Ants, Elephants, and Mountains

This post is a bit overdue I’m afraid. There’s actually quite a lot to tell you about, but lots of it involves pictures and that requires several extra steps, each of which adds to the procrastination factor. It’s kind of like sending a real letter versus an email. A real letter has more tactile effect, but requires all of the steps of finding an envelope, addressing the envelope, finding a stamp, getting the letter to the post office.  It can take weeks…  J Blogs are easier, but blogs with pictures are kinda getting closer to letters...

Speaking of blogs with pictures, by the way, for those of you who don't know about it already, Jeremy has started a blog as well and is pretty artistic about it. You can find it here if you want to look: realitysliding.com  

Anyway, since I last wrote I’ve had several adventures and have spent quite a bit of time practicing the fine art of the pleasantly futile task (Things like sweeping leaves from roads that are directly beneath wind-blown continually leaf dropping trees). I’ve also been sinking a bit more deeply into the “vibrations” of being here, and spending more time in the vicinity of Luang por’s place – there is a peaceful and kind of cooling feeling there.

Yesterday I went on a trip to see a temple that is being built by the mother of a friend of Mae Chee Ning. I went last year, but it wasn’t finished then. Now it’s nearly done and is quite an amazing place really. It is located on top of a small mountain and consists of several comparatively small pagoda buildings and one central very large one which contains a huge stone statue of a reclining Buddha. The statue is made of marble, shipped here from Italy apparently, and is probably 30 meters long. One foot is wider than I am tall by a fair bit. There is a scene in the book (and movie) Cloud Atlas where Somni is hiding in the forest and she sees an ancient statue of a stone Buddha. She wonders who he was and what he was about and he seems to awaken something inside of her. I had the thought that in a thousand years or so the buildings around this statue may all be broken and gone and the jungle grown around it again, but it will still be there. Perhaps someone will happen upon it and wonder what it is for, who made it and why…  If time is an ocean, this statue is kind of a message, floating in a bottle and heading for some unknown distant shore.

Stairs to the main temple area

Main Pagoda

"Small" pagodas

Stone reclining Buddha - marble from Italy

View from the Deck. Model not always available.

 In a monument, built to house relics of the Buddha lower on the mountain, there was a huge geode cut to reveal hundreds of perfect amethyst crystals clustered inside that seemed to emit a very palpable tingling feeling when I put my hands near them. On a higher floor I sat in front of some Buddha statues, and presumably the Buddha relics. For a moment there was a deep sense of stillness and openness in my chest that is difficult to describe – like looking into a small box and discovering that it has the universe sitting quietly inside.

Stairs to the monument

Buddha statues and relics

On the way there one of the things we listened to was a reading of the first sermon of the Buddha after his enlightenment. These are my words and my understanding – not what he said, as I don’t remember it word for word. However, what I understood was that there is birth and death, happiness and love and illness and pain and this is natural. There is also suffering, and this is not natural. Suffering is caused by desire – desire to bring things, feelings, people closer or desire to push them away.  These are the first and second noble truths.

The third noble truth is that there is a state that does not contain desire. We are already in it, but we don’t realize this.

The fourth noble truth, the eightfold noble path, is generally understood to be the way to get out of suffering. As I am learning now though, it is really just the way that one lives once they have realized that they are already “there”. As a monk said to me this morning, we are already at “zero”. We are taught that we always have to do something to get rid of things or to get things, taught that we have to start counting. 1, 2, 3, 4… 9, and back to 0. We have to have these steps to get where we are going. We don’t have to count though. Just stop trying, stop counting. You’re already there.  The noble path is just the way to live while the “engine cools” so to speak. Like an engine that has been working hard and gotten very hot takes time to cool down when it is turned off, we have been working very hard and it takes a while for wider understanding to settle back in.

Of course, there are things to do in the world. These are understandings for the inside world. It doesn’t mean not to do things in the outer world. Right understanding is about how one responds inside, learning to live with less haste, less worry, more inner “coolness” and spaciousness.

As I was writing this a little black ant crawled down my arm and around the rim of the cuff on my sleeve. I have been developing a somewhat grudging and slightly antagonistic fondness for ants of late. They are truly incredible creatures. One of my windows has become a mass of tape around the edges as I keep trying to seal off the routes of ingress and egress for a stream of small black ants that has been determined to find ways past my blockages. I seal it off one day, and the next day they are back again making a small stream across my wall, going I’m not sure where. Sometimes I find little scouting parties heading across the floor, or like yesterday morning, braving the unknown and dangerous territory of my pant leg, hanging from a hanger by the wall. Sometimes I think that ants may understand the idea of just “being” quite a lot better than I do. Another one just crawled out onto my finger, jiggling up and down unconcernedly as I was typing. I tried to blow it off, unsuccessfully and so gave it a flick with my finger. Imagine getting smacked very hard by a speeding mountain and I suppose that is what it would be like to be an ant getting flicked. It probably survived though, and is even now trekking across the wastelands of the floor tiles, lost and alone and not terribly worried about it…

Anyway, it was an impressive temple. I had difficulties deciding if I thought all of this expense and effort was worth it and important because it is a massive finger pointing out beyond the concerns and importance of the world we normally see, or if I thought it was a huge monument to man’s ego and a silly use of money and resources that could have been used to feed and clothe thousands of people. I suppose it is both and we are free to choose which viewpoint we prefer.

