with the energy of an attacking force from a centered and balanced state. 

Ning showed me a little clip from Kung Fu Panda 3  yesterday. It’s the part where the Po realizes that in order to win his fight he has to have inner peace. “Oh, all I need is inner peace….”  It seems that’s the whole puzzle really…  Where does inner peace come from. All this searching and looking that we do, but I guess it has to come from inside?

Anyway, the man I've been talking to seems such an unlikely special forces person in his mild mannered and self-deprecating way. He looks like he's been through plenty of hard living and some pretty wild times; he probably hasn't been a complete angel all his life. However, I wanted to write about him in honor of his ability to walk into his battles and take his compassion with him, and in honor of what I imagine to be the gift of calm and understanding that he gives to the people around him when they are in the thick of their stress and danger. Maybe he is not in the wrong place, as he believes, because he has bad Karma to work out. Maybe he is in the right place because he has the capacity to be there with grace.

And maybe there’s no reason at all…   J

Briefly by banana leaves

I just posted a rather long post that has been waiting for a moment of internet time for several days and so is a bit behind times. Luckily, not too much has been happening since, so there's not a lot to catch up on. I liked the title "briefly by banana leaves" though, so thought it would be worth writing something under it. I actually am in the presence of banana leaves though. The sun is shining rather fetchingly through them and then through the window, giving the light a pleasantly cooler greenish feel. I also have the good fortune to be sitting near a fan, and afternoon is almost ready to become early evening when things start to cool down a bit.

Today was actually a bit interesting as I spent quite a lot of it wondering if my mind and body were still connected or not. I got up feeling quite light and surprisingly good in my physical self, went to breakfast, and then decided I'd try the "forgiveness" thing with Luang por, so went to wait my turn to go up and see him. While I was sitting there I had the feeling I sometimes get that lots of things are going on just on the outskirts of my awareness - like when you catch glimpses from the corners of your eyes but can't quite put them together into images. In my mind, I was saying thank you (because I really do appreciate what has happened here so far - the generosity, kindness, being housed and fed and looked after so well and all of those things) and also my version of the forgiveness idea with an intention of clearing the space and letting go of whatever is being held at this time.

Before I came here I was learning a bit about the Emotion Code (Dr. Bradley Nelson: http://www.drbradleynelson.com/ )  The theory is that we all carry emotions held in our body/mind/energy system and these emotions can be quite easily cleared. The emotions can be our own, can come from other people, can come from our past, and can also come down our family line from many generations back. Identifying and clearing the emotions can help to increase mental, physical, and emotional well-being. I'm starting to think of the forgiveness practice as being similar to the Emotion Code idea, just with a different methodology. Between The Emotion Code, Ho'opoponopono, the forgiveness idea here - I figure there are lots of similarities and it's interesting to see how many different ways the idea of "clearing space" is available to us.

This time in the world, if one pays attention to what's happening in the "fringes" of social thinking, is thought of by many people to be a time of clearing, letting go, opening space, releasing what has held us back, the fears and hates, angers and even loves that have kept us from being free in who we are and locked us into the old patterns of violence, pain, anger, and various other negative things. Letting go of held emotions like these doesn't mean denying them, or denying the people or connections from which they come. It just means making the space more clear for all involved and letting go of some of the weight which holds us down.

In any case, this was what I was thinking about while I waited. When it was my turn to go up and see him, I had decided I didn't really want to anymore because I was done anyway - and there'd been all of this background stuff going on. Luang Por got up and left, but just before he left he turned around with a smile and said "Todd - A hosee" - which I understood as "OK - all clear".

I went for the "medicine" drink and then went back to my room feeling kind of tired. I don't know if it was the medicine, the heat, or all of that "background" stuff, but I ended up sleeping quite a lot and spending the rest of the time lying very still and being kind of fascinated by the way my mind was busying around like a bee in a bottle and my body was so totally relaxed that it could hardly move.

I've been noticing how a part of me craves stillness - just being quiet within the stillness and really "doing nothing" for a while. It craves really stopping. Another part is almost terrified of the idea and is constantly searching for reasons to move or things to be busy with. I really got to watch those two contrasting parts today.

So - whatever the cause, there was lots of processing going on today...

Gotta go. Ning's invited me for supper tonight, I'm at her house using her internet connection, and I hear dishes clinking. Lucky me!  :-)

Oct. 25 Camping, being deeply OK, and other stories

I’ve been thinking about stories lately. I watched a trailer for a new movie coming out soon – Cloud Atlas. It apparently has six interwoven stories about different couples over several hundred years, with intimations that they are the same couple sharing different lives with each other. By the makers of The Matrix, and with Tom Hanks in it, it’s pretty main-stream for the reincarnation theme. In any case, I’ve been thinking about stories and the way that we live our lives by the stories we are told as children, by the stories that are believed by our culture, by the stories that we tell ourselves about who we are, what we should do, how we should live. They are all stories – fiction because none of the stories are really who we are. They are ways that we try to explain who we are, or act out who we are, justify ourselves, define our purpose, control our lives or other people’s lives – so many uses for stories.

So, why the big kick on stories all of a sudden, you may be asking. I think it’s because stories aren’t quite as serious as “real life”. If I look at myself as a character in a story, then the part I’m playing can be a bit less serious and critical and I can have more fun with it. I think we get stuck in this idea that life is so serious and what we are doing and feeling and thinking is so important. People here keep telling me “not serious!”  Mop the floor or don’t mop the floor, but don’t get serious about it or upset about it or worry if you’re doing it and someone else isn’t or vice versa. Help in the kitchen or the garden or don’t, but don’t get so serious about duty or guilt or “shoulds”.  Let go of the ownership of “your” story and don’t be so attached to doing it “right” all the time.

