Will I ever get to Samosa? and other ponderings.

Here From There

2007-11-08T05:45:00.000-08:00

It’s been a long time since I was surrounded by English speaking people. A long time since I’ve looked over the vistas of strip malls peddling those coveted needless items. I notice the order and cleanliness of the west that seemed to be absent in the east. Most of all, I notice the hurried antics of hurried people who hurry to god knows where to hurry up and do god knows what. I let them pass me by; this Philomath is still on Laos time.

There’s a level of comfort coming back to one’s home turf, no matter how distastefully unnecessary certain aspects seem. I’m not sure how this next phase may turn out. I look to Susan Miller’s horoscopes to perhaps give a little structure, or clue, or maybe just a fun read. It tells me things, they’re interesting, helpful in some abstract way. I think about one of my favourite quotes from the Cosmic Muffin: It’s a wise person who rules the stars, it is a fool who is ruled by them. I read the horoscope a few times, feel a little more grounded, but I still am not too sure what’s next. Time to go back to gainful employment, I suppose. It’s quizzically relaxing to think about that prospect.

Where will my quest lead me and with what tone will I document those events? Will I document them at all? I don’t know. I may need to drop off of this blog for a little while in order to focus my energy on more pressing matters, but rest assured, at some time in the future I will again try to share the thoughts of my trip to Samosa.

The Next End

2007-11-03T20:38:00.000-07:00

My time in Laos comes to an end. I wonder about what I have learned. I like to think that I understand this place, this culture, this language a little bit more than when I started. I like to think that I am a little bit closer to Samosa – my Shangrila awaits me. The more real it becomes, the more I realize I know only slightly more than nothing

This morning, an important day for me, I went to the Wat to make offerings. Of course, making offerings at the Wat is always preceded with a 5 am roust from bed, a trip the market for some pre-dawn shopping and confusing phone calls… Yu sai?... Where are you?. At the Wat, the old ladies chatted while they helped us prepare the bowls of sausage and chicken and cakes and soybean snot. The monks waited patiently, silently. Somewhere in there, I was given directions, but I am oblivious to this and fumble through the giving of alms. One monk got too little rice, one monk got too many cakes. They giggled at my ineptitude but were grateful for the special meal we had brought for them. We poured water at a stupa (gravesite) and wished for blessings. I pieced together from prior trips to this Wat, that the stupa was not random as I once thought. It is the stupa that of my friend’s parents. Driving away, I added a couple more wishes and blessings to those who have passed before me.

I think about something my friend said just recently about today. She wished for someone to help her prepare the food for today. She told me she pitied the chickens. I wasn’t sure if it was a language issue, or if that is what she really meant.

“Pity? Why?”, I asked.

Her response was so kind, “It is such a happy day for me, but the chickens have to die. I wish someone else would do that for me.”

I don’t understand anything and I understand everything. The journey continues and there are dead chickens and seemingly random stupas that have great meaning and bumbled offerings of tasty sweet sausage and late nights and early mornings and Laotian contracts signed not under duress but complete oblivion. Slightly more than nothing.

Back to Buddhism

2007-10-25T04:10:00.000-07:00

Let’s get back to Buddhism for a while. I really don’t think it’s necessary to categorize something as Buddhism or not-Buddhism; after all, there is really not much difference between the two. When I write about racism, I am writing about right mind. When I write about teaching, I am writing about right action. I don’t come right out and say it, but the truth is, I’m always writing about the dharma. The benefit, the practice, the use and abuse of the dharma. I have to write about it, not because of my vows, but because of something which has been cultivated in me over thousands of lifetimes.

There is a base set of principles which serve as the basis for Buddhist study. Actually, there are two sets, the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. The two are intertwined. And, for whatever reason, I think I will address them completely out of order – which may end up require a lot of back tracking or fore tracking as the case may be.

Right View also referred to as Pure Vision, is the first of the Noble Eightfold Path. It is easy to misunderstand what Right View means. Often, I have seen people latch on to Buddhist philosophy and interpret Right View as ‘this [buddhism stuff] is the only correct perspective’. Dismiss that attitude right away. That kind of thinking will only slow you down; audacity is a heavy burden to bear.

Instead, think of Right View as a litmus test of your openness to perceive and the growth that provides. Is what your are seeing the true essence, or has something else provided barrier to a lucid experience?

Let’s bring this to a more tangible example and then I will sum up with some other important stuff about Right View.

I have been living in Vientiane, Laos for some time now. I have many friends who have lived their entire life here. As the capital city of Laos, it is indeed a metropolis complete with municipal buildings, shopping and business districts, street lights (optionally obeyed), and so forth. In comparison with other cities in other countries, it is undeveloped, small and offers very little – or so many visitors may think.

I have met many tourists to Laos whose first stop is Vientiane. They get off the bus, look around, check their guidebooks and within a day or two, rush off to the north, disappointed with the limited attractions in the city. I even had one friend tell me ‘get out of there, that city is sh*t!’. What is happening is not that Vientiane is sh*t, it is simply our view is not clear.

It is unrealistic to step foot in Vientiane and expect it to be anything like Bangkok or Rome or New York City or Montreal or Buenos Aires or any other place on the map. It is it’s own city with it’s own identity. The same way a traveler to Vancouver would be very disappointed that it is nothing like Miami, a traveler to Vientiane will never be satisfied if they seek any city other than Vientiane. That’s the first part of Right View – don’t expect Paris, France when you get off the buss in Paris, Texas.

The second part of the example is not one of negation, it is a matter of positively finding what is right in front of you.

Last weekend, I took a little day trip in Vientiane. I needed to consult with a monk on personal matter and was brought to a northern outskirt of the city, about 10km from the city center. After speaking with the monk, my companion asked me if I would like to see the poorest section of Vientiane. I was hesitant and said I would not like it much if a tourist came to look at me and my family and my house and neighborhood simply because I was rich or poor or something in between. However, I agreed to go look with the understanding that I am interested in learning more about the city and Laos culture and lifestyles.

We headed down an undeveloped road, breathing dust and getting sprayed with pebbles with each truck roaring past us in the other direction. As we drove, I could see the opulence level dropping steadily as there were fewer automobiles parked in front of houses, smaller markets with less selection and fewer and fewer brick or concrete homes. About 10km down the road, we noticed a well cared for sign, written in gold Laos letters, which was translated for me as “Wat in a Cave”.

We turned off the main road and followed a passable but degraded road a short distance to one of the most beautiful wats (temples) I have ever seen. Perched on top of a hill, on a sprawling campus of flat rock, the wat had an essence which I find dismally absent in most inner city wats in Vientiane. It was peaceful and quiet and contemplative. Around the campus were natural holes in the rock slab which collected rainwater and served the monks as washing wells or simple meditation ponds. From some spots, there was an obstructed view of the Mekong River through the trees. Dotting the campus where secluded little buildings, presumably housing for the monks. The entire time, we were followed by a very friendly set of monkeys who had no issues with taking the tamarind pods left as offerings in front of a buddha image.

After walking around the campus, we left and headed further down the main road for another 3km only to find an equally impressive wat with a giant buddha image on top of a hill overlooking the entire Vientiane area. At this wat, there were many unique buddha images, nagas, and various other icons nestled amongst rocks and ponds. Truly a wonderful place for a monk to delve deeply into their studies.

Neither of these two locations are in a guide book. My companion, a lifelong resident of Vientiane, had never heard of these two places. We found these locations by simply hopping on the motorbike and going out into the world. We both agreed that it felt like we were somewhere other than Vientiane, perhaps an island in the Gulf of Siam. Overall, even with the dusty, unkempt road leading to them, the experience was enlightening.

That is the second part of Right View. What I thought I knew about Vientiane two weeks ago is different than what I think today. That difference, that growth in my awareness, came from my (our) ability to suspend what I normally would do in Vientiane so that I might see a different dimension of what I know. It is not that these dimensions did not exist before I saw them – both wats have probably been around for at least 300 years, possibly three times that amount. Yet it took me being able to cast aside what I thought I knew about a place in order to see it and understand it just a little bit better.

Right view is a matter of removing our predefined concepts of existence so that we can further expand our capacity and the depth of our own understanding. Right View is also a matter of sustaining that awareness. It is one thing to stop, temporarily, our judgment & our prejudices. It is another thing to dismiss them permanently. Right View empowers us with the ability to live in each moment without expectation. It allows us to see the world unfolding in it’s beauty and ugliness all around us and be content. It enables us to understand better the inalienable bond we have with the world which is us.

After that...

2007-10-16T00:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning I woke up very dissatisfied. I had been working on a piece for Blog Action Day for weeks. I had chosen the topic of public transportation in Vientiane. It’s quite a loaded subject, and there are lots of ins and outs to the subject. However, on the morning of Oct 15, I decided I did not like what I had written. I decided to step away from the topic of public transportation and write something new. Something with a bit more of a bite.

Sometimes when I am writing I use the computer. Other times, I sit down with a stack of paper and write things out long hand. Yesterday, I chose the long hand approach. During the course of the day, I scratched out mental notes, key statistics and partial paragraphs freely. All together, I think I used about 12 pieces of paper. Early in the afternoon, I started converting the paper draft to a computer format. Finishing much later than I should, I began to tidy up.

When working with a computer, a quick stroke of the delete or backspace key takes away anything that might be a bit too racy for the censors. However, working with ink and paper, it’s a different story. I stood in my living room with a dozen sheets of paper – some of the words I wrote (but of course did not publish) would put me in the clink for quite a while.

The surest way to destroy anything written on paper is by fire. So, I headed out to the yard with a lighter and the incriminating sheets. Dropping them into the burn barrel, I had to laugh. On a day I dedicate my blog to environmental awareness, I end up standing in my yard burning paper and branches in an open fire.

I could not help but laugh and chide myself for the irony of the situation.

Gin nuai look

2007-10-15T07:14:00.000-07:00

My observations in Laos over the past year and a half have been culturally and historically focused and not specifically environmental. As such, I would like to speak on the cultural side of addressing environmental concerns in Laos and other emerging nations.

The Lao People’s Democratic Republic is a Southeast Asian nation bordered by Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma and China. It is currently rated as a “least developed nation”; a stigma Laos has committed to removing by the year 2020. 70% of the population in Laos lives on less than $2 per day and 20% percent live on less than $1 per day. Of the approximately 7 million residents, less than 20% live in urban areas – roughly growing at 4% to 5% each year. It is, for the most part, an undeveloped, jungle or agrarian landscape throughout the country. The largest environmental issues are deforestation with a dramatic drop of forested areas from 70% in 1940 to 47% in 1989, and the impacts of hydroelectric dams which contribute significantly to the total revenue from exports.

At a national level, the big issues are known and are getting attention, however, at the individual level, things in Laos are a bit more complex and difficult to address. At the heart of the matter, most people don’t know what they should do and more importantly they don’t have the means to do so.

Meet Bounsong

Bounsong lives in an unfinished concrete home on the outskirts of Vientiane, the capital city of Laos. He has a wife and two small children. He supports his family doing whatever work he can find. Mostly his work is farm-related. Sometimes, his wife and children will pick mushrooms in the jungle and sell them in the market. After it rains, he and his cousin go out to collect frogs, also destined for the market. Last year, his household income was $525 US, higher than the national average.

In Bounsong’s home, there is no running water, no electricity and no gas for cooking. For light, they use kerosene lanterns, for cooking they use charcoal logs. They buy potable water in 20 liter bottles. Other water for household use is drawn from a shallow well in the back yard. Also in the yard, 10 meters from the well, is a twenty year old outhouse, still in use. There are no municipal waste collection services in Bounsong’s village. Instead, his wife burns the household refuse in a barrel out back. Whatever can’t be burned, they dump in an empty lot a few doors down.

Bounsong is fortunate. He owns a motorbike. It’s nothing fancy but the 1979 two stroke engine still runs, even though the exhaust is a thick black smoke. He doesn’t have a driver’s license (or birth certificate, identification card or passport for that matter) and he can not afford a helmet for each of his family members while they all ride together to the market.

Bounsong is a fictional character, but this depiction is no exaggeration of the average citizen in his area. The simple truth is, life in Laos is pretty tough, and for people like Bounsong, there is neither time nor financing to do anything about people call "the environment".

The Global Environment

The phrase “the environment” has, over the past century, morphed into quite a buzzword. To many people “the environment” includes all things from fossil fuel addiction to cloth diapers to photosensitive, degradable plastic bags. To others, myopic tendencies come into play; one might think only of urban green space percentages; another might feel greatest danger coming from off-shore dumping; a third might distress over their child’s relentless allergies and dedicate their life to promoting organic legume and tuber cultivation. In truth, the environment is all these things – a great multitude of things. Contemplate that thought for a moment and you may draw the conclusion that it is not just a multitude of things; it is the multitude of all things.

True, the environment is our physical surroundings. It is also the impact of outside forces (our society for example) on those physical surroundings. And the environment is also our perception – our individual, constant mind-state – of our surroundings. What we think and what we feel is at the root of all things which we do. How we feel about our life, our jobs, our neighbors, our country, our enemies, has a profound influence on what we do about our environment. The sum total of our life situation is, in fact, our environment.

Let’s put our feet back down on the ground for a moment.

Back With Bounsong

Ask Bounsong what he thinks about the environment and you are likely to get a very confused look. Ask him about deforestation, and he might grimace; his uncle in the north can no longer practice slash and burn cultivation, so now they are very poor and ask him for money. Ask about rubbish removal and most probably there will be little comprehension of how or why. Tell Bounsong to have his motorbike inspected for NO2, SO2, and PM10 emissions and, like most citizens, he will nod his head in agreement but in practice simply avoid all police checkpoints for the next couple weeks until the matter is forgotten, entirely.

For Bounsong, matters of the environment are intangibles. It’s not that Bounsong doesn’t care, it’s just not relevant. These concerns mean as much to him as what type of adhesive should be used to affix ceramic tiles to the bottom of the space shuttle. Bounsong is just as likely fix his motorbike as he is likely to go to the moon.

Bounsong cares about it, of course. He cares about the environment very much, after all, he is a farmer. He is also a sensitive man, a family man. And he wants his children to have better lives than he has. He wants to leave behind for his grandchildren a plot of land which they can farm and he wants them to be healthy. If that means that he has to spend 100% of his annual income on a used motorbike, ok, but first, Bounsong has some other concerns.

In the region where he lives, infant mortality is second only to Cambodia, His wife is pregnant with their third child so he needs to set a little aside for that and he’s a bit nervous because maternal mortality is also pretty high, statistically speaking that is. His own life expectancy has climbed from 51 to 59 years of age, so that’s almost a full decade for him to work off any debt he may incur, unless he gets sick. In the past year, one relative has died from tuberculosis, another from malaria, a niece and a nephew were lost to dengue fever and a woman he used to know lost 3 relatives to bird flu. That was last year. Aside from that, only 12 of his 29 male cousins use methamphetamines on a daily basis – he’s not sure about the 4 in prison. What Bounsong also doesn’t know is that his son will die in a motorbike accident at the age of twelve. Two years after that, his daughter will turn to prostitution at the age of 15 to help pay for her father’s medical bills and subsequent burial costs.

I’m sorry; you were saying something about what’s coming out of Bounsong's tailpipe?