The temple was the most recent adventure. Along the way we also went for a walk in a park I’ve visited before that has signs of habitation and use thousands of years old. There are some kind of cool boundary stones set in rings in the bedrock that mark the edges of worship areas (apparently), and huge boulders naturally balanced on small supports in improbable looking ways. We also visited a temple where a footprint of the Buddha is allegedly housed, hidden beneath a hyperbole footprint of monstrous proportions, made of cement.

Big balanced rock

More rocks

Bhudda's footprint monument

Large cement foot covering what is said to be the Bhudda's print

The trip at Christmas time was very interesting and scenic as well. I went with seven other people (mostly friends of Mae Chee Ning’s from Bangkok) hiking to the top of Phu Kra Deung, a large flat topped mountain near the temple. Phu Kra Deung is a very popular Thai vacation location and is therefore quite developed. I have been there once before, but it was at the end of the tourist season when the rains were starting and there was hardly anyone there. This time there were hundreds of people.

I was surprised to discover on arrival that there is a baggage service kind of like at an airport. Check your packs and bags, walk up without them, and when you get there your bags will be waiting for you. The bags are carried in huge bundles tied to a long bamboo pole slung across the shoulders of some very muscular men and women who walk painstakingly up the hill with loads that look about twice as big as they are. It felt rather strange actually, strolling up the hill with my little day pack while the porters staggered along dripping in sweat and carrying all of the heavy stuff. You can even get them to carry you up if you want – and then you don’t have to walk at all!

There are rest stops every few hundred meters with shops selling drinks and food – even ice cream. When I was there last time, elephants had gotten into quite a few of them and torn the bamboo shacks apart. They are all rebuilt each season I guess. Those pesky elephants – always getting in to something!

Tourist season, before Elephants

After Elephants have been through... 

The walk is about 1200 m vertical and 9 km (I believe) in length from the base to the camp area. 6 km involve quite a bit of steep uphill and the other 3 are along the flat top area of the mountain. We rented bikes when we got to the top and rode around the edge of the mountain for a ways, and then followed the slight downhill slope to the camping area.

Biking down the trail toward the camp

Parked on the cliff

Rock overhang

The camping area looks exactly as if a large army has moved in, taken over and pitched their camp there. There are literally hundreds of tents (all in brown desert camouflage colouring) set up in rows across the field. I can’t imagine how they would ever have enough people to use all of those tents. Apparently the New Year’s weekend is even busier than the Christmas one though, so maybe they all got used??

Army camp??

We didn’t stay in a tent though. We had a small cabin, complete with a shower and water heater, so I got to have a couple of hot showers while camping. As a small aside, I’ve been getting used to having cold showers all the time, dipped out of a barrel in the bathroom. I’m still not terribly fond of it, but I’ve found that if I wash my hair first it generally gets the rest of me cold enough that the water isn’t such a shock when it hits. Then, by the time I’m done washing it actually feels pretty good. However, you just can’t beat hot showers, and I’m happy to take them wherever they’re offered!

Home sweet home

There is also a ring of shops and restaurants around the edge of the camping area, so food is always easy to come by. Food is more expensive at the top, but still pretty cheap compared to Canadian prices. Most of the shops are for food and snacks, but there are T-shirts and knick knacks and souvenirs as well.

We had a big celebration dinner and went to bed fairly early the first night (after doing a bit of sampling of a Thai herbal and strongly alcoholic beverage), then spent the next day walking around the top of the mountain. One side has a river and lots of waterfalls (mostly dry due to the dry conditions this year), and the other side has cliffs and scenic views.

As an aside, I’ve glanced at the clock on my computer three times since I started writing this. The first time it was 9:44, the next it was 9:55 and the next was 10:55. I’ve been kind of paying attention to, and looking for, times when I see double or triple 4’s and 5’s and using it as a reminder to have a thankfulness minute. So – three thankfulness minutes have been included in this posting so far…  J

I was kind of disappointed not to see any elephants again this time, despite the signs warning to be on the lookout for them. We did, however, see quite a few very fresh and ample examples of elephant dung attesting to the presence of said denizens somewhere in the vicinity. There were also some very large and very tame deer that hung around the camp area taking handouts from campers. Some of the more animal loving parts of our group spent quite a lot of time feeding them lettuce and slices of cucumber and other greens purchased from the restaurants.