I was invited on a trip a couple of days ago. Siriluck – an elderly lady who stays here – likes to help support a wildlife conservation project – Toongkamung (sp?) conservation area - and so she took a group of about 15 of us (monks, nuns, Siriluck, Mem – who is an absolutely amazing person in her dedication and ability to manage the kitchen and the feeding of 300 to 500 people daily here at the temple – and me). The workers at the reserve aren’t very well paid, so we took a bunch of rice and other food for them. It’s the largest wildlife reserve in Thailand and covers a huge area of mountains, rivers and grasslands and harbours over 400 species of birds along with elephants, rhinos, a few tigers still apparently, monkeys, crocodiles, several kinds of deer, really big lizards, boa constrictors and other snakes, lots and lots of dry land leaches etc. etc.  (The leaches aren’t really being preserved on purpose I don’t think. They just kind of come with the package. When you walk anywhere in the forest they grab onto your feet, find a bare spot and start sucking. I missed one and later found where it had been. Apparently they get full and drop off, but they leave a little round hole that bleeds slowly for a while.)

In any case, we had a bit of a tour around, and stayed the night in some rustic, but nice, guesthouses set back into the trees at the jungle’s edge. 

Guesthouses in the jungle

Our tour was going to include a 4 km walk down a jungle trail to see whatever was there and go by a giant fig tree on the way. However, because of the above mentioned leaches we decided to cut the walk short after about half a km and went around to the other end of the trail by car instead. We did see some large carnivorous flowers along the way though. They were quite brightly coloured and looked like it would be a real bummer to be small enough (and silly enough) to get caught in. That would be a story with a rather sad ending – unless you were the flower of course. Stories are also rather dependent of the viewpoint of the story teller!

Bug, and small critter, eating flower

We braved the trail again at the other end and wandered along the narrow path through twisted creepers, climbing vines, hanging roots that I wanted to climb to see if you can really swing on them, but didn’t, and other things that one would expect to find in a jungle. Actually, I’m not sure what I expect to find in a jungle. I tend to think of jungles as things that are far away and mysterious and so when I’m in one it doesn’t have exactly the feeling I had expected. Now it’s closer and, sure it’s full of strange plants and animals growing rather thickly and looking different than forests at home, but it’s still pretty much a big piece of land with lots of plants and animals growing on it. Sorry to be driving the botanists out there crazy, but I’m simplifying to make a point. Jungles are stories too – The Jungle book, for instance. It’s not a jungle without Mogli or Bhageera or Bhallou (sp?), or King Louie doing a dance in some old ruins. Jungles conjure up stories of adventures, exotic animals, and Dr. Livingston peering out from behind some banana leaves. Dr. Livingston didn’t show up this time.

The giant fig tree was, indeed, quite a giant. It looked like someone had added on cement buttresses to hold it up. There were big wooden supports as tall as I am that ran 20 or 30 feet from the tree in a couple of directions and other smaller ones all around. On an only slightly related mind wisp, I read, a while back, about fig wasps in a rather interesting book called Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice To All Creation. Fig wasps inhabit pretty much all figs. They are very tiny, provide extra protein for animals that eat the figs (according to the park brochure), and have rather nasty sexual habits that I won’t get into. There weren’t any figs, so no wasps either right now. Eat a dried fig from the grocery store, though, and you’re pretty much certain to be eating dried fig wasps along with it. I’m not quite sure how that connects to the story theme, but it must connect somewhere. All stories connect somewhere…  J

Giant fig tree. No wasps...

We also had a nighttime tour on the back of a truck. We didn’t see very many kinds of animals, but did see a herd of small deer grazing in the darkness and a few large bats flapping about. The night was not as noisy as I expected, but there were a few busy crickets, the occasional calls of gibbons and the cries of what I think was a kind of jackal. Both the gibbons and the jackal reminded me a bit of coyotes. If it wasn’t for the crickets it would have felt pretty much like home. J.

Dawn at Tung Kra Mung

Mist in the morning

Todd and Siriluk 

On the way home we stopped at the lake behind a medium sized dam (the name sounds like Ju-ra-pahn, but I don’t know how to spell it), had lunch on a lookout area with a cool breeze blowing through the bamboo, stopped at a zoo, and stopped at a couple of temples.

View from the lookout. Cool breeze and other aspects of ambiance not included in picture.

 At each stop we went through a lengthy prayer, which I think has a lot to do with asking for forgiveness, but with the meaning or intention of giving a blessing and clearing negative energy from a place. It’s a way of giving a blessing and also clearing the energy so that it can be less tied to the old stories that are still lingering there. In this way it is a lot like the Hawaiian ho’oponopono prayer (please forgive me, I’m sorry, I love you, thank you) that is used as a way of clearing negative connections, energies and feelings and also for promoting positive relations and healing. The monk’s forgiveness prayer is quite a lot longer than the ho’oponopono prayer, however, and two of the monks seemed to be a bit overzealous in their repetition of it. They would pray and pour water (I’ll have to explain water pouring another time) at the slightest provocation, which became slightly tedious to my less dedicated mind.