The Delicate Subject

We know that Bounsong is not a malicious or vindictive man. We know he would happily fix his only form of transportation if he could. But we also know that he’s got bigger problems. He lives in a world where for 59 years he will be struggling to get enough food to eat, fresh water to drink and a place to sleep. After that, he will catch a curable disease and die. All of this will happen, whether or not he changes that exhaust pipe.

I would like to think that some eccentric philanthropist will drop in on Southeast Asia and donate a bunch of environmentally friendly motorbikes, about 200 million would be a good start. Maybe Honda, in its dedication and commitment to solving global warming issues will exchange any competitors’ product with a new 100% electric motorbike. Maybe the government, who struggles to find financing for basic waste water treatment, will plop down a few billion dollars to convert all of its citizen’s motorbikes to consume clean burning alternative fuels. This will all happen as soon as Bounsong returns safely from the moon.

It comes down to money and priorities. For Bounsong, and for that matter, the entire the world population, immediate survival ranks highest among all else. Hunger will always win over the environment. If a human being needs to step on something in order to eat, they will do exactly that. For struggling nations trying to put themselves on the map, they too want a population who has been fed, even if the truck that carried the rice spit out black smoke to deliver it. It doesn't have to be this way, but the brutal fact of the matter, that's the way it is right now. In situations where a country or a person has the resources, of course, they need to focus some attention preserving the world for the future, after they have preserved themselves. The act of environmental preservation is not isolated in monitoring greenhouse gas emissions. It goes far deeper than that. It reaches into our daily habits, our spirituality, our feeling of freedom and our sense of being. Protecting the environment reaches it's deepest and most core essence always in the same place: the stomach of every single person on this planet.

As a person concerned about how we are impacting the environment, take a look at the numbers of people in this world failing to feed their family, the numbers of people dying from disease, war and starvation. Find out what is the source of those struggles. Take a candid look at what is imposing such insurmountable challenges for basic life and sustenance? What is behind that? There, you may find the answer for what is harming our environment the most.

Don Khone Sloth Rocket

2007-10-13T00:19:00.000-07:00

To say that I am a slow traveler is a gross understatement. I think the term sloth-like is more accurate. I like to take my time, get lost, distracted, involved in my travels. I don’t care much for ‘tomorrow’ pressing on my backside. There are times, however, when I must suspend my preference and rocket through a place.

My tour of Sii Pan Don, Four Thousand Islands, has long been on my list of places in Laos to visit. It is a shame that I only have 24 hours to spend here. Located at the southernmost tip of Laos on the Cambodian border, this cluster of islands in the Mekong River is a tranquil paradise. I skipped the two largest and most popular islands, Don Khong and Don Det, and headed straight for Don Khone – the more serene of the three islands. As I expected, the island of Don Khone is friendly, laid back and incredibly quiet.

I chose to stay at Pan’s guest house partly because of the owner’s low pressure sales tactic (“I have a guesthouse. Would you like to take a look?” about as blaze) and partly because I was too tired to look at anything else. The guesthouse is a series of seven wooden bungalows running perpendicular to the river. I chose room #7 closest to the river – an end unit offering two sets of windows for ultimate cross ventilation. Outside, there is a sign which reads “In our rooms the fans work from 6pm to 2am”. It’s early October, so 2am came around 9 o’clock – plenty cool enough to skip the fan and shut down the generator. Blissful silence in perfect, cool sleeping weather.

At 3:27am, the roosters do a village check. Someone close by started it, ‘Is everyone ok?’, he asks the starless night. Around the village, cockerels sound off their agreement and assurance that all is well in Don Khone. I lie awake in bed and listen to them settle.

‘Today I arrived. Tomorrow I will leave. Not enough time. Not enough at all’.

I feel like I am a sloth riding on a rocket.

I get out of bed and go outside to look at the night, the silhouettes of the palms in the waning full moon – to squeeze another twenty minutes of observation into a timeline which does my location no justice. ‘I should have planned for a week here, maybe two,’ I think to myself, sigh, and return to bed.

In the morning I sit and write and drink coffee and talk with a few other travelers. I don’t want to leave but I arrange for a boat to take me to the mainland around 1 or 2 pm. I have some more coffee and some rice soup with lots of roasted garlic. The boat captain arrives. He laughs at me. He can take me to the mainland, but there are no buses to take me to Pakse until tomorrow.

Plans change. Life is a series of changes and unexpected events. I ask the guesthouse keeper if room #7 is available. She smiles. I tell the boat captain to meet me the next morning around 7 am. Agreed, I put my bag back in the room, and head off to look at the waterfalls.

"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."

Douglas Adams
English humorist & science fiction novelist (1952 - 2001)

Alone with Fishhead on Mexican Night

2007-10-09T22:04:00.000-07:00

Fish is very fresh and very good in Laos. With a multitude of rivers and lakes, fish is a main part of the Laos cuisine. In fact, fish is the main source of meat protein in the Lao diet. Like most places where fish is a staple food, it is usually served with the head, which is thoroughly consumed, the eyes being a delicacy. The two most frequently seen forms of fish in Laos are Laap Paa (chopped fish with herbs) and whole fish grilled over a fire.

I’ve become so used to fish heads, that a couple weeks ago, I was served fish filets and I found it strange, almost suspicious, that there was no head. It’s not like I eat the heads, I just like having them around. At meals with fish heads, I offering this delicacy to others as a gesture of generosity. Most people see through this ploy, but it gets a laugh and someone gets to enjoy a fish head more than I would. Plus, I can show off some of my limited Lao vocabulary. It’s a good experience all around – except for the fish.

I was left alone this evening with some fish to cook. It’s Mexican night; fish tacos. Fish isn’t hard to cook. Grilled, fried, baked, it’s all pretty self explanatory; just stick it with a fork and if it flakes it’s done. Tonight’s task of frying a few fish steaks should have been a no brainer, but it didn’t really turn out that way.

I finished the first batch which had been started for me. Then I went to work on frying up the remainder. Two steaks, a tail and a head, neatly sliced down the middle. I dropped the head halves in the hot oil, face side up. Then the questions started flowing.

I realized that I have only cooked a fish head when it was attached to the fish. What should I do? Should I cook it extra because there are more bones, or is it tastier to leave that tiny tad of think matter a bit more… shall we say… tartar?

The eyes looked up at me and glassed over. They offered no assistance.

I voted for the bones theory. I left the head cooking extra, bringing it to a crispy set of triangles, the eyes long ago hard to distinguish. I took the two fish head halves from the frying pan and put them on a plate. I wonder what kind of reaction they will bring. They’re cooling on a plate now, the fish head halves. I don’t think fishhead is coming to dinner dressed as a taco. Too big, too cooked, can’t even see his eyes.

Which Action Day?

2007-10-08T02:59:00.000-07:00

It was not long after I made a post about Blog Action Day that events in Burma* stole a little bit of thunder. Blog Action Day, an experiment to see what kind of impact a unified, blogospheric focus on a particular subject might have – in the case of Blog Action Day, the subject is the environment. Well, it seems that regardless of happens on October 15^th, it is clearly evident that the internet, and blogs in particular, can have a tremendous impact on public awareness. Whether it is a global issues such as the environment or human rights abuse or a more localized concern, we are in the early throes understanding this very powerful form of communication.

Despite a subsequent blackout on information coming out of Burma, what did arrive on the international “news” scene before the plug was pulled, was both unstoppable and historic. The distribution of news occurred at light speed and there is no way these ruthless oppressors will ever be able to squelch the evidence – no matter how hard they might try to claim shooting Kenji Nagai, a Japanese journalist, was an accident. What is historic about this event is that this was a major piece of evidence that even though it is not being reported by professional journals, the international community shares a common watchdog notification system. Connect the eyes on the ground to the internet and no violation can be hidden from the rest of the world.**

I said we are in the early throes of understanding how this medium can be used. Some might argue that we are already aware and in many respects we are – we know that we can get information out to the public very quickly and it’s replication makes it impossible to destroy. However, what we have now in it’s current manifestation can be equated to the very first few printing presses – solitary, one-way, mechanical devices for materializing printed ‘information’. However, what we have not achieved is the leap between Gutenberg’s printing press of 1450 to the desktop publisher of the 1990’s. Carrying my analogy into the science-fiction predictive model, it is not just an 12page per minute, collating laser printer on the desk of a home office, rather, it is that printer churning out pages in a place which is half Quaker meeting house, half Roman forum.

In the present case of Burma, and potentially countless violations to human rights occurring around the world, we are serving as a watchdog against bad behaviour. However, not all is doom and gloom and I predict – or at least I hope – that as we learn to harness this medium, we will begin be more proactive about situations around the world so that university students no longer need to be run down by tanks before someone steps up and says “Hey, that’s not right!”.***

In my dream, sometime and I hope not to far from now, my congressional representative will begin to expose their choices, their issues, their goals openly in their politi-blog and soliciting their constituents opinions. Eventually, maybe through this type of medium, we may actually see democracy… real democracy… occur. Or call it something else?

Naturally, there are challenges to this. Not everyone has computers. Not everyone is interested. Not everyone can form an intelligent decision when presented with the facts. However, whatever challenges may be before us, the sacrifices and silenced voices of the Burmese monks should be saluted, not only for their bravery to benefit themselves and fellow countrymen, but the remarkable step of progress for humankind.

*I call it Burma because it is Burma – Myanmar? I’ve yet to meet a Burmese person who calls themselves Myanmar-anese.

**There are plenty of cases already where internet-distributed information has either been squelched, confiscated and/or censured. However, the days are not many when people will realize this is not right – how would you feel if your government came and took all the Post-It notes off your refrigerator?

*** The situation in Burma is NOT a domestic issue. Beating monks, shooting journalists, and planting evidence of weapons in a monastary is an international issue. If the UN is too insipid to apply pressure, it is up to the people of the world to stop buying Burmese teak and heroin until the junta is ousted and the legally elected National League for Democracy Party is given their elected due.

Savan Smiles

2007-10-06T22:22:00.000-07:00

Savannakhet, Laos. The city is a very old woman, dusty and strong with more than few broken teeth. She holds herself together in an undeniable charm – a gritty antiquity of French colonial times blended with dismal, soviet-bloc design and a spattering of lackadaisical makeshift shacks. This southern city wears it’s history on it’s sleeve. I like to walk the streets and listen to the ghost echoes; the clip-clop of horse drawn carriages one hundred years ago, silenced loudspeakers alerting comrades to the cause of 75, distant booms of bombardments from Siam, Thailand, Khmer and everyone else wanting to pluck the jewel of this ancient kingdom.

For most tourists, Savannakhet is a one night stop en-route to more documented destinations to the north and south. For me, it is a place I like to spend a little time. I got to know the city pretty well in 2006, making all of my explorations on foot. I am excited to return to Savannakhet to look for evidence of change. Unfortunately, this trip is but a brief stop on my way south, but I manage to get some time to revisit some of my favorite lanes and alleyways during an early morning walk.

Stepping past the gate of my guesthouse and heading down the road, a truck passes. Two little boys in the back practice their English, “Good morning,” they say.

“Good morning,” I call after them and wave my hand.

I hunt for a Vietnamese noodle shop I like. It’s somewhere near the Catholic church. There are not many Catholics in Laos. There are far more Vietnamese. During the French colonial period, Vietnamese filled the majority of the civil servant positions. They relayed the francais demands to build roads and stables and boarding houses. I can’t find the noodle shop. The church is hard to miss. Down another lane, ‘Laundry Row’ I call it, at least a dozen storefronts hang their washing out on lines with bragging signs of competition: 10,000kip/kilo, 9,000kip/kilo, 8,000kip/kilo. The dogs no longer come out to bark at me, they can smell my ease and know their testing teases have no weight on me. Some boys spot a woman covered up as if she is a bee keeper. She is crazy, deranged; afraid in her vulnerability. Two of the five boys go to tease her. My tongue wags silent in my mouth searching for some variant of ‘Hey, leave her alone! Maybe someday you, too, will be crazy’. I find no words and leave them to their mischief. A left towards the Mekong; this road last year was dirt, now it is paved but already potholed and cracked. Sweet magnolias, champa, arch over the sidewalk and I am in a dream, a tuk tuk driver yanks me from my reverie.

He woos me to go for a ride. I tell him ‘I go not far.’ He disagrees. I tell him 100 kip (1/10^th of a penny). He laughs. He tells me today is the boat racing festival (it’s not). He offers me drugs. I decline. He offers me a girl – it’s 8:30 am, I know they are all sleeping, those still awake too wired on crystal meth to lay down on the floor without holding on. I smile, decline and thank him for the information. He looks confused and pulls away.

I find a café that I know. Like the rest of the city, very little has changed in the last year. At the café, they still don’t like my table selection – they would have to turn on the fan which takes effort: walking over to the switch, lifting a finger, walking all the way back to sit down again. They are still unfathomably grumpy. The son – too old to be living at home, too lazy to find a bride – is still playing video games. The infant is walking now. They still make the greasiest omelets known to man. It mops up last night’s whiskey. The menu still offers both Lao Coffee and Nescafe, and still a request for either yields a hot cup of the instant garbage (this area grows some of the best coffee in the world, Nescafe should be criminalized). I eat and write and plead for a second cup – she wont accept that I can order in her language and repeats everything I say in English. Coffee is coffee everywhere in the world, even bad coffee with an accent. I ask how much. Incomprehensible words I speak. I try again. Nothing. I rub my fingers together. She walks away to do the math on a piece of paper and returns slapping it down on the table. I don’t leave a tip, it’s not customary and all the money in the world would not erase my stigma.

I head back to the guesthouse and take in more of the city steam. I walk slow to catch the subtleties. I want to go slow. I don’t want to go fast. I don’t want a tuk tuk. I don’t want to buy pens or sunglasses or a knock-off Rolex already displaying the wrong time. I don’t want to drink instant coffee and I don’t want any ganga, girls or yaba (meth). I just want to walk in the heart of this classic beauty of a city and immerse myself in the delicate harsh charm. I smile back and wave to the old woman with her broken smile.

In northern Laos, the sister city of Luang Prabang has much the same architecture of Savannakhet. However, Savannakhet has not received UNESCO World Heritage status; it has not been gussied up with fresh plaster, brilliant painted shutters and tidy red brick walkways. It is the exposure of the gritty and earthy unabridged history that gives Savannakhet a charm I love. If you happen to be traveling in Laos, don’t short change the untouched reality of Savannakhet.

Boun Hor Khao Salak

2007-09-28T01:11:00.000-07:00

Boun Hor Khao Salak. What is it? Ask an average, young Laos person and unless they have spent time as a monk, there is a small chance they can give much of an explanation. For most, the explanation is simply ‘day we give alms’. This religious holiday, also a worker holiday, comes at the last full moon during Boun Khaophansa, Buddhist Lent. It seems each full moon has a specific importance; last month’s full moon was the day to honor the spirits of the dead; this month, it is to give alms and to make offerings to deceased relatives.

The day starts early. Long before sunrise, throughout the country of Laos, households rise early to make sticky rice (well, our household rose early, failing to finish the task the day before). Sticky rice – khao neow – is possibly the single most ubiquitous item throughout Lao. No household is complete without the tools for making sticky rice. No meal is satisfactory, without at least a few of the sticky little balls. Even in a linguistic sense, the mere name of the holiday Boun Hor Khao Salak includes a reference to khao; rice. However, in this linguistic sense, I believe it refers to ‘harvest’ in general, rather than rice specifically. In the end, for this event, sticky rice and a cane of sugar seem to have an important priority in the list of items we are bringing.

