Still in Thailand

Hmm - well, today was the day I where I was to be heading for home. I would have been in the air about now, heading for Bangkok, and leaving in 12 hours for the flight to Seoul. However, that isn't happening.

I don't think I'll attempt to explain all of the reasoning (or lack thereof) and thinking and pondering and soul searching and wondering that's gone on over the past week or so, as it would be both frustrating and boring I'm sure. However, the gist of it is that 1) I don't seem to be very clear about things yet, 2) I don't absolutely have to be home yet and 3) I went to a lot of trouble to make it possible to be here in the first place - it makes sense to stay as long as I can and make the most of it. So, here I am.

It is getting hotter by the day now, and people here are a bit like Vanderhoofians when newbies come and complain about the cold. "Oh, this is nothing. Just wait until January..."  Only here it is "Oh, it's not really hot yet. April will be much hotter!"  I've talked to a few people from home and have found absolutely no sympathy for my complaints of melting, sweating, living in a room that could double for a sauna, and things like that.  Oh no, they just hear the sweet little birds chirping in the background on the phone and act like life's so rough where they live with a foot of new snow to shovel. No sympathy whatsoever...

I don't have much in the way of plans at the moment, other than to be open to each day and moment and see what it brings. I do have to extend my Visa in early April and hope to go to Bangkok to see Thich Nhat Han when he is there. Otherwise, it's just life minute by minute.

I won't go into a great deal of description, but thought I'd include a few pictures from the last trip I went on. It was, as I said in the last post, intended to be a two day trip but ended up being a two week one instead. I got good at washing underwear in the sink...  

On a rock peninsula jutting into the Mekong river. The monks are doing a Sankatan (sp?) or giving ceremony. We stopped often to offer blessings to the world and its spirits in the way that is practiced here.

Mekong side channel - boats in the morning.

A meal prepared by the home community of one of the monks.

By the Mekong again.

Huge Market - so many people!!!

Out on a lake to perform a giving ceremony

Pouring water for the water, and for all beings in all dimensions

Kind of a cool resort...

Hut where one of the monks lived by himself for a year

So - that's a bit of a cross section I guess. Images and adventures and memories...

I will leave with you with a quotation from the Diamond Sutra that arrived in my mailbox this morning:

"So I say to you -
This is how to contemplate our conditioned existence in this fleeting world:"

"Like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream;
Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
Or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream."

"So is all conditioned existence to be seen."

Thus spoke Buddha.