Monks getting ready to say their forgiveness prayer in the forest

Everyone seems to have decided that I need to learn Thai, so I’m getting lots of tutoring. On a slight tangent, Gan (a friend here) always seems to find interesting new herbal remedies to try and so I’ve been going with her to a small bamboo hut that is the home of a small family (not husband wife family, but related people). They have been making a brew out of roots and trees and things they go into the mountains to gather periodically. This tea is supposed to cure pretty much whatever ails you. I’m not sure about that, but Gan’s been drinking it for two months and says she’s feeling better (as well as suffering no ill side effects), so it seems to be safe enough. It takes a while to drink a hot cup of this stuff, so Nan (one of the house residents) has been using the time to try to get me to pronounce words correctly. It gets a bit hilarious, when it’s not just frustrating. I was proudly showing off my mastery of the phrase “I’m allergic to milk” tonight (useful to be able to say that), but they thought I said “I’m a man” which is hopefully already evident anyway. Kind of disappointing to find out how bad I am at this.

It is pleasant, though, to sit under the stars by candle light and talk and laugh. A monk who stays at (or near?) the house was sprawled across the floor of the “living room” which is just a platform under a roof, the four year old girl was practicing the English alphabet with her older aunt, and Gan, Nan, and someone else whose name I can’t pronounce, talked among themselves and attempted to teach me some words. A few other people drifted by. “Get” – a very sweet young girl came by and said hello, the omnipresent crickets called to each other and the moon drifted serenely overhead.

Tonight’s writing has began as a stream of consciousness sort of thing (though I've eidted a little bit now), so please forgive the loquacious rambling length of it. I started with stories, though, and I’ll come back to that for a minute. It’s all stories. Here is this story that is happening right now in Thailand, each moment passes and is gone and that part of the story is gone too. So many stories and so many possible stories. They say here to “relax” and I’m starting to feel the meaning of that in a different way than I have before. 

I have always felt a need to reach for the next part of the story, the next moment, always thinking that this particular moment isn’t quite good enough – the story needs improving. Or, perhaps more to the point, always thinking that in some way I am not yet quite good enough and I need improving. I am learning more about what Carl Rogers would call unconditional positive regard, but in a deeper and more personal way. 

It is, I think, so easy and simple and yet so against all that we usually learn to just accept that this moment is enough and perfect as it is, and that I am enough and perfect within it. It can be such an amazing thing to just sink into the possibility that all these self improvements I’ve continually added to my list maybe aren’t necessary, or that it’s OK to be the way I am. Imagine the possibility that right now you are completely, wholly, unquestionably, deeply, belovedly “enough”.  It’s kind of an awesome thing to consider, really. Hard to really grasp, but nice to consider. J

Of course, there can be the fear that if I am content or “enough” that it will lead to stagnation or I’ll be stuck with all of these faults and bad things. That’s where a bit of a paradox happens though. Change is automatic. It happens because it is the nature of all things to change. Change doesn’t require our help, and being content or “enough” is not equivalent to stagnation or capitulation. It’s just…  relaxing into being deeply OK.

Such a radical and obvious idea… and I think I’ve explained it badly. J  I hope it gets clearer as time goes on.

So that’s it for this time. I hope that you are able to look up now and then from the stories that your life is weaving, and weaving through, take a breath, and consider the possibility that everything is OK. Just for a moment, release, relax and allow the possibility that you are (and everyone else is) enough.

And then on with the story…

Oct. 21 Lessons from Lantam and a discussion with Nuns

I have been learning some new words lately. Yesterday morning after the morning talk from Luang por a woman behind me explained to me about some of the words that he had used often in his talk.  “Yorm”, which sounds more like “Yom” when I hear it spoken has the meaning of “Surrender without reason, release, or yield”. It doesn’t mean to surrender to someone in particular or to something in particular for that matter. It more has the meaning of surrendering to life as it is at this moment. The without reason part is kind of like suggesting to be happy without reason – it is just the act of surrendering to the moment without thinking or analyzing or needing to have a reason to do so.

“Klye” is a word that is used a lot. It means to relax. Not just the body, but the mind. In our world at present, it is often very difficult to relax either the body or the mind, but especially the mind. I was invited to lunch today and had quite an interesting discussion. We were discussing the idea of asking for forgiveness and I said that this can have negative connotations in the west because it can be tied up with guilt, or putting someone in a place of power over you, etc. Forgiveness has all kinds of different understandings as to what it means and what it’s about, so it can sometimes be a loaded word. Ning said that she understands it just as a way of letting go of things that block her mind or body from being able to relax or to flow. When she says things or does things that bother her in some way, she finds it helpful to go to the person she said or did them to and ask for their forgiveness. Yesterday, for example, she told me I was too nice and too polite, or something along those lines. Today she asked me to “forgive” her for saying that, since it was a judgment. However I am is OK and “good enough”. Anyway, the word “Klye” goes deeper than one might expect. The mind becomes more open as it becomes more relaxed and still, and this openness allows experience to expand as well. It’s a kind of central idea in the lifestyle here. It doesn’t mean not to do anything, but it does mean not to strive or try or push to do things. Relax into whatever you are doing or being…

On the subject of forgiveness, Ning said when she first came she would ask her own body and mind for forgiveness quite often. From the perspective here, bodies and minds are things we use for a while. They are impermanent and changing. We have them for a while, and it is a privilege to have them. And then they go, and we change to another form. Even without that belief, it is a fact that bodies and minds are constantly changing and not permanent. She said that is good to ask your body and mind for forgiveness for pushing them so hard, being unkind to them in all sorts of ways, and all the things that we do to hurt ourselves.