A meal or two worth of sticky rice in the basket, we collect everything we need and head off to the Wat (temple). Offerings vary, depending on one’s financial ability. The very poor may only be able to spare a modest basket of rice, some water and a small taper. For Boun Hor Khao Salak, a piece of vegetation also seems to be something everyone has brought. We stop on the way to the Wat and buy some lotus buds. Something to do with harvest, I guess, or maybe flowers for the deceased.

Those who do not live in abject poverty – a noticeable amount do – will include 1000kip (10¢) notes folded lengthwise as part of their alms. Progressing up the income scale, offerings extend to individually wrapped cookies and cakes. Those who are exceptionally devoted, wanting to contribute to everyone’s greater good, or perhaps have lost an important relative and want to make a more substantial offering, may bring a pre-made care package: a basket of essentials such as coffee, sweetened condensed milk, toilet tissue, soap, incense, candles and other items of use to a novice or monk. Often, the monks will re-gift these to families in need in the village.

Most families have a shiny metal offering bowl which looks like a cross between an American punch bowl and a Russian samovar. The offerings are doled out from this bucket when it is available, otherwise a simple basket will do.

Arriving at Ban Sindha on the outskirts of Vientiane, I am quite nervous. I have never given alms before. I don’t know the process. Adding to my insecurity, I was convinced to wear a formal dress shirt tucked into slacks with a belt and proper shoes on my feet. This type of attire is extremely rare for me and only makes my foreigner-ness stand out more. Much to my relief, a quick glance around the grounds of the Wat assures me I am not overdressed.

The men wear proper long pants, clean, and buttoned shirts. Over their left shoulder, they wear a sash and tie the ends just above the right hip. The women, are even more elegant in thick silk blouses or vests, similar sashes but tied differently and long, calf-length sinhs (traditional skirts) – despite the ultra conservative design, sinhs are surprisingly flattering. Around the grounds of the Wat, mats are laid out for people to sit for the ceremony. We take off our shoes and sit just outside the main building – a dismal view of concrete nothing and a 4000 watt loudspeaker.

There is some confusion. We’ve brought a care package but are unsure how to deliver it. My companion knows to write something on a piece of paper, but is not sure what something to write. She calls her sister – her husband tells us she has already left. She is supposed to join us with brother, she should be here soon. A woman next to us tells us to write the family name on the paper and bring it to the stage where the venerable monks sit.

The ceremonies begin with a prayer broadcasted in dull tones through the PA system. I don’t understand a single word of these prayers, but I have come to enjoy them all the same. The first time I heard this type of prayer it was at a Baci ceremony where I was the guest of honor. There seems to be a certain magic in the chanting. At that Baci ceremony, I felt a distinct lightness, a euphoria, washing through, over, around and beneath me. Since then, I always try to allow the power of the chant envelop me instead of frustrating myself with my lack of vocabulary. People have a full conversation during these prayers – it seems perfectly ok.

After the chanting, alms are delivered. There is a long table with 10 baskets. Each basket has a bowl for sticky rice and a bag for candy and cash. First, the elders give alms. These men appear to be like deacons in a Christian church, assisting with the other logistics of the ceremony. After the male elders give alms, the rest of the men in procession pass each of the baskets lined up on a table. I take my place as the last male. I mimic the men in front of me. First, a ball of sticky rice is placed in the basket. Then, a 1000 kip note and a cake or candy is raised to the forehead and then placed into the bag. I get confused. I forget to put rice in one of the baskets. A deacon sets me straight. There is no possibility I will go unnoticed.

The women proceed to give alms in the same way. Then children give alms. There are three of us, myself, a woman and a teenage boy; we share our offering bowl in turns. After everyone has finished with this, we return to our mats for another prayer – another moment of touching the occult dimensions of our existence whether we comprehend or not. After the second prayer – or maybe during – the elders collect the alms given and bring them to the main building.

Next, an offering to deceased relatives is made. Smaller balls of sticky rice are offered. The woman next to us is poor; she makes four small balls of sticky rice and places them on a leaf in front of her. We have a little bit more money, so instead of a leaf, we used our shiny offering bowl. It’s silver colored tin. Others have gold colored bowls, also made of tin. I see a woman with a beautiful hardwood carved offering bowl.

We make three small balls of sticky rice and place them on the edge of the bowl. Then, in unison with the other practitioners, we pour water into the bowl. The less advantaged woman to our left had a small 7oz bottle of water to offer into the leaf she had placed on the ground; we had a 750ml bottle. She has a taper; we forgot to bring one. We drain the entire bottle of water into the bowl. (I’m later told this was also an preparation oversight on our part and a small bottle would have sufficed.) After this, the group-led part of the ceremony concludes with very little fanfare – a couple of bows.

People stand up from the mats and with their offerings in hand approach one of the many stupas (ornate gravestones) on the perimeter of the grounds of the Wat. Another silent prayer is made and the water and rice are poured onto the ground or placed on the stupa. Some people have left small tapers burning there.

Then everyone leaves. They leave nonchalant, with barely any expression of relief or fortitude or any other apparent show of emotion. The whole affair seemed to be as mundane to them as washing one’s face in the morning – maybe even less exhilarating. However, wrapped inside of this seeming indifference, there is a casual solemnity, a Sunday morning feeling. Quiet. Placid.

Pulling out of the grounds of the Wat on the motorbike, I ask my companion, “So, today is a worker’s holiday?”

“Yes.”

I check my watch; it’s just before 9 a.m., “So that means all of Laos will be drunk by 11?”

“Mmmmmm,” Mmmmm means ‘yes’ in Lao. To the westerner, it is a non-committal response, but to the Laos, it is as sure as saying yes.

I am under the weather; a nagging chest cold set on by that dastardly air conditioner. Unfortunately, I will have to skip the rest of the celebration and observations of the holiday. During the daytime, I understand, there is some Lao dancing, which no doubt goes well with Beer Lao and whiskey. At night, there is a candle ceremony, which I also regret planning to miss.

In the afternoon, as I convalesce in bed, the phone rings. Bad news. Uncle Won has passed away. I had just met him the day before. He had pneumonia – advanced stages of it. He was a man of medium build, but the months of illness had deteriorated his body to a mere 30 some-odd kilo. His bones poked through his skin like a tortured, starved prisoner. He sat away from the group, knowing his contagion. I watched his eyes, dark and glassy – watching us childlike in his not knowing yet mannish in his recognition that his time on earth is coming to an end. He smoked a cigarette and went back to bed.

When the news comes, there is a sputter of panic on cell phones. Each brother and sister and aunt and cousin and uncle and brother in law is calling the other with news of his passing. I am home alone. I am useless on the phone. Baw khow jai. I don’t understand. Oddly, I know the word die, but I don’t recognize it out of context.

To die on Boun Khao Salak is a very inauspicious event – the body will have to be brought to the crematorium on the same day. Some more sputters of cell phone calls and the matter is settled; it was a misunderstanding. Uncle Won passed away the night before. Presumably the news was delayed to avoid upsetting the alms giving of the morning. Or more likely, someone just didn’t get around to it. One cousin did not find out until a full day later.

Still under the weather, I ask if it would be a great insult to skip the funeral. As much as I would like to have gone to pay respect and to learn a bit more, it would be unwise for a sick man to attend. They will understand, but there will be plenty of questions about my absence. Even though they know I don’t talk, they seem to like having me around. I think again about Uncle Won’s eyes. It will be a full year before a ball of sticky rice is offered to his spirit – to make him feel warm in the meantime, I leave a small portion of sticky rice on my plate at dinner.

Blog Action Day

2007-09-23T23:10:00.000-07:00

I just heard about something which has caught my attention. Sorry if this is old news, I’m a little sheltered, here in Southeast Asia. It is called Blog Action Day. On October 15th, over 5,000 bloggers will post something regarding the environment. I think this is a very interesting experiment/demonstration/field test.

Blog Action Day poses the question: “What would happen if every blog published posts discussing the same issue, on the same day? One issue. One day. Thousands of voices.”

Have you ever had the experience of learning a new word and then it seems like everyone around you is using it? I’m wondering if Blog Action Day will generate a similar result. Will dinner tables, news agencies, coffee clutches around the world all, through six degrees of separation, turn their attention to the environment as a result of Blog Action Day?

As for me, I think it’s time well spent to create an entry on that day to talk about something to do with the environment – probably something relating to my observations in Laos, an emerging country with some very serious environmental risks looming in the near future.

Take a look at the Blog Action Day website, you may find it interesting. http://blogactionday.org/

Guava Mouth

2007-09-22T01:50:00.000-07:00

Seven score and one week ago, Abraham Lincoln, issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Tomorrow will mark the fifty year anniversary of 9 black students entering the doors of the exclusively white Central High School in Little Rock Arkansas. Over the years, things have become much better in the USA, not only for blacks, but also Asians, Latino and all other ethnic groups. Many people will say racism is a big problem in the US. While I don’t disagree that racism is an issue in American culture, I have to say that it is not nearly as bad as other places.

As a white man living in Vientiane, Laos, I face a daily barrage of racism. Most of it is petty remarks or assumptions (I’m white hence I filthy rich). While most Laotian people are friendly and welcoming, racism is an inescapable fact of life for whites in Asia. I spend an inordinate amount of time and energy thinking about, dealing with, and deflecting racism.

Last weekend I went to the supermarket to restock my cupboard. This particular supermarket is located at ITECC (Lao International Trade Exhibition and Convention Center) and has a good selection of western and eastern food. I like shopping at ITECC because not only does it have some hard to find items (kidney beans in a can, for example), but there is something about supermarkets that I find very comforting. Even in my own country, I will often spend a couple hours wandering the aisles of a supermarket during off hours. However, the experience I had last weekend was not as comforting as I had hoped.

About midway through my shopping, two small Laos children unaccompanied by an adult, noticed me. “Falang! Falang!” they yelled. Falang is what they call foreigners in Laos. They made a big production out of my being in the supermarket. Hanging on to my cart, touching everything I had placed there, they continued to shout, ‘Falang’ and other observations their language such as bald, big, big nose and so forth. Everything I touched, they had to touch. And they said things like “Falang likes this” or Falang likes that. The other shoppers chuckled at this – some ignored it. I tolerated their behavior since I can understand that I may be quite different than what they are used to. After about 15 minutes of these two kids pestering me, I finally said, in English, “Ok, enough, time for you to hit the highway.” They disappeared.

Later, I thought about this experience. I thought about how that would go over in my own country. What would happen in an average American supermarket if two white kids followed an Asian around yelling “Asian!, Asian!”. Would the other shoppers chuckle? Would the store manager walk by, blandly amused. Ah, just kids!. I don’t think so. I think if a kid did that in a Southern California supermarket, at best they would be dispatched from the store. If I were there to witness it, they would have the pleasure of hearing a very long and sharp-tongued lecture on the shame of broadcasting ones ignorance and hate filled mind.

This type experience is not an unusual occurrence, it’s just one example. I try to explain to my Laos friends how, in my culture, if a shop keeper tried to charge varying prices based on the color of someone’s skin, they would very quickly be in serious legal trouble. If a group of customers all stood around joking about how an Asian immigrant could not pronounce words as well as they should, I would think there is a good chance someone would speak up and say “Hey, that’s not right”. I know this type of thing does happen in the USA, but not anywhere near as frequently as it does in Asia.

I wonder about the source of racism in America, specifically, anti-Asian sentiment. I don’t think I’m going to win any friends with this next remark, but I have to say it. Is it possible that some of the racism Asian-Americans feel comes from their own deeply ingrained racist behaviour?

It’s a slow day for beggars today – five in one hour, 3 repeat visitors. The rich Lao people sitting at the next table are not approached. The beggars only beg from white people.

For a little more understanding of the word Falang, this person’s blog sheds a little light on the etymology and blithe attitude of racism in Southeast Asia: Real Life Thailand - Farang kii nok

Free Market Mirage

2007-09-19T02:23:00.000-07:00

A colleague of mine and I have lost touch for the past year an a half while I have been in Southeast Asia. The other day, I noticed him on Facebook and added him as a friend. My reasoning for wanting to stay in touch with him is twofold. First, I consider him a friend; a person who I respect immensely for both his professional acumen as well as being a man of impeccably good character. Second, I want to stay in touch with him because, professionally, we share the same ideology of enthusiasm, integrity and an inquisitive nature – hence, there is potential for us to enter into mutually beneficial business relationships. (As an additional note, Naisan’s capacity for light-speed synapse inspired many advanced educational techniques I developed between 2003 and 2006)

Looking into his current endeavors, I noticed he has a blog at www.naisan.net\blog. His latest entry dealt with the death of capitalism. I found it very interesting to read his short post and move my mind back to the conditions of the USA while I have been immersed in a very different situation here in Laos.

As capitalism dies from the insidious workings of the omniscient “them” back in the USA (and in most of the globe), I am watching Laos go through the painful birthing of it’s own form of one-party capitalism. Laos, in an attempt to sustain itself as a sovereign nation and free itself from least developed nation status by 2020, has entered into a free market economy. It’s not like there is much choice for Laos. After decades of solidarity with the Soviet Union, once big brother conceded that great philosophical mind-plays are not always sustainable socio-economic methods, Laos had to enter into the global market.

How will that work? I wonder. How will a country who has sustained itself in a vacuum outside the free market since 1975, transfer it’s ideology to a free market mindset while at the same time the world free market seems to be collapsing under the weight of the likes of Cheney, Bush, GE, Haliburton and the rest of the behemoths? Will this birth into free market become a stillborn lark – too little, too late – or will Laos’ expertise learned from decades of corruption, lobbying and special interests be boon to its role in the soon coming free market mirage?

DISCLAIMER: Of course, what I write here is merely off-the-cuff, personal pontifications. I certainly do not claim to be an expert on capitalism, communism, socialism or the current state of affairs on the global economy – or even the Peoples Democratic Republic of Lao, for that matter. I shudder at the thought that any harm would come to the nation of Laos – a country I love immensely and for which I have great respect for the perseverance of it’s people and leaders.

By the way… beggar count today: 22 individuals in 90 minutes. Four adults, 18 children. Akiki is taking the day off, I guess.

Begging Monopoly

2007-09-17T01:41:00.000-07:00

Begging. I don’t like begging. I used to give money to beggars. Now, only under a very extreme circumstance will I give a beggar anything at all and in those cases, only food. It’s not that I am unsympathetic, it’s just that I can not tolerate the idea that a stranger who is completely uninterested and unwilling to do anything for me expects me – often demands of me – to fork over my own cash. I just don’t work that way.

Back in the 1980’s when I was living in Brooklyn, there was a beggar at one of the subway stations in my neighborhood. Each day I would see him sitting in the passageway mumbling to himself with his hands outstretched. On occasion, early on, I would drop a few coins in his hands. Then, one day, I realized that I had been passing this same person in the same place wanting the same thing for a very long time. I thought about it. I had had over a dozen jobs over 8 years, moved house five times, put myself through school, bought a car, wrecked the car, sold the wreckage, got married, went from wearing $80 suits to wearing $800 suits… why on earth did I give this man money? His “job” was to profile those people who have money and expect them to hand over their cash, assuring them he had no intention of doing anything other than living off their wages.