Dangerous but really shy apparently...

The day of walking was quite pleasant, especially as it did not contain any of the land leaches that were there on my last trip. It’s too dry for them at this time of year, which is quite fine with me. 

Leach - when I went the first time. Available anywhere you put your feet...

We went through the waterfall side of things first and then made our way over to the cliff side in time to hang around for quite a while waiting for the sun to go down, and then wave goodbye while taking lots of pictures as it sank beneath the mountains on the horizon. The fireflies aren’t out yet, so the walk back wasn’t lighted by them, but the stars were bright, the air was pleasantly cool, and the darkness was soft in the moonlight.

Waterfall - obviously

Different fall, different time, more water

Thai Maple - leaves have just three points

Stream with maple leaves

Yours truly, by the cliff

Waiting for the sun to set

Still waiting for the sun to set

Sun setting...

Different trip - cliff with low clouds

Big rock overhang - from my last trip

The trip down the next day was quite leisurely and relaxing, except that one of the women twisted her ankle a bit and so had to be extra careful on the rocky and slippery areas. Our bags were carried down for us though, so we didn’t have much extra weight to carry and we made ample use of the rest stops.

The truck that came to pick us up was a bit small for all eight of us and our bags, so half of us found ourselves somewhat buried under bags in the back for the short ride to “Three tips” where we stayed that night. 

Eight people, lots of bags, one very small truck

“Three tips” is a beautiful little valley area encircled on three sides by small mountains and inhabited by a very small and quiet community of a few families who live there part time. Three of the people we travelled with are sisters and their family has a couple of cottages in the area. It is devoid of street lights and is a very peaceful and natural setting with jungle and mountains all around. I slept the night outside on the deck so I could see the stars and watch the sun in the morning as it climbed above the mountains.

View from the deck

Early morning

The trip back was fairly uneventful, and other than a few side trips here and there to go shopping or eat Chinese food and things like that, I’ve been at the temple. One interesting note about said Chinese food is that there is a restaurant that I visit with Mae Chee Ning (and others) sometimes when we go to town to go shopping or to take someone to the airport. It has good food, and waitresses all dressed in similar uniforms – little skirts and aprons and things. Recently they’ve started doing a short synchronized dance every 30 minutes or so. The dance music is short, so they repeat it twice and they all look pretty bored while doing it. It made me think of Somni and Cloud Atlas again. For those of you who don’t know about Cloud Atlas yet, Somni is a clone who originally works in a restaurant as a server and her days are all the same, as are her responses to people. She is one of many who look the same and who work for the restaurant chain. The dance piece seemed to me to be a bit of an attempt to turn the poor girls into clones. We clapped to try to give them a bit of encouragement.

In a conversation recently we were talking about “love”, along with music and love songs and things. A while ago I had a few moments of feeling, or realizing in a bit deeper way than before, that “love” doesn’t need to be tied to an object or person. It just is, like water when you’re swimming under water or air when you’re breathing. The subject came up again with respect to heartbreak. We decided that heartbreak doesn’t really exist. Love doesn’t need an object and doesn’t need to come from anywhere in particular, so if the heart is loving, how can it be broken? What we generally think of as heartbreak is really “expectation break” – we don’t get what we were hoping for. That’s not altogether comforting while one is suffering from heartbreak, unfortunately. (To which I can attest, having had the ailment once or twice). However, there it is…  J Just another thing to agree with or not I guess. Words are just words after all, and we go around swapping ideas with them. Whoever invented language probably had no idea just quite what a mass of babble he or she was getting started!

So, that’s about it I guess. I went to see Luang por (the head monk and teacher here) a couple of days ago about some uncomfortable feelings I was having. He has a very kind way of being and just sitting in the area around his house has a peaceful and comforting feeling. His advice to me was to “Let it be itself”, which is actually his advice about most things. This seems kind of a simple idea and a radical idea at the same time I think. Simple in that, well, what else can it be than itself and why do we need to worry about that, or fix it or try to change it? Radical in that it is my (and many people’s I think) habit to always try to fix, change, alter, or get rid of things when we don’t like or want them. (Like ants for instance. How does one get rid of the little buggers?) J

I’ve found a whole complex of beliefs around the idea that I DO have to do something about the things I don’t like, and that they won’t go away by themselves and then they don’t – which raises the question of how much of belief is a self-fulfilling prophecy? In any case, “let it be itself” seemed comforting at the time. I did, and – interestingly enough – the feelings seem to have changed to something else now, without any meddling or trying on my part.  Maybe things just work that way…

Happy 2013 everyone. I’m kind of happy that the world didn’t blow up like it was supposed to, and that maybe predictions of a new era of peace, kindness, and well-being could be in the offing. I think I’ll go with that last thought anyway – seems like a happier sort of place to put my energy.

Love to you all - May your path be without obstacles and your heart know that however long the path may seem, in truth you have already arrived.