Two more words, written in my makeshift phonetics are coe-mun-ing and deow gorn. Coe-mun-ing has the meaning of by itself, in itself and let it be. It is used a lot in the discussion of thoughts, feelings, and things that happen to and around us. All of these things are considered to be phenomena that are happening in themselves, not necessarily within our control. Watch thoughts and feelings like a movie. The movie is happening on its own, without the necessity for you to be watching it. Enjoy it, and let it go. It’s not personal.

People here seem to be quite good at not taking things personally. As Ning said, if you come by and I don’t want to come out, I won’t answer, and if I don’t want to talk, I won’t talk. So if you see me and I’m talking, it’s because I want to be there. Kind of a nice permission. Just be as you are, don’t worry about judging or being judged, or what someone else may or may not think or want.

Deow gorn means “wait a minute” or “later”, and is used in the context of “I will change/let go/relax…” later. They talk a lot here about not hesitating. When an action comes to you, just do it without thinking about it too much. I’m not very good at that at all. There are times when a little thought is prudent though, it seems to me.  J

It’s been a hot Sunday and now I am sitting in my room with a battery operated fan that Ning gave me blowing over me. The sky is beginning to darken and the air is starting to cool a little bit. Thank goodness the days are short – the sun doesn’t have time to heat everything up quite as much. I had a rest this afternoon and went out when I heard Jack (one of the teenage boys that stays in the house here) doing his afternoon floor mopping. I took over for him for a while, and was offered a drink of sweet juice in a plastic bag and a kind of banana coconut pudding by some people who came by to see Ajahn Nu. People are constantly giving me things here. Ning says it’s good practice. We each give what we are able and we don’t need to give back to those who give to us. We give to others or in other ways and it all works out in the balance.

I will leave you with this thought, that came from breakfast time today: “The ultimate truth of the universe is constantly revealing itself as the universe unfolds and changes. This is it, the truth of impermanence. What can one practice? Practice by asking for forgiveness (to yourself, the universe, God, another person – whomever or whatever works for you) for the things that bother you, that you hold on to, that block you. Also, give your compassion and good energy to everyone and to everything as much as you can.”

Klye, yorm…    with compassion…   

First days at Rhombhodhidhamma Temple

Written Oct. 19, 2012 - posted later...

It’s 8:18 as I sit down to type this. It’s been dark for quite a while now, since seven or maybe a little before. The sound of crickets is loud in the trees and my open windows face onto a small thinly cemented common area between several small buildings. A couple of monks are sitting outside one of them, talking by candle light, their voices carrying over the sound of the crickets. It’s never still or quiet in Thailand, I have discovered. There is always noise and activity in the forest, especially at night.

I’ve been here 4 days now. Ning (a nun here) was planning to have me stay in a small house but that plan fell through and so I’m back in the room I stayed in last time, at Ajahn Nu’s house. It’s a fairly nice room actually, about ten feet square with a tiled floor, a small shelf, and a raised wooden platform for a bed. I brought my camping air mattress with me. The first two days I thought I’d try doing without it and just use the thin pad that’s on the bed. My hip bones got sore though and I wimped out and blew up the camping mat.

There are quite a few more people here than when I was here last year. There are about 240 monks staying through the Buddhist lent period which runs from the beginning of August to the end of October, during the rainy season. There are also 140 nuns, give or take a few, and quite a few laypeople like me. We all meet at the meeting place, or “lantam” twice each day – in the morning at 6:30 and in the evening at 6:30. The lantam is a large cement floor covered by a slightly larger roof made of bamboo, scraggly looking sticks and Thai style thatched roofing. Thin mats are rolled out to sit on when we are there.The front includes a raised place for Luang por – the teacher and spiritual head of this place – to sit, and a higher place with a large gold Buddha statue.

In the mornings we meet, do a bit of chanting (which is new since I was here last), Luang por (pronounced something like “lung pa”, at least to my ears; a respectful title) comes and talks for a while, and then we get breakfast. Breakfast is served on four rows of tables and consists of a big pot of white rice, a big pot of some sort of soup, sometimes with chicken or fish or eggs in it, and a couple of sorts of vegetables or other dishes like bamboo shoots in a spicy sauce or noodles with things in them. Monks have two tables and nuns have two tables and monks and nuns eat first, (monks before nuns if push comes to shove) then people who wear all white clothing since this denotes a certain degree of commitment, and then those of us who are left. I usually end up pretty near the end of the line so sometimes some of the better stuff is gone. However, I make out pretty well since Ning feeds me quite often and people still give me food now and then, even though I’m not a monk anymore.

People have been exceptionally kind and welcoming to me, and I find the people here to be very gentle and generous. One of Ning’s neighbours likes cooking and she sent over some steamed banana cake made with rice flour today, and some rice soup with mushrooms and vegetables. Another one makes tofu and she sent over some tofu with cabbage, which doesn’t sound very good but actually was.

I’ve already had several lectures from monks who are eager to talk about the philosophy here. The teaching is really pretty simple, but in the way of simple things it’s also really difficult to fully grasp and even more difficult to live in a practical way. Besides this paradox of simplicity and complexity, there isn’t much else that’s considered fit to talk about, so monks tend to expound at length. It’s a bit of a monk thing, I think, to do quite a lot more expounding than listening. However, it does have the effect of giving one many viewpoints and different ways of understanding what is being taught.