Now, granted, this is not a simple subject. The man clearly had some mental problems and Mayor Koch had flushed New York City’s mental hospital funding so the man was at a huge disadvantage (Koch later funded an effort to involuntarily remove the mentally ill from NYC streets). Once the markings of disenfranchisement manifested; soiled clothes, unbathed body, tangled hair, unwashed teeth, deprivation of medication, getting any form of employment was much more difficult. The momentum grew in his terrible plight. However, I firmly believe the number one reason why this man was (and still is as of 2005) begging, is because he makes money doing it. Lots of money.

I know another man in Vancouver, Canada. He is a crack addict. He gets funding from the British Columbia government to pay for housing and food. He uses 100% of his begging income for drugs and alcohol. I’m not making this up – I’ve had plenty of conversations with him. Each night you can find him outside the 7-Eleven on 10^th and Alma asking people for money and cigarettes (retail value of one cigarette in BC is about $0.50CDN). Does he have any intention of stopping drugs or stopping begging? Absolutely not. He likes crack. And the 7-Eleven customers have no problem paying for it.

Why am I talking about this today? It is something that I have been paying attention to here in Laos for over a year. A year ago I noticed only a few beggars on the streets of the central tourism area of Vientiane. Today, I see a dramatic growth. A more official counting by Peuan Mit/Friends-International in October 2004 counted 209 street children in one day. Whatever the actual numbers may be, I am confident in my observation that there is a very real growth surge in the begging industry in Laos.

One of the most notable and prominent beggars in Vientiane, Akiki, sits outside Joma Bakery (the most expensive coffee shop in the city) or next door at the Phimphone Market (one of the most successful retail businesses in the city). He’s a nice enough guy and is respectful to his “customers”. To be fair, I should mention that Akiki has Downs Syndrome. And, granted, it is hard enough for a skilled, healthy, young man to find work in Laos, let alone a person who is mentally or physically challenged. However, there is no way Akiki is going to change his profession. Why? Money. Lot’s of it.

Consider the average monthly wage for a government worker in Laos is 350,000kip/month (about $35USD). One afternoon, I watched how much Akiki earned in 3 hours: 150,000kip. I’ve seen him make less, but certainly those numbers are not unusual. I have even had discussions with others who, like me, have seen him using his ATM card. An ATM card!!!

The other day, right after I posted my last entry, “Coopetition”, I saw Akiki do something which inspired me to write this entry. It was a thought of competition. I was sitting outside the Joma Café when three other street children had approached me for money. I told them no. They were about to approach the other table sitting outside when Akiki jumped up from his spot next door, blew his police whistle, and chased the 3 others away. It seems that not only does Akiki make a Laos fortune at his job, but he maintains a monopoly on his place of business (he does share it with one physically handicapped boy, on occasion).

Is Akiki, or the other alleged 208 beggars in Vientiane to blame for this? No, not really. He may have a monopoly on those two storefronts, but there are plenty of other places to beg. It’s not really the location, it’s those people who fund the industry who are most at fault. And the people who are funding this operation are the tourists – tourists with wonderfully benevolent intentions.

Some people give money to ease their conscience. Others, out of pity. Still, others, really believe they are helping someone. Whatever the reason, at the core of the issue, it is ignorance the fuels the begging industry. People who give money to beggars are ignorant of the problems they are causing – giving money to beggars causes much more damage than relief. Do people really think that beggars don’t talk to each other? Of course they do. And they know exactly how much they can earn and from who they can earn it (maybe, tomorrow, I will elaborate on that one).

Furthermore, behind the scenes of this industry is a much more insidious menace at work. It is often organized crime, the mafia or a mafia, orchestrating the begging circuit. If the cartel came to you safe suburban door and asked for money, exactly how much would you give… to ease your conscience?

Maybe I am opening myself up to a lot of criticism, but it is important to spread the word. Under no circumstances should anyone respond to begging with anything other than a polite ‘NO’. If you feel you must give a portion of your income to the needy, do so in a proper way. Here’s one example: $50 = One below the knee prosthesis - COPE Laos. Using PayPal, about 7% of your $50 donation is NOT used towards helping someone in need; the rest goes directly towards the recipient’s care.

In the time it took me to write this (which included a number of delays and stopping for lunch), I was approached seven times by different beggars. In the same time, I did not see one single Laos national approached for money. It is clear that tourists are targets but it is not only because of the apparently enormous cash roll they are carrying, but also because they do not understand what they are financing: a highly competitive, dangerous, and self-esteem destroying, unnecessary way of life.

Never stand begging for that which you have the power to earn
– Cervantes

Coopetition

2007-09-15T03:50:00.000-07:00

Too often people think that one person’s success precludes another’s. This simply is not true. “Miss Hoyle” on MySpace published a list of 33 writer’s contests on her blog the other day. In her introduction she says, “Okay, I might be shooting myself in the kneecap here by sending "my competitors" all this information; but in truth, I think we writers need to work together.”. I could not agree with her second thought more.

One of the projects I intended to complete in Laos was a series of podcasts providing information about major tourist attractions in Laos. Just the other day, an acquaintance asked me how the project was going. I winced. The podcasting project I intended to do was shelved for one major reason: I could not find a Lao national who was willing to put forth the effort to learn about these things and visit the attraction. Despite not finding a co-narrator, I continued for a couple months writing draft scripts for the project, but eventually saw the writing on the wall and abandoned the project.

Today, on Craigslist, I found a site who is looking for exactly this type of thing. Authors/narrators are free to set their own prices (if any) and can publish at their own pace. The site is called Audio Snacks and they want people to submit recordings of guided tours of any place where they have “inside knowledge”. As a result, I am thinking about reviving my own project of podcasting in Laos.

Have you ever seen someone get bent out of shape because someone else got a job, materialized an idea they had or achieved some other form of success? Have you ever felt this yourself? It’s an outrageous reaction to someone else’s success and it is completely in the wrong direction. Success is like love – there is an infinite supply of it. All you have to do is chip in, share, and keep an open mind. There is plenty for all of us and it has a compounding effect on the world.

Dig It

2007-09-13T21:29:00.000-07:00

Some things don’t change no matter where you go in this world. Across the street from the café where I write, there is an empty lot. It has been empty a long time. Just yesterday, or this morning, a big pile of sand was dumped. A neighborhood dog is intrigued. I know this dog. I’ve seen him around. We’ve never spoke, but I know his face and he probably knows my scent. He stands on top of the mound. He is king of the new sand pile. He barks at another dog – a blond dog who is slow & numb and doesn’t like being barked at. The other dog, the one on top of the sand pile, he sees his street from a new vantage point. He digs. He digs furiously tossing sand from the top of the pile into the lot, onto the sidewalk, out into the street. The worker with the wheelbarrow comes to take a load of sand to the storefront under renovation; the dog steps off the mound, lets the worker fill the barrow, then returns to his perch. He digs some more.

I wrestle with writers block – two months, now. It’s awful. Some say it’s a fallacy, writer’s block; it doesn’t exist; it’s just an excuse for not writing. I can think of nothing. I delete nearly everything word I type. I can only watch the dog and think how some things are the same the world over. Dogs & new piles of fresh soft sand. Dig. It makes me think of one of my favourite stories, a well known story.

Two boys, twins. One an optimist, the other a pessimist. The pessimist is put in a room piled high with toys, games and all the diversions so loved by little boys. He sits, long-faced, making no attempt to even explore any of the toys. ‘Why?’, he’s asked. ‘Because I have no one to play with.’ He is the pessimist.

The other boy, his twin brother, the optimist, is put in a different room, a room with only a giant pile of horse manure – nothing else. Equipped with no shovel or tool, the boy climbs onto the pile of manure and begins to dig. He digs furiously, excitedly, hopeful. ‘Why?’, he’s asked, “Why are you digging in this big pile of manure?’. ‘Well,’ he explains, ‘with all this manure around, there must be a pony nearby.’.

Thank you, dog. Although we have never spoken, today, you are my saving grace. Not only have you given me something to write about, you have also made me hope there is a pony in here somewhere. Keep digging, doggy, you’ll find your bone, I just know it.

Walking Meditation

2007-09-13T04:11:00.000-07:00

There are different forms of meditation; walking meditation, standing meditation, reclining meditation, sitting meditation. The most common form is sitting meditation. Sit down. Get comfortable. Focus. Focus on the chakras. Chakras are all over the body. There are 7 big ones aligned with the spine, the crown chakra sits just above the top of the head. These are energy nexuses. Focus on them. It takes some practice, but it’s not as difficult as it first seems.

I like walking meditation. Years ago – lifetimes ago – I did a lot of sitting meditation. Things have sped up since then and I like to go places, do things, get somewhere. I still practice sitting meditation, but I also like walking meditation. Meditating while walking took some time to learn, but like sitting meditation, it is not as difficult as it first seems. And it opens the door to opportunities.

This month, I’ve decided to give up my motorbike. After a few days of walking, I realized I had been missing too much of my surroundings. The ban, the village, where I live is a nice community. There are rich people and poor people and I like that things are mixed that way. In the center of the ban is a crossroads with two “restaurants”. One is a noodle shop which is very popular with the university students. I’ve eaten there enough times that they know not to give me any chicken feet. Across the road, the restaurant is more like a pub. It’s underneath a house and the ceilings are about six feet high. The floor is concrete but it could just as well be dirt. There are some walls, but not many. Up until the point where I gave up my motorbike, I had never stopped there, even though I wanted to.

Walking back from work one afternoon, I passed by this place. Some men my age were sitting having some beers. They said hello. I said hello. Next thing I knew, we were passing around shots of Lao Khao, rice whiskey – powerful stuff, could be used as nail polish remover as well. On my motorbike, I simply sped past this place and never got to know my neighbors. It’s hard enough being white around here. There’s no way to hide it and there is no way anyone is going to overlook the fact that I am different. Different I can handle. Aloof is something that just isn’t me. As I sped past on my motorbike, it was too easy to label me as aloof.

Meditation is not a matter of checking out – being aloof to ones surroundings. Actually, it is a matter of checking in. It is a practice of getting to the reality, the heart of the matter, the true existence of things. Walking to and from work (I use that term creatively), I get to practice my walking meditation in the very literal sense. I also have more of an opportunity to get to the heart of my existence here in Laos, in my neighborhood.

Before, I was simply speeding past my own life. Hurrying from home to there and from there to home, I was missing what I came here for. I was not fully engaging in a culture I found so appealing, so natural and in tune with my own resonance. Instead, I was just driving through it.

Now, on my way home, I stop off at the “pub” and share a few beers with the guys. There’s a lot of conversation. Sometimes I have a general idea what they are talking about. Other times, I’m completely clueless. I don’t mind it much. I know a few jokes and they laugh like crazy when I tell the guy with seven children “Condom! Condom!”. They know I like Lao whiskey, beer with ice, grilled pork intestines, mint, meatballs. They know I am not above getting down on my knees and playing with the children. The children have a blast playing with the rubber masks I carry in my backpack just for that purpose.

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to have a translator. It felt good to get some feedback. They like me. They think I am a good person. They are glad I am part of their community. They see that I am different than most falang (foreigner). They agree that I am Lao – somehow, born in the States, white with Anglo and Mediterranean parents, I am Lao. Maybe a past life. Maybe a future life. Certainly, in this life, I am Lao, inside, somehow.

Summer's End

2007-09-12T01:19:00.000-07:00

The earmark of summer’s end, Memorial Day (or is it Labor Day? I can never remember. The one at the end, the one just before school… I think it’s Labor Day), came and went over on the other side of the world and here in Laos, I got to sneak squeeze a little more time. No one was watching. No Memorial Day. But, I have to let it end, though. I have to get back to it. Back into the flow, back on track and - ouch - nose to grindstone. Summer must come to an end. I squeeze a little more time because there’s no Memorial Day in Laos. The next weekend, or the one after, is the boat racing festival in Luang Prabang. It seems like an appropriate marker.

September 11 is the day for the Boat Racing Festival in Luang Prabang. It’s also Horkhaopadapdin, the day – the very very early morning part of the day – to honor deceased relatives with offerings to assure their spirits that they did good in this world and their memories are respected, cherished, thanked, safe journey wherever you are. Longer boats. The boats on the river are larger than what we know in Cambridge, Dartmouth, Georgetown, Exeter, the Head of the Charles. They are longer and wider and heavier and 50 not 8 men are geared with short fat paddles not long thin oars. The rhythm is still there. The coxswains use drums and some are not coxswains, they just drum and there’s one in the front as well as the back. There might be some in the middle, too. They row on the Nam Kang and not the Mekong. The Mekong is too mighty; harsh and wide and full with obstructions. The banks are closed and the riverside is lined with Lao people and very few tourists – the children dress in their best clothes and some little girls proudly wear new, clean, yellow patterned dresses holding daddy’s hand overwhelmed at the sights and the uncountable faces and knees and packages and dogs eating bones under street side vendor’s tables.

Country folk come in from all over the province. It’s a big day. It’s easy to spot who is cosmopolitan and who is not. I’m told the children used to wear their school uniforms if that’s all they had, but now some wear dirty t-shirts and ripped pants if that’s what they want. They are becoming more worldly. It’s easy to spot who has made special effort to bring the family to see the festival and visit with cousins and aunts and uncles and maybe an eldest son lucky enough to study at Wat Sop, Wat Sene or Wat Phousi. Little boys proudly walk through the crowds with plastic carbines, with plastic AK-47’s, with plastic Luger’s. The men soak themselves in Beer Lao and the women join in as much as they can without forgetting they have children to watch but it’s not a problem because Lao men are just as likely to pick up their crying child and console them.

The races seem tertiary after the street side vendors and the face watching over big bottles of beer and grilled chicken on sticks and sweet Lao sausage. The crowds are overwhelming to me. To many balloons and umbrellas trying to poke me in the face. We retreat across the peninsula to the Mekong side – to a quiet riverside restaurant for an early afternoon sitting of Lao barbeque; it’s called ‘sindha’ or something like that but I like to call it sim card because it sounds like sim card and saying ‘I want to eat sim card’ makes me chuckle. It’s easier to make such jokes when broken English is the standard and I can’t speak the local language.

We could take a bus back to Vientiane. It’s cheaper. $11.50. But it’s not much fun and no longer interesting to me – I’ve done the trip too many times for it to stimulate anything. I don’t even get upset at the power lines blemishing across a stunning pair of limestone karsts north of Vang Vieng. Even the VIP bus – the good one where they give you little packaged sponge cakes and a bottle of water and they give you moist towelettes near the end of the trip just before the tire blows out and by the time we’re all back on the bus and the tire is changed, our hands are dirty again – it’s just not interesting anymore. The flight is six times more expensive. The flight is eight times quicker. I decide to skip the bus ride.

I’m a little torn about flying. My brother tells me not to fly because around here things are not done the way they are done in the west and it’s not quite as safe as the budget airlines who sprung up out of deregulation in the 80’s (was that the 80’s?). My embassy tells me not to take the bus because the Hmong are still ticked off and the jungles north are filled with resistance and it’s been a while but there have been incidents…

The ticket agent hands me back my passport, credit card and boarding pass. I look at the date: September 11. It’s just another day but I can’t help but make the connection. I wait for boarding to begin. For me, it’s just another dead zone strip of time between the festival and getting home. For others, it’s a different new experience.

