Heat, humidity, and quite a small amount of humour

It’s 7:30 PM as I sit down to write this. I’m sitting in my room, wearing as little as possible and feeling hot, sticky, and damp all over. The hot dryness of the last month or so has become, over the last couple of days, very hot dampness instead. The rain, I must say, is wonderful and it is quickly bringing bits of green back into the grass and forest, but it has also increased the humidity to a somewhat miserable level.

Though I have been highly disliking the hotness of things, it has been a rather good opportunity to look at the way that I tend to get in a bad mood about being uncomfortable, and to watch my mind when it’s dealing with discomfort. When I can manage to get out of being so serious about it, it is actually quite funny. A typical day lately has looked like the following:

Get up at about 3:40 AM, grumbling to myself about the heat and stickiness and feeling stiff. Do a little bit of yoga to limber up and then get out the door by 4:00 to head for the kitchen. Meet with other kitchen volunteers, most of whom have been there since 3:00, but who appear to be much more energetic than I feel, and help with the last of the chopping or preparing of vegetables and things. Then I get to use a big shovel-like stirring ladle to stir whatever is being fried in one of the big four foot woks. After the cooking is done I load the food into trays and get it ready to transport to the serving tables. I also help to carry the heavy stuff and do some cleanup. By 5:00 or 5:30 this is all done and I go back home and sleep for another hour. Then it’s up to go to the gathering area for the morning discourse and breakfast.

The morning goes by with various activities from sleeping to laundry to helping with things like changing a bike tire, or weeding a flower bed or being a chauffeur for one of the monks. I usually have lunch at Maechee Ning’s house, as she always seems to have extra food. My stomach is unfortunately showing signs of being fed too much (or maybe getting older, or both) and seems to want to hang over my belt quite badly.

A couple of hours in the afternoon are spent at the kitchen again, chopping vegetables or doing a variety of prep work. One day each week we also make massive amounts of tofu – which is an all day job, but kind of interesting.

After the kitchen work there’s some free time where I generally go and wilt somewhere. One of the monks here at the house where I stay was into exercising for a while, so I was joining him in chin-ups and pushups sometimes. I find it really difficult to work up the incentive though. It’s like doing hot yoga, or exercising in a sauna…

So through all of this I find myself being outwardly fairly “up” but inwardly carrying an attitude of sludging through the moments – suffer it out, get through it, bear up and keep going… those sorts of feelings. They’re not very pleasant or very helpful, but they are there. It’s the moments when I recognize how much I’m struggling with things that it all becomes a bit more humorous. “OK self” I say, “here we are and what are we going to do about it?”

“Grumble, grumble” self replies. “I want to go home” he wines. “I want an air conditioner, and cool air and a house that actually modifies the environment so I’m not so affected by all this weather. Get me out of here!"

"No. I say. We can't go yet. I'm not sure why, but we still need to be here."

"You're a jerk and hard-ass", self says back.

"You're a miserable winer" I tell self.

"So what are you going to do then?" self says.

“Nothing, I say. There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s hot, it's humid, it's weather. I can't change it."  

“Well, then fine” self replies. “Then I'm not going to do anything about it either. So There!”

Then we smile at each other, self and I, and discover that we don’t have to fight about it all. We’re the same person, after all. It’s hot. At some point it won’t be hot. Time passes. I’m grumpy. It’s OK…

Yesterday evening I was invited by one of the monks to go to a place about a half hour drive from here to see a man who is considered by many to be a guru and teacher. It’s a beautiful place, surrounded on three sides by mountains and on the fourth side by fields of banana, papaya, tapioca and other crops. The guru’s house is a fairly typical Thai house – up on stilts about six feet from the ground, thin walls one board thick, kind of old looking and messy around the area. We sat on quite uncomfortable old wooden benches in the dirt by an even older rough board table. Chickens hopped and fluttered nearby, or flapped onto the roof to make scrabbling sounds on the tin over our head. A couple of dirty puppies nibbled at my toes and begged for food. Night fell softly and warmly about us, crickets chirped in the woods and the stillness of the mountains reached out gently from the darkness. The monks and the guru talked about many things that I didn’t understand because it was in Thai. He told me I ought to be a monk, it would be helpful for me because it is a kind of shield, and it helps with the discipline needed for a spiritual life. I nodded and inwardly continued not wanting to be a monk. The conversation continued and I found myself with a feeling of forgiveness and love wafting strangely through me. Kind of a nice reprieve from the grumps and dour sludging I’d been in.

On the way home, rain pelted down and thunder and lightning blazed and roared around us. The rain pattered, poured or hammered alternately through the night, and the morning awoke sultry and damp.

Now it is 8:00 PM. I am skipping the evening “Prayer of forgiveness” or “kokkamagam” that the monks of the house do each evening. In it they ask for forgiveness for all that they have done in this life or any other that has caused harm or pain to any other being and forgiveness for all that they have done in this life or any other to prevent any being from seeing, hearing, or understanding the dhamma – the laws and workings of the natural law of impermanence. They also ask for forgiveness for any vows, promises, or intentions they have made at any time and for desires projected into the future. Finally, they offer the good things they have done and will do to all beings with the idea that as each of us learns to shine, to give, to extend what we have to others then we create an upward spiral where everyone can benefit. There is more to it than this – it goes on for ten minutes or more sometimes, but that’s the Coles notes version.

The sentiments are kind of nice really. But I’m feeling antisocial, hot, sticky, lazy and grumpy still and I didn’t want to go. So, that’s OK too.  J