The main idea, as far as my understanding goes, starts with the Buddhist premise that everything changes and there’s nothing we can do about that. Since everything changes, there’s not much use in fighting change or trying to hold on to things. It’s also based on the idea that we tend to make things difficult for ourselves and get in our own way by doing a lot of judging things and people and taking stuff personally. We like this, don’t like that, want something else and get all tied in knots when we get what we don’t want or lose what we like. All of this judging and taking things personally centers around the idea of “I” which, says Buddhism, is somewhat of an inconvenient fiction.

So, in order to be happy and well, all we have to do is stop making all of these judgments, stop taking things personally and stop getting so concerned about this “I” idea – what “I” have, don’t have, feel, think, experience, etc.  It’s all going to change anyway. As Ning said, we’re all on this train ride together. We know where it started, we don’t know where it’s going to end, but we do know that it will end. We don’t have much (or any) control over the train, so we might as well just relax and enjoy the ride.

So, that’s what they teach here. Relax, don’t try to make things happen, let go of judging and wanting and striving and just be happy with what, where and who you are, as you are. Simple right? Ning and I were discussing it and I brought up the example of a map vs. a GPS navigation system. I thought the GPS was a bit like religion – it leads you along and gets you where you’re going, but you have to be willing to follow it somewhat blindly. It generally doesn’t give a big picture overview of all of the different roads and pathways. A map does give an overview, but is less specific. Both are ways of getting from where you are to the goal – where you want to be. A day later, Ning said she woke up with the thought that here at the temple the teaching isn’t a map or a GPS. It’s just a “Stop” sign… There isn’t a goal to get to, and there isn’t a need to try, strive, or do so much.

Of course, all this simplicity gets pretty complicated, and there are also undercurrents to all of this. The Buddhist universe is quite large and includes a lot of different levels of existence, different dimensions and beings, reincarnation and repeated cycling in and out of embodiment, Karma (the law of cause and effect) and especially in this particular temple, a fair bit of belief in what we would think of as being the supernatural in Canada (at least most Canadians would I believe). I’ve not seen very much of that since I arrived – just a couple of nuns apparently speaking for beings who don’t currently have physical bodies but want to ask Luang por some questions. It’s all considered pretty normal and nobody pays too much attention.

The Vastness of it all can sneak up on you though. Tonight I walked from my room to the lantam at sunset. Down the tree lined road, take a left and walk along a small lake while the pastel pinks and oranges play in the sky and on the water and orange robed monks or white robed nuns glide silently in the gathering darkness. Fish moil near the surface of the water with an occasional splash, and lights from a arriving vehicles throw shadows through the trees.The chanting starts and it has a sweet sound, gentle people singing a gentle pledge. Luang por arrives and sits quietly. Four hundred people sit in silence while the stars peek out, the crickets sing, the warm air breaths gently past. A dog growls somewhere and stops. There is a feeling of peace that seems to radiate out like a cooling breeze and things seem to change inside. It is harder to hold on to troubled thoughts or feelings. They don’t all go away – my mind has been rather busy and I’ve been feeling somewhat rebellious today in particular. All of this peace and slowness and gentleness can get annoying at times, but it calms me down a bit as well.

It’s when the calm starts to sink in, though, that the vastness can sometimes jump out and scare you. The quiet and stillness can drive wedges into cracks in one’s perceptions and tear rips in one’s carefully constructed reality. Sometimes this is exciting, freeing, opening. Other times, it can be frightening.

I just noticed that now it’s 9:18. It’s been an hour since I started writing and this is getting long again. I guess it’s time to stop for now.

I wrote this very long post yesterday morning while waiting to check in for my flight from Bangkok to Loei. I am at the temple now, sitting on Ning's balcony. She made lunch for me today, which was rather nice, and now she's having a nap while I use her internet connection. Such a change of pace from Korea - from almost constant activity to very little activity at all.

It is both good and bad to be back. I feel some of the tensions and tightness in my muscles relaxing already and there is an energy here that seems to clear the mind and quiet it down - or at least that's what's happening at the moment. It's way too hot and the ants are still around, but I wasn't sleeping with them last night so that's an improvement. I'm back in the same room I stayed in last year, and everyone here has welcomed me back very warmly. I went to visit Luang por last night and he seemed quite happy and jolly as well. So...  I don't know. I find myself both appreciating the calm, peace, and tranquility, and rejecting it as too slow and boring. 

This post is too long already though, as it is from my time at the airport yesterday too, so I'll save more thoughts until later...

Thailand, Oct. 15, 2012

Now it is 8:44 AM, Bangkok time and I am sitting at  coffee shop in Don Mueang airport. It’s a lot smaller than Swannibhummi (sp?) airport and there isn’t a great deal to do here. I thought it would take longer to get here and came too early. I can’t check in until 10:30.

I went for a short walk this morning, venturing out from the hotel. The first day is often a bit difficult I find, getting accustomed to the intensity of everything. The air is thick and heavy with humidity; my chest is tight and I find it a bit difficult to breath. The street is very busy with cars and motorcycles weaving in and around each other in a tightly unchoreographed dance. Crossing the street is exactly like playing the old video game of “frogger”. Advance two hops, let car go by, advance three hops, jump back one hop. I crossed twice, with no “splat”, so that was a good start I thought.