It’s fun to watch someone fly for the first time. In the waiting area there is a collected excitement about her. Excited on boarding. Excited on take off. Excited even putting her bag through the x-ray machine and she beeps and the man waves his wand around her and that too is exciting. The second time through she doesn’t beep and they make a joke about it. The sun has set and there is only jungle below so no lights to see; only blackness and the reflection of her face in the window. Eventually she eases back into rapid fire page flipping of the inflight magazine. At the back there is a calendar of events, holidays and festivals for 2007. It says the 26^th is the day for remembering and making offering to deceased relatives. I no longer find factual contradictions an annoyance. The 8 a.m. bus can leave at 1:45 p.m. if that’s when it leaves. That’s just the way it’s done. It’s a contradiction. Fact.

I’m glad she’s older. Too old to discover the child thrill of bringing her seatback tray to it’s full upright and locked position then back down and up and locked and unlocked and down and locked and unlocked and locked and unlocked… click, click, click, clickclick, clickclick, click. 5 minutes. 10 minutes. How long will this go on? Glad she’s too old for that. She leaves it in the full upright and locked position. I felt something let go in me when I showed her how to use the seat belt. An old resentment from being too many times a passenger watching the preflight safety demonstration. We roll our eyes, the seasoned travelers, at the flight attendants who have to, by law, demonstrate how to operate the seat belt. Who doesn’t know? She didn’t know. Why would she? It took her a couple tries to master it. I’m glad for the experience, glad I can let go finally. One less thing to irritate me about flying. One more thing to remind me how much child exists in all of us – wide eyed, not knowing, we don’t know everything and when we do, there is always the plane instead of the bus.

Don't Wait

2007-08-13T22:41:00.000-07:00

I had a conversation with someone the other day. She was depressed. She wondered, What will do? How will I do it? How can I do anything? I can not do anything. She’s twenty-one years old and doesn’t know which direction her life is going.

Listening to her grief, I thought of my self when I was that age – actually, for most of my early twenties I worried about such things, sometimes sinking into a deep fatalistic depression. I let her vent her fears and concerns for a while and tried to turn her in the direction of a little less self-pity and a little more action.

“You’re still young,” I told her, “you don’t have to know what you’re going to be when you grow up. Don’t worry, it will come to you.”

It’s not very easy to accept such advice. It puts a lot of faith on something that no one can back up without the passage of time. I tried a different, more tangible tactic to help my friend pull herself out of her self-inflicted malaise.

She doesn’t know what she wants to do. That’s ok. There are plenty of times in life when we don’t know what we are going to do next. Eventually, the idea will come and it is at that time we must act. Which brings me to the title of today’s entry, DON’T WAIT.

When we are not sure of what we will do next, that is not the time to sit and wonder what we will do next. Obsessing on our own confusion gets us no where other than more deeply entrenched in our own confusion. It serves only to make us feel worse and make arriving at a decision a painful waiting experience.

Of course, if you don’t confront your problems, they will never be resolved. However, once confronting our problems becomes the problem itself, then it is time to focus our attention elsewhere and allow time – and our subconscious genius – to work out a suitable solution.

I told my friend to table her worries of what will she do and focus instead on how she will do. Worrying about what you will be when you grow up is not helping.

I suggested to her, “Instead of worrying, why don’t you learn how to succeed first.”

The expected blank look came to her face. People all around the world do not know of this method, however, it is viable and very effective. Learn how to succeed and you will succeed at whatever you choose. The secret of succeeding is not a matter of getting lucky or having the right contacts. The secret is to teach oneself how to set goals and achieve them. Be warned, though, learning how to succeed starts small and is greatly reliant on setting realistic goals.

Twenty-one years old. Don’t know what to do. Don’t know how to do it. Can’t do anything. It seems like a very short dead end street to me. But look over there, not too far off this path is another path. A path begging to be explored. It’s a path where specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-based (SMART) goals can be set and reached Set your sights low at first. I will make sure all my bills are paid and all my accounts are up to date each Friday for the next two months. Maybe that’s too aggressive. For five consecutive days, I will wake up each morning before 9:00 am and make at least one phone call to a prospective employer. Eventually, your goals will become more complex as you master setting and achieving goals. Then you will be prepared to do what you want to do when you grow up.

It’s not so much a matter of what your goals are. It’s more a matter that you train yourself to set smart goals, approach them with clarity and determination and recognize the rewarding feeling of accomplishing what you said you would do. It’s a very useful technique for strengthening the success muscles. Something I wish I had learned twenty years earlier. Something I wished I knew about when I was sitting around, feeling sorry for myself, wondering what I would be when I grow up. I could have been spending that time teaching myself how to succeed so that once I figured out what I would do, I would have some experience in achieving my goals.

Amateurs

2007-08-10T20:37:00.000-07:00

There’s a reason to my lack of posting lately. It has to do with a newspaper article I read poolside at the Nana Hotel in Bangkok (fifteen stories of perversion in Sukhumvit). The article was a review of a book called “The Cult of Amateur: How today’s Internet is killing our culture” by Andrew Keen. I can’t find a copy of the book here, but I’ve read a number of reviews and reader-reviews. Most people say the same thing: it gives provocative insight, but goes off the rails in some areas. Regardless if the book is good or bad, it’s existence and general sentiment has made me think a little bit more about what I’m putting out in blog form.

There is a compounding element that has added to my paralyzed efforts. Much of the content I produce is based on Buddhist philosophy. One of the Buddhist principles is to not disseminate false information (ubiquitous in all faiths... I think). Ethically I do have some responsibility to be accurate when presenting any material; personally, I feel this even stronger in the context of religion or spirituality. While never presenting myself as an expert on the subject and using some good-ol’ fashioned doing the best I can, I hope to maintain some form of immunity.

I read those words and can not help but wonder: Immunity from what???

Do we need immunity in order to speak or act or write? Do we need licenses – certifications of authenticity – to empower us to share an idea, opinion or belief? Is the onus on the speaker, and not the listener, to define what is fact and what is conjecture? If so, I need to shut up a long time ago.

Similar to the padded playground where no one learns to be careful because they don’t understand how much broken bones hurt, people are trying to muzzle free, misinformed, communication. Long before the world became literate (or started down that path), Og was free to go up to Toh and grunt for as long as Toh would entertain him. Toh never believed Og’s grunting, but he would listen to it from time to time, just to get another perspective. Toh is a brave man for taking his chances with the myriad misinformation outside the padded playground.

The cult of amateur goes back much further than the internet, so does the killing of culture. Amateurs have been badly fixing their own tools, poorly advising their children, inappropriately consoling their heartbroken friends and a doing a bad job with a whole plethora of other things for centuries. They’ve had no formal training, often gave lousy advise and disastrous results have followed. Other times, a laymen has provided good advice leading to healthy marriages, community progress, even scientific or artistic breakthroughs. Sometimes, it’s not even the quality of the advice but the cathartic nature of communication itself which spawns a bright ending.

So, if communication – and I stress, communication of unwittingly false information – is the death of our culture, how long ago did our culture begin to die? Certainly no one ever thought that cats would steal the souls from sleeping infants and no one ever told another person that bathing was a deadly act. No chef ever told another that tomatoes were poisonous and there was never an educated person who believed the world was flat.

My opinion, which is always to be regarded with great skepticism, is that the cult of amateur is exactly what defines culture. It is the expert who categorizes culture, yet it is the amateur who constitutes it. Nothing new is happening here. Og and Toh grunted. Horace Greeley duked it out with the penny press. Oprah hosted the highest rated talk show in television history. Og, Toh, Horace and, I believe, Oprah, had no college education, no doctorate in anything and certainly no credentials other than they experienced, they listened, they decided what they believed and then they spoke up – sometimes inaccurately with disastrous results. Calling Horace and Oprah amateurs isn’t really fair since they are experts in spinning information. However with the clarity of retrospect, ask a General and not a newspaper editor where to send troops; ask a therapist and not a talk show host how to save your marriage.

Are we a culture who buys into bogus beliefs? Certainly. Yet, it isn’t the people spewing those beliefs who need corrective action. It is the audience who must question the source and the validity of anything they hear or read. It’s a scary world out there. You will be on your own deciding what to believe and what to dismiss. Have faith that you, too, will make a bad decision from time to time. You will probably also say something that isn’t exactly true. But don’t worry about killing your own culture, it’s been dying for a lot longer than you think.

[By the way, some things in this entry I looked up on the internet. It’s definitely all true, because someone put it on a website.]

Answers?

2007-08-02T20:39:00.000-07:00

Do you have the answers? Are you sure? It may come as a shocking surprise but not all that we think is true. It may be true for a while, but all things must come to an end. Perhaps information is not excluded from this.

An expert on smell and scent claims that not all things have a smell. He explains that for something to have a smell it must emit molecules the size of 16 carbon atoms or less in order for it to have smell. He sounds quite certain of this. However, I can not help but think of the koan ‘if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?’. If something emits a scent larger than 16 carbon atoms, a size too big for our olfactory system, is it void of scent or is it us that is void of perception? Here is where I, the layman with no scientific training, and the expert, with a vast repertoire of research, must part ways.

We are an audacious species. We know only what we can think. And we refute that which is incomprehensible or indiscernible. Yet that does not prove it does not exist. We have ghosts and spirits and psychic activity on the fringe of our accepted common knowledge to occupy the time of rebellious thought pioneers. But what lies beyond this fringe area? How vast is the space which exists beyond the universes? How vast is the space which exists beyond our thoughts?

As a child, we believe that mom and dad are gods. Later, our teachers become emperors and empresses. Hormones kick in, teenage rebellion overtakes our previous knowledge and mom, dad and teachers take an icarian dive. We grow even older and outrunning the cops changes from exciting to pure stupidity. Time passes and we slip from resenting our seniors to the asking those more experienced for advice. Age seeps in and, eventually, we end up liking elastic waistbands because they are more comfortable, more practical, like cataract sunglasses.

Answers change and we need to accept this. We need to acknowledge that what might have been perfect yesterday is only tolerable today and tomorrow we have no taste for it. That is only the tip of the iceberg. How much of what we know is absolutely wrong, and yet we all buy into this mass hypnosis from lack of energy or fear of going against the grain?

This could go on forever. But I know I have vinegar to buy and a lamp to fix and a few other errands to run. Perhaps I will see a ghost at the market. Perhaps I will levitate with my packages over the chaotic traffic. Perhaps I will discover that my reserves of love are three times the size of a molecule I can smell. I don’t have the answers, only observations.

Who?

2007-08-01T23:27:00.000-07:00

During last night's dinner conversation...

Shakespeare, William Shakespeare, the famous playwright?
hmmmm... I've never heard of Shakespeare. I've heard of Britnay Spears.
No relation.

An explanation of the terms genius and bubble gum followed.

Something to Say?

2007-07-24T20:37:00.001-07:00

One of the most uncouth things a person can do – and one of the most frequent faux pas of falang in Southeast Asia – is to raise their voice. Raising one’s voice shows a myriad of flaws. It shows loss of self-control. It shows unnecessary disrespect. It shows ignorance to local culture (when in Rome…). Most of all, it shows everyone within earshot the skid marks in your own underwear.

This morning I skipped the 7:30 departure to a particularly good dive location. I wanted to sleep in. I wanted to rest a little extra before heading back to the mainland and my quiet and orderly existence in Laos. By habit, I woke at 7:00 a.m., checked the time and opted for more sleep. At 7:55, I was awakened by voices outside. I could hear the voices, but could not make out the words. I slid back into sleep. The voices continued. By 8:05, I abandoned by grandiose thoughts of sleeping until 9 or maybe even 10; the voices showed no sign of stopping.

I listened more closely. Was someone telling an exciting tale of last night’s adventures? I hoped so. I got up and went to the bathroom. I tried to peek through the ventilation slits of the concrete wall to see what was happening outside – I thought of my nosy ex-wife who always peered through curtains and wanted to know what was going on with other people. I couldn’t see the men. There were two men. I could tell from the voices. One was English. The other I thought to be Thai. The Thai voice was trying to express, to console, to empathize, to find a suitable solution. The English voice spoke over and beat down on the Thai voice – he did not want to hear, he only wanted to have his say, to assert his rightness, to aggress his own absolute perfection. The Thai voice was calm and rather quiet. The English voice was everywhere and demanding. Did he want a refund? I thought of a trip to Jamaica years ago when a honeymooner wanted a refund in early October because the brochure failed to mention the daily rain in the Caribbean in October. I pissed, dressed and walked outside.

Stepping onto the porch, the words were now discernable. Bed bugs… I didn’t put bed bugs in the mattress… It’s your fault… if anyone is responsible for bed bugs it’s you. The Englishman had a long brown shit stain flowing out of his mouth. The Englishman thinks the Thai intentionally wants itchy guests who will tell others about a crappy resort where conditions are substandard. The Thai is patient and as I step out onto the porch, the conversation ends. The shirtless Englishman with an homogenously rebellious tattoo on his lower back walks away with flippant gestures and aural puss seeping into the sand. The Thai is smiling, not because he has won or because he is happy or because he enjoyed an 8:00 am pissing contest or because his other guests had to listen to this nonsense – he is happy because he knows there is no point in being unhappy. His day can not be ruined because of someone else’s bad behaviour and miniscule suffering.

How is it done correctly in Thailand? How is it done correctly anywhere in the world? Calmly approach. Make it quietly clear than a problem has occurred and a discussion is warranted. Step into a private area, a place where no one has to endure your own dirty laundry. Have your conversation. If voices are raised, they are raised in a cloistered fashion. The matter is exposed, a solution is presented and all people walk away with at least an agreement to disagree. Then, maybe the guy in bungalow 3 will sleep a little later than normal and have nothing to write that day.

Fishing, Not Catching

2007-07-21T21:33:00.000-07:00

It’s nice to take a break sometimes. Some people call it decompression. Some people call it shifting your assemblage point. Call it what you like, it’s can do a world of good to alter the daily routine so that we can see the richness in our daily routine.

Here on unnamed island, where I wrote What Do You Do over one year ago, I am again reinvigorated by the sound of the waves, communing with the red banded sea snakes, hunting for the elusive sea turtle and avoiding the trigger fish. The mornings start early with a couple a SCUBA dives, the afternoons require sweaty patience while alternating between the sand and dips in the hot ocean water. But what I am fishing for is not necessarily found in the sea.

Sometimes I need to just sit back, relax and see what comes. Maybe it is a job opportunity, maybe it is a moment of inspiration, maybe it is a sensing of my own life blended with a sense of my own mortality. I can not predict what lie below the surface. Like a fisherman, out in his boat in the early morning hours, I put my line and wait. Perhaps the fisherman will get a nibble – a snapper, a trout, a boot – perhaps he will row ashore empty handed. Yet, like the fisherman, it is not so much that I catch something, it is the act of going out and trying. And trying, in and of itself, is a strange twist of logic.

I put my line in the water and see if something comes. While bobbing about, I try not to think about what I might catch. I try not to think about the big one I got just the other day. How will I season what I have not yet caught? It is pointless to pre-heat the oven for a meal with no ingredients. Instead, I listen and taste and smell and swallow what it is I have at the moment. And as I tap into that moment, the bob dunks under the water – or it doesn’t. Eventually, I row ashore with a more clear perspective on who I am, who is the fish, what is a boat, a rod, a hook. I row ashore and try not to congratulate myself for thinking I know what trying means. Instead, I just am. And that should be enough for now.