The spaces here are all so much more full and busy than in Canada. The Vancouver airport has a calm, quiet and spacious feel to me, in comparison at least. Both Bangkok airports are very full, teeming, and feel a bit compressed with so many people’s feelings, directions and intentions milling about in the air.

There are a few other western people here, mostly older men (and many of these with younger looking Thai women). There are a few western women though, and a family or two.

I got an email from Ning (the nun at the temple who helped me out a lot last time I was here) saying that I could book a flight with Nok air to Loei and she would come to pick me up. I was able to book the flight while waiting for the plane to leave from Korea, so that was kind of helpful and also led to leaving the airport last night, getting a hotel, and various other things that felt a bit like splurging. I would normally just find a place under the escalators at the airport with the rest of the overnight crowd and some tired airport workers, and stay there. I’m not sure that the hotel was a great deal more quiet or comfortable, but there was a shower and some privacy, so I suppose that counts for something.

I’m still feeling apprehensive about finally getting back to the temple. I feel fairly light and relatively calm inside at the moment, which is a big contrast from the last time I came. At that time, only a month after Joy died, I hunkered down in a stark hotel room in Khon Kaen feeling very alone, lost and bad in pretty much every way I can think of. This time it felt a bit lonely, and I definitely am still questioning why I’m doing this and why I’m here, but I actually feel fairly light and calm inside. So, I’ll just try to keep the objective self-observation going and see what happens…

Since I’ve got some time here, I might as well catch up with some of the Korea adventures as well.

The day after we went fishing, Elizabeth took me to see a historic village. 

My and my hairfish. OK, I didn't really catch it, but I got to take the credit.

It had a huge stone wall surrounding it and buildings built of stone mortared together with the red soil indigenous to the area. There were also some large wooden buildings where the rich and powerful people lived. It was really interesting to see the buildings and get an idea of the old lifestyle, and perhaps even more interesting to see all of the visitors. This is the season, Elizabeth tells me, when all of the school children go on field trips. There were probably more than forty big tour buses there and hundreds of kids of all ages. The little ones generally had uniforms of the same colour so their teachers could find them easily, and there were kids and backpacks everywhere. It was fun watching them doing their kid things – same as everywhere. A few of them tried out their English “Hello, how are you’s” with me, so I found myself saying “hello” a lot and smiling.

Rich person's house

Me and the guard (or is it The guard and I?)
 :-)

Kids at the historic village

Dry stacked stone wall and historic building

Village wall and carved tree face

Typical Korean meal: at least 1 main dish and lots of side dishes

Another tree face, and mountains behind the village

After the village we visited an ecological park where a quite beautiful grass, or maybe reed, grows. It has a tall strong stalk and a feathery silver seed head on top. Boardwalks go for several kms through the swampy ground and again there were hundreds of school kids trapesing about.

Rushes from the marsh

Marsh walkways

 We returned home and met Michael and Daniel for supper at a tiny little sushi restaurant run by some friends. It is located in a small fish market and consists of some tanks for the fish that are going to be eaten, one downstairs table, and four tables located up a steep set of stairs in a small room with a very low ceiling so that everyone has to stoop to walk around. The tables are Korean style, about 8 inches off the floor, and everyone sits cross legged to eat. We had a big plate of raw fish cut in strips, with the skin still on. I had a bit of trouble to start with as the skin is a bit tough and chewy and sometimes felt like trying to swallow string. However, the fish was good and there was hot sauce and wasabi to dip it in, then sesame and lettuce leaves and thickly sliced raw garlic cloves to wrap it up with for some quite tasty mouthfuls. There was also a small bowl of jellyfish cut into strips. I thought it was some kind of gelatin, and it did taste and look like that. It wasn’t bad actually. We also had some of the fish fried. I liked them a bit better cooked actually. They were whole though, and Michael said it was good to eat the whole fish – head and all. He did, and I tried it with one, but wasn’t very fond of the head. Elizabeth and Daniel declined…    The restaurant was really busy and Elizabeth helped her friend with the serving for a little while. It was kind of homey actually, and fun to be in a place that one would certainly never find without knowing people from the area!

After supper Michael and Daniel and I went out to play screen golf. This was a bit of an embarrassing experience, as I am a completely lousy golfer. However, Michael was a patient teacher and we managed to make it through the 18 holes. Screen golf is a kind of video game/real golf fusion where you use real balls and clubs in a small karaoke style room with a big screen depicting your chosen golf course. The ball hits the screen and the screen determines its speed and direction, then extrapolates this into the computer generated course. There is also a platform to stand on that tilts with the slope of the place the ball lands, to make it feel a bit more real. It’s actually kind of cool. If I could learn to hit the ball I might even learn to like it.

Screen Golf

Friday, Michael and I went to a Buddhist temple in the mountains about an hour’s drive from Mokpo. It was very calm and beautiful, with a tree lined road running beside a stream that burbled over rocks placed to help it with its singing. The buildings looked like they would be cold in the winter, but there was a peaceful feel to the place and we stopped for tea at a little tea-house for visitors. We also watched one monk doing some chanting, bowing and praying. I was interested to find myself not being very impressed or interested in the chanting, bowing and praying. It all seems a bit futile or unnecessary at the moment. I thought it was interesting that I would feel that way. I guess the whole monk thing has lost a lot of its mystique since I’ve been one and lived with them for a while. I did appreciate the peaceful feel of the temple though, and the calm beauty of the constructions, gardens and stream there.