How do you act out a preposition?

2007-07-12T19:44:00.000-07:00

For whatever reason, I give free English lessons each weekday. Perhaps it’s some form of karmic cleansing. Perhaps it provides a little bit of that structure I’m always talking about. Whatever the reason, there is something about teaching that gives me a great thrill. The thrill comes from many different directions at once. In one way, it allows me an opportunity to reflect on my own struggles learning to speak the Laos language. It’s an opportunity to pay it forward. And there is the thrill of going to the office supply store to buy materials for visual aids. There is the thrill of maybe getting some return on that time spent pursuing performing arts. In other ways, it gives me a chance to do what I love the most: help other people.

In all my classes, whether they are English or computer science or meditation, I make a concerted effort to make sure it is fun. In fact, I try to make class silly. The class has to be fun for me and it has to be fun for my students. If we are not having fun, we are not learning. Of course, there are always obstacles to bring the fun to class. Sometimes I’m tired or unprepared. Sometimes someone is late. One of the most frustrating obstacles for me is when I will say one word, “some” for example, which will cause a long discussion in the Laos language. I’m learning to let it slide.

The other day, my students showed up early and made lunch for all of us. It’s a nice gesture and I was grateful for it – it is true that feeding someone is one of the nicest things a person can do. However, the gesture created a certain challenge to my agenda. With full bellies, the students were likely to fall asleep. After lunch is the most difficult time to teach.

To counteract the drowsiness of my students, I knew I would have to really knock the lesson out of the park. I would have to draw on all my presentation skills – skills beyond simply switching from one side of the whiteboard to another – in order to keep their attention and make an indelible impression. To add insult to injury, today’s subject was prepositions (you remember them right? In, on, above, through, with, to…).

It’s relatively easy to act out the verbs – walk, shout, am. It’s also not so hard to point to nouns and dress them up with adjectives. Even adverbs are not so hard to impersonate… if I am silly enough to demonstrate carefully, quickly, slowly and so on, there is a chance they might just remember. However, acting out through and at and with is a bit more of a challenge; Toward was nearly impossible.

We made it through prepositions I had planned. Salt played a big role in the lesson. The salt is on the table, above the table, under the table, with the glass, behind the glass. There was a combination of horror and laughter when the salt went in the glass. For me, my mind was somewhere else. The salt water.

I miss the salt water. I miss the ocean. Today, I will head toward the west and make my way to the Gulf of Siam to do some diving. After three months in a landlocked country I need to look upon the ocean. I need to look out over the sea. I need to wade into the ocean. I need to swim in the water. I need to get under the surface and breath from a Nitrox tank. If my entries are a little less frequent over the next two weeks it is not from lack of interest, instead it is simply because I am having a bit more fun.

A Sound

2007-07-10T20:18:00.000-07:00

A single sound can make all the difference. It’s hot today, hot like yesterday, hot like tomorrow. It’s humid, I don’t move much. Reaching for a cup of coffee while I wait for the oscillating fan to blow another steamy kiss my way, two young boys pass by the café. Their voices are high and squeaky. The café rents bicycles. All bicycles have bells. They can not resist. They ring the bells three times each and work their way down the row of red and blue bicycles with baskets parked in a row.

“Hey, look everybody,” Martini yells above the din, “I’m giving out wings!” Clarence rises above the taunt with a subtle smile. He’s got George Bailey to deal with; the people of Beaver Falls will have to wait another Christmas for their salvation.

The sound of the squeaky voices, the ringing of the bells, the thought that maybe there is an avalanche of wings being handed out to angels in waiting, the memory of Juju’s petals – these things make me smile. One of the little boys returns, alone, a few minutes later. He’s not squeaking and makes a more solemn stop at two of the bikes, this time ringing only once. Perhaps there were a few disappointed angels that he knew had waited long enough. He rings and moves on. I smile again.

The bell on my motorbike is not a bell. It’s not a horn. It’s a dull and tired electric clang like when I took apart the telephone as a child and pressed my little palm against the bell and waited for a call. I didn’t know about the bell on my motorbike until a few days ago. A dog wandered out into the street in front of me. Asian dogs are more savvy than North American dogs in terms of roadside safety. Some wander out into the road, but they all manage to get home safely each night to sleep on the high cool safety of the concrete table. He wandered out into the street, the light would change soon and I wanted to accelerate – not because I really wanted to get through the light, but because stopping for the light would mean 60 seconds of stationary baking in the sun inside my dark red helmet.

Clang. Clang. Clang. The pathetic sound was barely audible. The dog looked at me and smiled. I smiled back and laughed with my passenger about the sorry excuse for a horn. We made the light, the dog got to the other side, but I don’t think anyone got any wings from the affair.

Looking for...

2007-07-09T21:59:00.000-07:00

In one of Tony Hillerman’s novels, Jim Chee says “I’m not looking for anything in particular because then I might not see something I’m not looking for.” There are days when I forget this perspective; today is one of those days. I woke up and sat down with the intention of writing something. That was three hours ago.

When I feel this way, I look for a jolt. I look for something to change my point of perspective. When my mind is already going too fast in too particular of a direction, I need to de-focus and listen to what is there. This isn’t always the easiest of tasks. The largest obstacle is that there seems to be no consistent recipe or method for shaking my self out of it. As a result, I have to try different things to see if they shake things free.

Today, I tried first drinking lots of coffee. That just made me shake. Then, I decided to read some news headlines (typically a good approach for me), but there was no muse in the paper today. Thinking I might be too dormant, I got out the glass cleaner and newspaper (lacking in inspiration otherwise) and washed a few windows. Window washing, like floor scrubbing, ironing, and other domestic chores has a way of getting me out of my head and then back in again. I had a few cleaner windows, but no inspirational thoughts. Hot and humid already at 10 a.m., I sat back down to stare at the screen. I flipped through some NPR podcasts; Lizz Wright singing Reaching for the Moon on KCRW’s Today’s Top Tune was beautiful and melancholic but I have no time today for romance and love songs; NPR Books talked about first time novelists which left me intimidated and ready to head back to IniTech. Antsy, I decided to clip my long-overdue fingernails while finishing up On Words with John Chiardi. It wasn’t Mr. Chiardi’s explanation of the rhombus that got me moving, it was the comfort of once again being able to type with the pads of my fingers and not my nails.

Frequently, I need this type of therapeutic activity. I think we all do. It may not be the same types of things for all people; some people go to the gym, others walk their dog or get drunk or watch the sunset, while still others listen to music or read a book or watch a movie or look at photographs. Regardless of the method(s), the act of changing one’s perspective can greatly enhance our clarity of thought.

Emotion Education

2007-07-09T03:43:00.000-07:00

I read a headline the other day where a new government initiative requires students learn how do deal with their emotions. It made me think of my own primary education experience.

In my early years of primary school, there were several initiatives to revamp and update the education system. This somewhat grass-roots movement didn’t target the education system directly, instead it focused on making improved educational materials ubiquitously available. The most prominent of these was the Children’s Television Network who provided Sesame Street and The Electric Company. In addition, there was the Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) program. RIF was literacy improvement campaign across the nation. It was throughout the school system and advertised on television. One of the most noticeable aspects of the RIF program was the Book Mobile.

I loved the Book Mobile. To me, it was a portable euphoria – a mobile oasis of words and thoughts. The day I saw my mom volunteering inside the book mobile, I thought I was having an out-of-body experience. The Book Mobile inspired my love of books the same way Easy Reader (played by Morgan Freeman) on Electric Company inspired my love of reading. The people working to create a better world through education dramatically shaped who I am today.

At the same time as the early days of Children’s Television Network and RIF, there was a television program which aired during school hours called Ripple. Ripple focused on questions of morality and ethics. It was designed to stimulate discussion. Teachers were provided with printed discussion prompters and it was made clear to the students that there was no right answer, only opinions. During the broadcast, there would be an intermission where teachers would ask the suggested questions and students would respond.

“How do you think Billy should handle this situation? How do you think Betty will feel if he doesn’t stop his bullying?” “Why?”

Then the show would continue. At the conclusion of the show, teachers again would follow the itinerary and ask additional questions. “Did Billy do the right thing? Should Betty continue to be Billy’s friend?” “Why?”

For me, and for many of my classmates, Ripple was a effective way of learning to consider our actions; learning to think in terms of ‘how would I feel?’ and ‘what would I do in that situation?’ and “Why?”.

The recent headline made me wonder about many questions. How does the U.K. plan to teach lessons in how to deal with our emotions? How have we learned from earlier experiments and influences in education? What progress has been made in regards to early education on the topics of emotions, ethics and morals? One would hope that the modern pioneers of the late sixties and early seventies had set solid foundations. One would think that a national endeavor to expose students to considering the consequences of their actions would have evolved naturally from those times. In many ways I think these positive progressions have been made. However, I have often wondered if the sticks attached to Kermit the Frog’s arms have been handled by the advertisers, media corporations and the politicians and not by Sir Saint Henson. (What???? Jim Henson isn’t a knight or a saint, yet?!!!”).

I really don’t know the full story on the state of education in America. I know some things – the vocabulary of the average Yank is a fraction of the average Brit’s vocabulary; without a digital cash register, giving correct change is impossible; many high school graduates are illiterate; nearly no one knows the location of Sumatra (not the bag of coffee at Starbucks, the island… or is it a country?); and quite a few people have their britches in a bunch over a moment of silence. In short, I think the education system is both doing great and sadly misaligned. I can’t help but fear much of the work done when I was a child was abandoned.

I know it’s not a simple subject. There are thousands of working pieces in finding a solution and scores of interested parties have to have their say. However, I think the “Just do it” approach is warranted. A delay based on the “better not because you might offend” approach is a waste of time. I can foresee the U.S.A. delaying indefinitely with endless derailed conversations on standardized training for ethical behaviour. I am hopeful for next wave of students. In the absence of something substantial, how will their sanitized education leave them equipped to handle an emotional experience.

Big Mouth

2007-07-06T20:31:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I talked about the silent treatment. In a separate posting I talked about the book, The Four Agreements. Today, the combination of the old adage ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything,’ and the first of the four agreements ‘Be impeccable with your words’ come to mind.

I’m a chatty person – to put it mildly. I like to talk. It’s not so much that I like to hear my own voice as it is a matter of wanting to stimulate conversation. I’m not very concerned about the topic conversation, so long as there is conversation. However, I sometimes think I should be a little more attentive to the topic.

Referencing a third posting regarding Old Age, I talked about Israeli backpackers. I knew when I wrote the entry that I would probably offend. When I, myself, first heard about this phenomenon, I was rather skeptical. I thought I was hearing some anti-Semitic slander. However, anyone who has encountered this situation knows that it is a very real deal. I wasn’t meaning to offend anyone, I was trying to make a point about an un-harnessed mind. Unfortunately, I lost a few regular readers as a result. It makes me feel bad that this happened, but I wont retract my words; politics are just not for me.

This is nothing new to me. Both in writing and in person, I have offended people. I have often lost their interest and appreciation. Yet, I do not seem to be willing or able to curtail my uber-candid speak. It is the razors edge all over again. If I were to hold back on my opinions, as uncomfortable as they may be, I would feel I was not being true to my nature. It is, in part, my candor, which assists me in gaining the trust of others; people who work with me know that I will cut through the bullshit very quickly to arrive at a sound conclusion.

Over the years, I’ve been burned many times by this part of my personality. I have also gotten a lot of miles out of it. I’ve tempered my tone and words (a great amount of thanks to my infusion in Canadian society) yet I still do not hold back.

Is it necessary to sugar coat my words in order to be impeccable? Or can I be the straight shooter that I am as long as I make it clear that I am striving for the ideal and not for comfort?

Hitch’, Gates, Slim, Kumari

2007-07-05T21:19:00.000-07:00

I never really knew much of Christopher Hitchens. I’ve heard his name a couple times but I’ve never considered much of what he has to say one way or the other. His book, God is Not Great, apparently is causing a bit of a stir.

I’ve never really knew much of Kumaris (literally translated from Nepali as ‘virgin’). I might have read about Sajani Shakya, the Kumari Devi of Bhaktapur, but I’ve never considered any form of worship for this current incarnation of Taleju. Apparently, Kumari Devi tainted her goddess blood by visiting the United States of America. She’s been dismissed.

I’ve heard of Gates and Buffet, but I’ve never heard of Carlos Slim, the richest man alive with a net worth of $67.8 billion. I don’t think very often of the net worth of these people – I’ve read books by and about them, mostly because I need to stay current, or at least sound like I have a foggy notion of who’s who. Apparently, someone has noticed that Carlos Slim wore a plastic watch.

People find things offensive. They fired Don Imus for opening his mouth one too many times, but no one surveyed radio listeners to find out how many people simply tuned into another channel, a channel more palatable to their own perspective. Is God great? Or is God not great? Is this a decision you want to leave to Mr. Hitchens? Has Taleju left the body of Sajani Shakya? Should faith in Taleju be suspended until a more submissive and less adventurous vessel is found? Should I pity myself – my poverty – because I can not spend an unjustified $9.7 million on a jet?

We have to make our own choices in this life. We have to accept the choices that others make. If a person wants to be an anti-theist, that is their prerogative. As a committed practitioner of my faith, I must accept other’s choices or I must abandon my own belief that the onus is on each individual to carve out their own position. If someone or something helps out along the way, so much the better.

If organized religion is deemed evil by your neighbor, allow them to avoid it – until they find a different viewpoint, it will indeed remain evil in their mind. If a goddess transgresses from the age-old way, maybe it is time to rethink the age old way and not the goddess. If a man, after 13 years of being the wealthiest becomes the second wealthiest, has anything changed? Has anything changed for you? Is your faith shaken? Stirred?

I once heard a story of the Buddha who taught that if you meet someone and they tell you your religion is inferior, you should agree with them, smile, and continue on your way.

In the Laos language there is an expression, Lao de jao. I hear it quite a bit. It means It’s up to you. It’s up to you, Mr. Hitchens, to decide what you want to do. As for me, I will make my own decisions.

Retrograde

2007-07-04T22:53:00.001-07:00

Retrograde is one of those funny words. It has a meaning, but in some contexts the meaning is not exactly accurate. There are several definitions of ‘retrograde’. Essentially it means “moving in a backward direction”

I first started hearing the word ‘retrograde’ in the mid-1970’s. In Boston, Massachusetts, the Cosmic Muffin, a radio personality, did a daily astrology forecast. Often, I would hear him say the words “Mercury retrograde”. I liked the sound of it, but I didn’t really know what it meant until years later. ‘Mercury retrograde’ means the planet appears to move in backward direction.

In reality, it is not that a planet is moving backwards, it is an “illusory planetary motion created by the orbital rotation of the earth, with relation to other planets in our solar system.” (www.astrologycom.com).

Mercury, the planet, is mainly associated with communication and travel. Often, when Mercury is retrograde, things go a little haywire. Packages get lost, contracts go belly-up, misunderstandings abound during this period. Many people get frustrated with their lives during a Mercury retrograde period – it typically lasts about 4 to 6 weeks. While some things go astray during Mercury retrograde, other things go quite well. One of the beneficial aspects is reconnecting with old friends. Mercury retrograde is an excellent time to reconnect with old friends.

And now, today’s story begins…

Leaving New York City was very difficult for me. It was home. My friends were there. My career was there. My life was there. However, I felt inside me an emptiness that I felt could not be filled in the confines of Brooklyn. So, I decided to make my way around the world to see if there was a spot that suited me. So far, I am halfway around. This week is the four year anniversary of the beginning of my journey. I guess don’t like to move very fast.

One of the reasons I’m taking my time doing this is that I’m not a stamp collector – passport stamps that is. Instead, I like to sit in the same café for a month and see the daily routine around me. I like to settle into a place and learn about the people and the cool places and the people who pass through. Along the way, I meet people and they become friends. It’s rather unconventional, but my friends are scattered around the globe. I hope, when we’re all very old, it will be as easy as catching a subway to go from Hong Kong to Vancouver. Or maybe it will be from Venus to Mercury that we travel at light speed.

The other day, I received an email from a musician friend of mine. He and I met in 2001 via a random phone call. He had actually called to speak to the person I was subletting an apartment. Ever since that one phone call, he and I have been very close friends. It turns out we are distant cousins. I was very happy to receive his email. He is continuing his pursuit of music (he’s a dyed-in-the-wool rocker) and his band, Needless Junkie, is doing well. The most excellent bit of news I heard (and here’s where I’m going to make a point, so pay attention), the bass player in the Band, Matt Holt, is still winning his 10 year fight against leukemia.

Matt is one of the many inspirations in my life. When I first met Matt, it took me a while to be able to comprehend how a person fighting such a deadly affliction could be so positive and even keeled. As I got to know him, I learned a big lesson about following your heart. Matt, also a died-in-the-wool musician, loves to play guitar. He’s quite amazing on the lead guitar, although he plays bass in the band. I don’t think Matt has filled his head with misguided aspirations. He stuck to what he loved; music. I think, in some ways, this has helped him with his struggle.

I like to think, that I, too, am sticking to what I love; writing. Possibly it is partially by the inspiration of Matt Holt, that I have the courage to take these risks and live comfortably with the outcome.

How about you? Are you comfortable with how you spent your day? Do you remember to keep in touch with your friends? The past is gone, yet we can continue build on those foundations to live a rich and wonderful life.

Perspective

2007-07-04T01:34:00.000-07:00

Does this board make my tail look big?

My plans for today had to change. Originally, I planned to head out of the city to visit my friend’s relatives. My friend had prepped for the visit. They are extremely poor – no light, no food, only a shack, sheltering the parents and some children. I’ve seen this type of thing before, but, for some reason, I had a certain apprehension. I am very close to my friend. It breaks my heart to see her relatives hungry. I search for ways to help without insulting dignity.

About a year ago, I met my friend’s sister; the wife of a farmer. She too is very poor. In her home she has a mat, a charcoal grill, a small jar of salt and a nearly empty bag of rice. She also has two pots for cooking. In the corner, there is an old fashioned rifle where the gunpowder is poured down the barrel, tamped and a plug is dropped in afterwards. That’s pretty much all I saw.

We visited for about an hour or so. She was cooking dinner for her family. Dinner was a handful of rice and two tiny pieces of chicken. A generous host, she offered me a piece of the chicken and some sticky rice. I could not accept it – my belly was full from a marvelous meal earlier that day. She was one of the many kind and sincere people I have met in Laos and her abject poverty was shadowed by her happiness and her show of love for her child and sister and her openness to meet her sister’s friend.

I remember feeling quite poor that day. Not because I have no money or because I am hungry, but because I have had too much. In comparison, I have lived a life of opulence. In my family also, there is a wealth of love and kindness. In my family there are unbreakable bonds that will last through eternity. We use the phrase “I’m starving” only as a euphemism – we have been very fortunate to not know true hunger. In the back of my mind, as I sat there that day, I felt an incomprehensible feeling that somehow because of my fortunate circumstances, I understood nothing of life. It’s hard to put into words exactly where that thought comes from yet it is an intangible feeling I will never forget.

Yesterday, in the news, President George W. Bush commuted the sentence of Scooter Libby for his obstruction of justice on matters of national security of the USA. I think about the amount of money spent as a result of this one decision. There were millions of dollars spent on media, broadcasting, and advertising. There were immeasurable megawatts of energy spent on reactions to this decision – op-ed articles, analyst responses, heated discussions in pubs and think tanks. It seems that poor Mr. Libby will still be out of about a quarter of a million dollars in penalties and suffers irrevocable damage to his career.

The people who I did not meet today, they don’t know who Scooter Libby is. They don’t know who Valerie Plame is. They have never heard of Joseph Wilson. They don’t have a television with cable and CNN and BBC. They have empty bags of rice and hungry children and they burn non-existent candles down to the very last thread of a wick. The millions of dollars which were spent around one decision in the first world yesterday did not consider whether these people will eat tomorrow. The turmoil and suffering and career devastation of this one person seems so out of context with what most of the world thinks about everyday; where will I find my next meal. It’s times like this, I wonder why I bother to turn on the television at all.

I hope tomorrow to head out of the city to meet these relatives. I am not sure what I should bring. I’ve considered bringing a copy of the Bangkok Post or a video clip of Mr. Libby’s perjurous testimony. Instead, I think I will bring some rice and some left over duck from tonight’s dinner. As I sit in their home, I will try not to think about how badly Mr. Libby is suffering. I will try not to think about how difficult it is to be a war time president or a whistle-blowing ambassador. I will try not to think about a lot of things that seem so out of perspective when we are stripped of our comfortable and contorted first world values.

Cow Tits

2007-07-02T21:20:00.000-07:00

Let’s get away from the whole Buddhism thing for a while. It’s become too heavy, too intellectual. I month or so ago, in an entry titled Equanimity, I spoke about a professor in university who spoke of being in the moment. One of the criticisms she had for me was that I would over intellectualize things. So, taking her advice, I need to take a breather from all this deep thinking and just lets some words flow.

Yesterday, I was invited out for dinner. Due to some language restrictions, the invitation was to eat barbequed cow tits. Over dinner, I tried my best to explain the words boob, tits, teats, and udders. I have never had udder before and whilst suspending the visual image of the invite, I found it to be quite delicious. Also the heart was good. The barbequed tripe was a bit too chewy for me. Tourists are not exposed to real Laos cuisine which is a shame because it is much better than most of the cuisine they see.

While eating dinner, an army of ants came to greet me and sample some of my sauces and meats. I wondered why my dinner companion did not attract the multitude of ants that I did. Can ants tell who is a falang and who is Laotian? I wonder. They certainly do have quite a sense of humor those ants of Laos. In addition to the six or seven thousand ants crawling around my table space, a nursing dog (most female dogs in Laos are perpetually nursing), came and rested her nose on my lap – big puppy dog eyes seemed to say ‘I’m starving and I have a family to feed’. Everyone had a good time, but I think the dog was a little disappointed that I was not much of a pushover.

Sometime during the course of the dinner, my thoughts turned to my brother. I think about the prospect of my family members visiting me here. Of all my relatives, I think my brother and my father would be the most suited to experiencing the real Laos. I think my mother would not last more than an hour or two. There is a level of acceptance required to be here, yet once that leap is made, it seems somehow more real than the aisles of Wal-Mart and the form mold chairs of Burger King.

Beyond the ubiquity of ants are the giant spiders in my home, the silly geckos who play hide-and-seek in the curtains, the insane driving patterns of the locals, the open air everything – markets, restaurants, beer gardens, barbers, and so forth. There is the oppressive heat and humidity and the guarantee that no shirt will stay dry either by perspiration or torrential rain. Each thing on it’s own is not so bad. Compiled into the overall experience, it can be overwhelming. As I keep telling people, it is not for everyone. For some of us, it is a slice of euphoria – euphoria for me, the ants, the nursing dogs, the spiders, the geckos. Maybe the cows are not so ecstatic or maybe I’m wrong… maybe they are proud that their sacrifice brings such gastronomic delight. Thank you, cows. You’re delicious. If the shoe was on the other hoof, I would happily give you my heart.

The True Master

2007-06-30T23:36:00.000-07:00

At last, we reach the final chapter of the Dhammapada. I have mixed emotions about this experience. Some of the stuff was good, some of it not so good. Overall, it was helpful to me to spend time contemplating each chapter. It was also a good structure for me to use as my morning calisthenics for writing, before turning to my larger writing projects. I hope at least one chapter resonated with you.

Like any good book, fiction or non-fiction, I have trouble reading the last chapter. There are books on my shelves (truthfully, they are in boxes in a storage unit), which have sat for years waiting for me to read the last few pages. Today is no different. I am tempted to leave any elocution on The True Master for some other day. However, I said I would do all 26 chapters and I don’t like to go back on my word – even if it’s only a promise to myself. So what should I say about The True Master.

Instead of taking a single quote from this chapter, I thought it would be interesting to take all the statements in the chapter with the word “is” and put them together. This is what it looks like:

“The man who is awake shines in the radiance of the spirit.”

“A master is never proud.”

“He is not afraid.”

“He is infinitely free.”

“He is never angry.”

“He is determined.”

“He is free.”

“He is serene.”

“He is calm.”

“He is pure and free.”

“ […] he is one.”

“Free” seems to be a recurring theme. We all want to be free. We want to live in the kingdom of heaven. Even the atheist who believes that after life, there is only decomposition, wants to be free. Freedom is beyond God. Freedom is beyond any one particular belief or sect. Freedom is something that is real and eternal and pure bliss. I don’t know a soul who does not want to be free.

Perhaps this rather unorthodox rehashing of the Dhammapada will help drive me towards freedom. Perhaps there was a sentence or phrase I wrote that will stick with you for a while and help you on your path. It’s hard to say what effect this will have on anyone, but I hope somehow it serves a purpose.

The Seeker

2007-06-28T20:01:00.000-07:00

“There are five at the door
To turn away, and five more
And there are five to welcome in.

And when five have been left
Stranded on the shore,
The seeker is called oghatinnoti —
‘He who has crossed over.’”
- Dhammapada

Yesterday, I talked about numbers and their simultaneously important and irrelevant nature in the context of scriptures. In that post, I said, ‘It doesn’t matter how many of anything.’. Once again, here is proof that the more I learn, the less I know; the more I speak, the more often I am wrong. When I turned to the next chapter titled The Seeker, I came across the above quote. Thankfully, Thomas Byrom provided a footnote and itemized the fives.

“The first five are selfishness, doubt, false spirituality, passion, hatred. The second five are longing for birth both with a body, and without one, vanity, mental restlessness, ignorance. The third five are faith, vigilance, energy, meditation, wisdom. The five left behind are greed, hatred, delusion, pride, false teaching.”

I should talk more about these, but first, let’s finish today’s story.

As I settle in to the routine of domestic life in Vientiane, many challenges come my way. First, my vocabulary is incredibly limited and my pronunciation is abysmal – not many people can understand me, even if I speak “perfect” Lao. If not for a few friends and a general idea of where things might be, I would surely starve naked with a flat tire.

Yesterday, I told my friend I needed a frying pan. She agreed to take me shopping for one. I showed her my shopping list written in both English and Laos and sometimes illustrated. The list included things beyond the frying pan, such as candles (tian), insecticide (yaa kaa meeng mai), spatula (iek bpaak been), can opener (neow khai bia), WD-40 or some other lubricant (nam law luun – yeah, that one caused a ruckus at the market), and so on. I was glad my friend was going to help me find these things, after all, she’s a local and knows where to find the best deals – or so I would think.

To find a frying pan, she took me to a clothing store. I joked about using a pair of shoes to cook eggs. We did had fun in the clothing store, laughing at the bad styles and pointing out which ones where pleasing. I gave up the frying pan search, walked around the stores and then took her to work. After dropping her off, I raced to the market, through the thick monsoon rain hopeful I might still be able to acquire the elusive frying pan of Laos.

Here in Laos, I am a child. I am a neophyte monk who can only sit mute in the temple. I am an infant who barely understands the words gaa-gaa-goo-goo. I am the first time buyer paying higher than sticker price on a brand new automobile. However, today, I am proud to say that I am – if nothing else – a man with a frying pan.

I found my frying pan in the good market – the one I like behind Talat Sao (the Morning Market in Vientiane). Last night, I made a mushroom basil tomato sauce with rotini for dinner. It was possibly the worst sauce I’ve ever made. I relished every single bite of my first home cooked meal in nearly 3 months.

The frying pan, the supermarket, having some food to cook and eat, these are the basics. They are the daily practice. They are the diligence. They are faith that goodness will surround those who practice goodness. I don’t need to be able to say non-stick, microwavable, non-aluminum or durable. Nor I do not need to list the names of the five Buddhas. It would be nice if I could, I suppose, but my personal opinion is that I should focus first on the basics.

Despite years of training and reading and practice, I am still sorting out the details. It as if I am in a foreign country some times and I am reduced to charades in the market (you should see my impersonation of a can of insecticide!). I am learning. I am learning to see the bigger picture even though I can not name the five at the door. In time, maybe I will be able to name them or at least be able to tell you there are five and not four. Or maybe someday, I will be able to recite all paramis or tell you the characters of the Bhagavad-Gita in order of appearance. Yet for now, I will have to be content with daily meditation, a steadily improving mind, and a pleasant, patient attitude towards myself and others… at the supermarket... where they sell frying pans.

Desire

2007-06-26T20:58:00.000-07:00

Didn’t I already talk about desire? Maybe I just thought about it! Well, I don’t feel like talking much about desire today, so I’ll focus on something else. If you really want to think about desire, the quote alone should be sufficient.

“Thirty-six streams are rushing toward you!
Desire and pleasure and lust…
Play in your imagination with them
And they will sweep you away.

Powerful streams!
They flow everywhere.”
- Dhammapada

As a professional in the computer science field, numbers are important to me. The specificity which numbers provide are tremendous. One misplaced zero can have a tremendous impact on meaning. I remember studying binary code back in my mainframe days and truly loving being able to sift through the sequence of zeros and ones to assemble what they represent. Later on, I maintained a healthy adoration for hex code – #FF0000 and #0000FF sound so much more elegant than plain old red and blue.

Given my appreciation for numbers, I have always struggled with the often very specific numbers cited in Buddhism. Why thirty-six streams? Why a thousand petals on the lotus? Why twenty layers? Why fifty petals per layer? Why thirty paramis… or is it ten (still working on that one!)?

Given my “free-spirit” nature, however, I don’t really care that much. Yes, I am inquisitive, but I often just translate numbers to one of the following: “a couple”, “some”, or “lots”. Sometimes I feel that delving too deeply into numbers like this is a blend of over-zealous dogma and missing the forest for the trees. Do you care, at this point, if the Sahasrara Chakra has one thousand or one thousand and one petals? If I could give you the choice of either lighting up the crown chakra or counting the petals, which would you choose? Hint: the petals of the lotus eventually fall off, the jewel in the lotus is eternal.

At this point, you may be wondering ‘what are you talking about?’ The pontification of numbers and their meaning seems to have nothing to do with desire (in numerology I think it’s 11), and this is exactly my point. Read today’s quote from the Dhammapada and notice the first word is a number. Too often, we will get caught up in this number and spend our time contemplating and arguing ‘thirty-six’ and never get to the real issue at hand: Powerful streams! They flow everywhere.