Michael on the walking road to the temple

Temple guest house

Urns for Kimchi and other fermented foods

Some temple buildings

Room of buddhas

After the temple we went up a cable car to a nearby mountain top for a great view of the ocean to the south, mountains, cities and rice fields to the West, North, and East. Finally, some lunch and then back to Mokpo where we met Elizabeth. Michael went to work for a while and Elizabeth took me to a lotus swamp. It would be really pretty in season I think. At this time the flowers are gone and the plants look a bit scraggly. There are lots of wide boardwalks through the swamp though, and two beautiful glass greenhouses with ponds, gardens and tropical plants inside.

Views from the mountain top

In the lily marsh with frogs

As you can see from all of this, my week was very busy. Through all of this Michael and Elizabeth stoutly refused to let me pay for anything and treated me like visiting royalty or something. I was pretty fortunate!

Saturday was a bit quieter to start with. I got my things together and ready to go and answered email for a while, and then discovered I was going to a wedding. Michael and Daniel and I drove about an hour to a large nearby city (of which I don’t remember the name) and went to a "wedding palace" to see a friend of Michael’s get married. Korean weddings, or at least the two that I saw parts of, are a study in organized chaos and assembly line efficiency. The building was completely packed with people from many different wedding parties. We arrived at the end of one wedding in time to see the groom kiss the bride, pictures taken of the bridal party at the front of the room, the bouquet tossed, and then everyone hurry out so the next group could come in. People milled about, chairs emptied, chairs filled up again, the two mothers quick marched up the center isle in their traditional Korean dresses, the two blue clad usher girls trotted quickly back to fetch the groom and led him up the aisle, each carrying a sword in front of her, pointing up in salute. The music (very loud to cover the talking) changed and the bride came in a bit more sedately with her father. A master of ceremonies said a bunch of things and at this point we left because Michael had to get back to work. We did go down for lunch though – which Michael paid for. There were several floors of buffets and wedding attendees all mixed together for the buffet lunch which was eaten in typical Korean speed and efficiency. It was quite good food, and there was lots of it, but it was pretty fast.

After lunch we returned to Mokpo and Michael went back to work. Daniel and I spent the afternoon building a model airplane that I brought for him. I think he liked it at first and then it drug on a bit long and he was too polite to say he’d rather do something else for a while. We managed to finish it though and it turned out pretty well.

Sunday we left for Incheon around 8:30 and arrived at Joy’s Dad’s at around 1:00. We had a quick lunch of noodles in some kind of black bean (I think) sauce, and then headed for the airport. This took until nearly three as there was a lot of traffic on one of the bridges. The big bridge out to the Incheon airport island was flowing well though. It’s an amazing bridge – over 20 kms long with one high section held up by huge suspension cables so that ships can go underneath. At the airport all of Elizabeth’s family met us, so I was able to meet her mother, father, sister, brother-in-law and nephew. Joy’s older brother was also there, so we were quite a group. It was kind of hard to say goodbye, but I finally was ushered to the security gate, and my Korean adventure was over.

Joy’s family are really wonderful people. Her father and I can’t talk to each other, but we sat in the car together and he just quietly held my hand and we felt each other’s hearts. It was good to be able to spend some time with him.

Korea is a really wonderful place in many ways. The people work terribly hard and there is a rush about everything that can get wearing. They have transformed a war-torn and broken nation into a bustling, modern, first-world country in a bit more than one generation, and they have been able to make the most of the small amount of space available to them. Their road system is exceptional, huge bridges and tunnels make the mountainous and island studded spaces easily traversable and their huge apartment blocks provide compact vertical living in order to leave land available for growing food. Every useable space is intensely farmed and there are thousands of acres of ground covered in greenhouses. They’ve done amazingly well with what they have.

On the downside, they work twelve to sixteen hours a day and there is a high suicide rate among middle and highschool children because of the pressures of the education system. Daniel goes to school at 8, gets home at three, goes to academy from 3 to 6, and then sometimes has evening academy learning as well. He also goes on Saturdays. Next year he will start middle school, which goes until 5:00 – then academy starts. High school students eat lunch and supper at school and often don’t come home until 10 or 11:00. They are well trained to handle the pressures expected of them by Korean employers. Also, things are all fast paced. People drive quickly, work quickly, eat quickly, and expect fast responses. Restaurants that aren’t able to deliver food within minutes lose their customers, what we would think of as good service in Canada would be considered to be slow and inefficient. People can get impatient quickly.  Despite this, I have found everyone I have met to be very polite, kind, and caring. It has been really wonderful to have an opportunity to learn more about Joy’s home, and to be with her family for this time.

OK – now it’s 10 past 10, this has gotten very very long, and I think I can go and check in. Hopefully I will be able to post it from the temple…

Dreams, and leaving for Thailand

It's about 7:00 AM on Sunday morning. The blog insists on saying that it's yesterday afternoon in it's posting date for some reason, so ignore the date and time in the title line... Michael has gone to work again for a little while and will be back around 8:30, when we will leave for Incheon and the airport. I had lots of dreams last night, which is interesting because I haven't been dreaming very much lately. I had very vivid and involved "waking" dreams when I first returned from the temple, but they faded and I stopped remembering them.

Last night's dreams are fading a bit already as well, but I remember three messages. One was about being worried or upset and needing to change perspective and carry on. It had a light and kind of happy feel to it. Another was about finding nurturing soil, which has some fairly obvious symbolism attached, and the last one was about horses. "There's nothing as good as a horse in a storm" are the words I remember. I'm not sure quite what that's about, other than that I think of horses as being very grounding and heart-centered animals to be near.

It's interesting to have dreams like these on the morning that I am leaving for Thailand and the temple again. I also awoke with a kind of excited and "light" feeling this morning. I'm not sure what to trust at this point, so I guess it's all just wait and see and try to observe what happens without getting too stuck on judging one way or the other.

Time to get going...  next post will be from Thailand.

Oct. 8 evening

After getting home from the trip with Hanna on Wed. afternoon, I was home for a few hours and then went fishing with Michael and Daniel. I thought we were going to go fishing from a dock or river bank or something. Instead we went out on a small boat to a larger raft anchored way out in the harbour and fished in the dark for a long silver fish called a hairtail fish.  They are long, very thin, and look like very smooth shiny tinfoil on the outside. They also have a long translucent opalescent dorsal fin that undulates like a wave. They are quite pretty when they are alive - not so much when they are dead though. 

The fishing was pretty slow, but it was interesting to be out on the water in the night. The lights of the city lined the shore and glittered on the water and a coloured dancing fountain from Mokpo's Peace plaza sprayed sparks in the distance. It was windy and quite chilly, but Elizabeth packed us a late evening snack of tea and goodies and Ramon noodles that we cooked with Michael's camping stove. Other people brought whole meals and sat on a raised platform to eat together. The fishing lure was a small blinking light and some very small glow sticks attached to the line, with a long leader and then hooks baited with small pieces of fish. Sometimes it can be very fast Michael said, but we had four poles going between us and only caught one fish in the four hours we were there. So - interesting, but not a lot of fish.  We went home at 11:00 and were in bed by midnight or so. Michael went to work at 6:30 like usual, and Daniel went sleepily off to school at 8:00. Elizabeth and I will go to an old style village today to see how people used to live in Korea..

Oct. 7 and 8

I will make this post a bit short, but wanted to say a few things about the last two days. Hanna – a friend who I met at the HSP center in Vanderhoof is back in Korea now. She came over and took me on a driving tour around some areas of southern Korea. It is amazing how much construction is happening in Korea. There are highways under construction everywhere – big highways. There are so many small mountains here and many of the highways seem like they are almost half tunnel. We zip along fairly straight and level, just going through the hills that get in the way. When there aren’t tunnels there are bridges. They are expert bridge builders here, it would seem, as there are huge suspension bridges all over the place – between mountains, between islands, joining islands to the mainland - everywhere. Also, there are apartment buildings being built everywhere. Since I was here last year 7 or 8 new large apartment buildings, and a bunch of smaller buildings and houses have been built in front of Michael and Elizabeth’s place.

The trip with Hanna took us to the top of Jiri mountain. This mountain is one of the higher mountains in Korea and is also a place where Northern Korean soldiers hid after the war when they were cut off from returning home by the creation of the border. Many were hunted down and killed, so the mountain is a scene of quite a bit of suffering. Now, though, it is very calm and beautiful. Here are a couple of pictures from the mountain:  

We also got lost for a while and missed the highway, which turned out to be a good thing as it took us along a small and winding road through mountains with valleys filled with golden rice and roads lined with rice laid out to dry in the sun. We ended up mostly just driving, but we stopped from time to time to walk around a market or eat interesting food, and it was very interesting to see all of the differences in lifestyle as we moved from country areas to city and back to country again. Korea has intensive agriculture happening in every place that is flat enough to grow something. They do an amazing job of utilizing the space that they have.

Arrival in Korea, Oct. 6, 2012

7:11 AM in Incheon and I have just gotten up after staying at Joy’s Dad’s place last night.  It’s a small apartment at the top of a small apartment building, grayish stone with rusty reddish streaks, three floors and no elevator. He is the caretaker for the place and he has the roof apartment, with a large area of open cement roof as a deck. Inside there is a kitchen/living room/dining room/bedroom (all the same space), a small bathroom, an extra room with a bed and cabinets full of storage, and a small storage room. This is outside of Incheon so there are trees and some small fields around. There is ocean to the south and a huge coal fired power plant just about 1 km. away. It’s an amazingly clean plant with very few visible emissions.

Last night Joy’s older brother met me at the airport, then Michael and her father and step mother came. We went to dinner and it was great to have Korean food again. They have such interesting and tasty food! Last night we had thin slices of pork broiled over charcoal burners and then wrapped in large lettuce or sesame leaves with rice, garlic, and a variety of condiments. There were lots of side dishes – 2 kinds of kimchi, cabbage salad, some kind of fish in a sweet/sour sauce, breaded pork with a sauce, two kinds of soup, a kind of sweet noodle broth and some sweet fermented apple juice tasting stuff for a dessert drink. So many different tastes!

Being here brings back so many memories and images from when Joy and I were here, almost 18 months ago now. Each time I revisit one of the places we were before it brings back the memories and I miss her so much. It’s a clearing thing though as well – revisiting the memories, opening them, loving them, and changing them to fit the new reality of how things are.

Time lapse – now it is Monday afternoon and I am in Mokpo, at Joy’s brother’s apartment. Elizabeth (his wife) took me to see a big salt drying area today – many acres of small flat pools where water is let to sit in the sun and evaporate, leaving the salt behind. I didn’t know that “salary” comes from the word salt, when salt was money…

I think that life will get slower and less interesting once I get to the temple in Thailand, but right now there is lots to see and do and tell about. I think I’ll leave it here for the moment though.