It doesn’t matter, really, how many streams. It doesn’t matter how many disciples. It doesn’t matter how many of anything. What does matter, is that we concentrate on getting ourselves down the road.

Think of it this way: Enlightenment is a big supermarket near your house. On a typical day, you can pull out of your driveway, head south on the main road and in 5 minutes, you have arrived at the supermarket. But on a non-typical day, there may be a traffic jam, or some construction blocking you easy path to shopping. This doesn’t mean that you can not go to the supermarket. It simply means you might have to take more than one road. You may have to drive 10 miles instead of six. You may have to put an extra litre of fuel in your tank. Consider which is more important, how many roads, miles, litres or arriving at the supermarket? In aisle 6, they are having a two-for-one special on spiritual achievement… or was it aisle 16?

The Elephant

2007-06-25T21:44:00.000-07:00

The title of today’s chapter from the Dhammapada is “The Elephant”. I would be remiss to skim over the connection between elephants and Laos. The kingdom of Laos used to be called Lan Xang, which translates to ‘The land of one million elephants and a white parasol’. It’s a fierce image of power in nobility, wealth and military might. I think today’s equivalent to a million elephants would be one hundred thousand battleships. (By the way, Lan means one million, Xang must be a very rich word).

It many texts such as Bhagavadgita, Ramayana, the Dhammapada, various Jatakas, there are references to elephants. When I first started studying, I only partially understood the importance of the elephant in these ancient cultures. It was not until I started seeing elephants on a more regular basis that I fully comprehended what a magnificent animal this is. Beyond the imposing size of this beast, there is a look in their eyes of supreme intelligence. However, not all is well in the elephant kingdom.

In the northeast provinces of Thailand last year, I saw many elephants, but one elephant in particular disturbed me. The elephant was “working” for/with two guys – one riding, the other selling bananas to the tourists to give to the elephant. On the tail of the elephant were tied CD’s to serve as reflectors. I remember clearly the look in this elephant’s eyes – I don’t think I will ever forget that look. It was a look of humility, indignity, and a threat of one day reaching a saturation point and exploding. I looked away, partly to not instigate anything, but mostly to turn away from a scene of utter humiliation – the noblest of all creatures, selling bananas.

“Awake.
Be the witness of your thoughts.
The elephant hauls himself from the mud.
In the same way drag yourself out of your sloth.”
- Dhammapada

Sadly, many elephants today are not free to pull themselves from the mud. They are trapped and imprisoned to do parlour tricks, or they are killed and mutilated for their tusks. However, in their captivity or in their perverted ‘natural’ environment, they manage to maintain some of their inherent dignity. To personify the elephant’s plight, I think it must be a quiet form of meditation for the modern day elephant to live such lives – quietly persistent at maintaining the nobility of their nature despite their conditions.

Many of us – people, that is – may feel that our lives are not much different than a banana-selling elephant. We know that inside us is goodness and truth, but our circumstances seem to be obstacles to fully realizing our blessedness. We have reflectors tied to our tails so a vehicle one third our size does not ram into us. We are constantly under the threat of a smack with a bamboo switch to turn this way or that. We are ridden and told where to go and wait for others to tell us when to eat. We are up to our loins in mud.

Just like the elephant, we are deep in the mud, but just like the elephant, we have the potential to haul ourselves out. It is not enough to merely acknowledge our own beautiful greatness, we must do. As Eleanore Roosevelt said, ‘You must do the thing which you think you can not do.’ We must do this, lest, like the elephant, we may one day lash out against our captors and our humiliation or perish without ever realizing our true nature.

A note about elephants: In the New York Times Sunday Magazine, Oct-20-2006, there was an excellent article titled An Elephant Crackup?. The article speaks of the trauma caused by modern-day activities on elephants and their environment. It is a very informative article and well worth reading.

The Dark

2007-06-24T00:23:00.000-07:00

To some degree, everyone is afraid of the dark. Sometimes, it’s not a very strong feeling. Sometimes, it’s just a gnawing thought in the back of our minds that maybe we don’t know everything that’s going on around us. When we do not have all the facts, we can feel unsure of ourselves. That’s why people are afraid of the dark.

“One man denies truth,
Another denies his own actions.
Both go into the dark
And in the next world suffer
For they offend truth.”
Dhammapada

The dark, which we fear, is not only a matter of not being able to see. There is also a mental darkness; a state of not knowing, or understanding. The void in our understanding is not always because the facts are not available. At times, we overlook the facts or conceal them and create our own darkness. For so many reasons people do this, but I think mostly it is out of laziness.

It takes work to shine a light on ourselves, on our thoughts, our actions. Not only does it take effort to shine the light, but once we can see what is around us or who we are, we now have to reckon with that reality. One would think it would be easier, just to keep everything in the dark. Such is not the case.

When we hide in ignorance of what we think and say and do, we create a lot of work for ourselves. Many people know this about lying; once you lie, you have to keep track of that lie and make sure you don’t contradict it. Usually, lies end up being exposed because sooner or later, the liar becomes even lazier and forgets to maintain the fallacy. Darkness gets a little darker and the liar stubs his toe on the bedpost. Ouch. Suffering.

Inside our mind, we can hide our thoughts fairly easily. Outside our mind, in our actions, it is much more difficult to hide. But we try anyway. I’ve met people who completely deny their actions. They act in one way towards a person, but then are surprised when that person responds in an appropriate manner. The dis-illumination of ones own actions in their own head, is a rewriting of history to a version which is not truthful. It’s a difficult thing when someone denies their own actions. It’s frightening. The Dark.

A Little Diversion

2007-06-23T00:09:00.000-07:00

I forgot my copy of the Dhammapada at home today, so I don’t know what the next chapter says. I know the title is “The Dark”, but that is all. Instead of making something up or talking about why we are afraid of the dark or some other eccentric twist of words, I’m going write about something a friend asked me about in an email.

His question has to do with judgment – we make judgments all the time, sometimes we are not aware that this may cause some suffering in ourselves and others. My friend asked, Is it possible, in theory, to live without making judgment and only practice discernment and staying present? He went on to say that through practicing Tai Chi, he is finding a stronger sense of inner peace.

Not only is it possible in theory, it is possible in practice, to live without making judgment. This is called enlightenment. It also goes by the name Samadhi, with different flavours such as Laja Samadhi, Savikalpa Samadhi, and Nirvilkalpa Samadhi. Enlightenment is very far away and very close to all of us. For most cases, it is best to accept that we are not enlightened. However, just because we do not live in a perpetual state of perfect awareness – Nirvilkalpa Samadhi, this does not mean that the principles are any less valuable.

In Arizona, there is something called desert dust. It’s a very fine sand dust and collects everywhere and, when swept away, returns very quickly. I have a friend who does not see any reason to sweep the desert dust from his porch “because it will just come back five minutes later”. I think this is the same mentality of someone who does not harness their thoughts – their judgments – because they know their mind will wander. Of course! The desert dust, the thoughts and judgments and desires of our minds, will certainly come back five minutes later. But doesn’t it feel good to have a clean porch, even if it is only for a little while?

Part of the purpose of meditation is to train the mind. Without training, the mind will wander endlessly and cause us much confusion and pain. In meditation – sitting meditation, yoga, prayer, whatever method we use – we are teaching our mind to experience joy, well being and peace. When I first started serious practices in meditation, I felt there was separateness between the times I would sit in mediation and the rest of my day. However, I quickly realized that the more diligent I was in my meditation, the more likely I would experience some similar shade of bliss in my daily activities.

I trained my mind so the desert dust would not come back so quickly. There are days when I step out onto the porch and there is a thick layer of the stuff. Some days, I just want to walk past and not acknowledge it’s there. When I deny the fact that my mind needs a good sweeping, I feel lousy. Things bother me. I feel irritable and out of control. On the days that I pick up the broom and at least try to sweep some of the stuff away, I feel better. When I am in a routine and I keep my porch clean, I feel in control and happier.

So, it’s not so much a matter of never making judgment, it’s more a matter of how clean is your porch.

Out Of The Forest

2007-06-22T01:15:00.001-07:00

“If he is a good man,
A man of faith, honored and prosperous,
Wherever he goes he is welcome.

Like the Himalayas
Good men shine from afar.

But bad men move unseen
Like arrows in the night.”
- Dhammapada

A judgment was made about me the other day. It was determined I was not a good person. Needless to say, my first reaction was to feel insulted. The news came as a slap in the face. I consider myself a good person. I conduct myself with decency, fairness and generosity. I make a point of accepting the good in others and offering them a wide berth to refine themselves. Hearing this judgment the other day, shook my foundation.

How could it be that someone would think I was a bad person? Most people I know, and people I meet, go out of their way to tell me that I am very nice. I was once told someone me as ‘the nicest person you will ever meet’ – I think that might be a little overboard, but all in all I am a decent person. So I wondered, how could this judgment be made and on what grounds?

I discussed this with a journalist friend of mine from Turkey. She suggested that the person judging me was not at all responding to me, but instead, they were thinking only of themselves – I pose a threat to their control of an existing situation. I think my friend’s assessment is the only reasonable explanation.

In the book, The Four Agreements, one of the agreements is “Don’t take anything personally”. What people say about others has mostly to do with their own thoughts – their own perception of their reality – and very little to do with the person on the receiving end. If I apply what Don Miguel Ruiz wrote and include my Turkish friend’s assessment, I can come to terms with this unfounded judgment.

The terms are much easier to deal with. Basically, I silently discredit all this person said. They are wrapped up in their own personal greed and manipulation. However skewed, unfair or inaccurate that person’s opinion, it means nothing to me other than I must be extra diligent in my assertion of being a good person. It’s been a while since I’ve had any pudding, but I know, the proof is in there somewhere.

A note about the book, The Four Agreements: When I read this book in the summer of 2001, I almost stopped reading it. I found the first 30 or 40 pages to be almost patronizing. Someone sitting near me heard me scoff and told me to finish the book. She had already read it and told me that she and others have also had the same reaction. However, once you get through the first section, the book is an excellent primer. So basic yet potentially life changing, I highly recommend this reading. In fact, I always keep a few extra copies on hand to give out to people when they need a little mantra to get them through a tough patch – How’s that for being a bad person!

The Way

2007-06-20T23:07:00.001-07:00

“It is you who must make the effort.
The masters only show you the way.”
- Dhammapada

Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, all the religions, philosophies and metaphysic equations are simply that; equations. One can find endless suggestions and directives towards a better life, towards enlightenment. The suggestions are good starting points, but by themselves they are useless.

There is a saying in aviation, “’Useless’ is the runway behind you, the airspace above you and fuel on the ground.” Spiritual texts, self-help books, the counsel of a priest, whatever you look to for guidance is of no value unless you act on it. Once a person has read and understood a text, it turns from potential energy to simply the runway behind you. How we use knowledge, how we choose to live, think, speak, work goes back to one of the Paramis: Viriya Paramis, in English, Effort, Energy & Diligence.

As a teacher, I have often struggled with the expectation of students. Many times, I have stood before a classroom and felt an undeniable expectation that I was somehow going to learn for them. As the instructor, I was already the expert. As an expert, I can only relay what I know. The responsibility rests on the students’ shoulders to assimilate the teaching and act on it. I can talk endlessly about fourth normal form and referential integrity and all sorts of other subjects that make eyes glaze over. However, I can not make a person learn.

Whatever it is that you pursue, whatever it is that you are hoping to achieve, set your mind to it, and act. Put on your shoes, open the door, and step into the big beautiful world. Don’t wait for the doorman, the porter or the guide. Don’t look for someone else to validate you. Don’t expect your professor to write your exam, or expect the police officer to bring you to a full stop at a stop sign. Don’t expect Buddha to achieve enlightenment for you. Don’t expect Christ to stop you from sinning. You can look to all the examples that are available, but in the end, these are only masters showing you the way.

The Just

2007-06-19T23:02:00.000-07:00

“The true seeker
subdues all waywardness.
He has submitted his nature to quietness.

He is the true seeker
Not because he begs
But because he follows the lawful way,
Holding back nothing, holding to nothing,
Beyond good and beyond evil,
Beyond the body and beyond the mind.

Silence cannot make a master out of a fool.”
- Dhammapada

Today, I'm tired, so very tired. All these words keep jumbling around in my head, my mouth, my fingers... maybe I'm getting mixed up, maybe I'm getting mixed messages, maybe I'm getting a mixed drink. Maybe it's the silent treatment.

One of my least favourite tactics is the “silent treatment”. When we are four our five, we use the silent treatment a lot. By the time we reach our sixth birthday, we should abandon this method and look for more productive means of communication. However, I know plenty of people who still use the silent treatment long past the age of five.

Beyond immaturity, the silent treatment has some other unjust qualities. One definition of the word “just”: free from favoritism or self-interest or bias or deception, aligns well with today’s quote and the subject of the silent treatment. When a person cuts off communication, they are in effect, lying by omission. If it is because they truly have nothing to say, that’s one thing, but I can’t think of a single time when the silent treatment was invoked because a person had nothing to say. On the contrary, it is usually when a person has the most to say that they enact this childish stunt.

People use the silent treatment to leverage power. If they do not communicate, they feel they have they have gained the upper hand. However, there is no upper hand. There is an attachment to manipulation and deceit. There is an attachment to the noise and frustration of when things which do not work out. There is a disturbance caused by silence.

When discontentment arises, it is best to voice concerns. Once an issue has been discussed, than a solution can be worked out. Sometimes, the solution is a compromise. Sometimes, the solution is an agreement to disagree. No matter what, voicing ones thoughts is how we evolve. Squelching ourselves only makes us fools.

Anger

2007-06-18T18:18:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite quotes of the Dhammapada, speaks about a subject which I have struggled with for many years: anger.

“Anger is like a chariot careering wildly.
He who curbs his anger is the true charioteer.
Others merely hold the reins.”
- Dhammapada

It’s not surprising to me that one of my favorite quotes has me so very stumped on how to address this subject. I considered dozens of different choices for discussing anger. I thought about myself and my personal history. I considered teenage angst, urban angst, swarming, Columbine, Thomas Aquinas, – all the typical stuff. I considered an episode of the Simpsons and some thoughts from the movie Awakenings. I considered the deep seated anger of the Hmong and how it escalated to sheer idiocy in Los Angeles. I considered metaphors of unresponsive steering wheels and the purpose of an emergency brake. I considered a number of approaches to talk about anger; possibly because there are so many available examples.

In lieu of deliberating indefinitely, I’ve decided to talk about a refining moment in my own evolution of anger management. It was something that happened about a year ago in Laos. In Asia, showing anger, yelling, stomping, waving arms are all seen as a sign of loosing control. It is looked down upon and I advise anyone who comes here to keep their anger in check. Not only does it make for an all around dismal feeling, it also is the beginning of a whole lot of effort to either make amends or sustain the anger.

The first time I lost composure in Laos was about a year ago. I was taken by surprise at an awkward time on a matter relating to money – specifically, money I owed. I didn’t entirely loose my cool. However, I did cross a line in personal relations, a thinner line in the east than the west. In the end, someone was singled out for upsetting me. I don’t think that person ever fully trusted me again.

What angered me was the surprise and the untimely information of a debt to be paid. Instead of pausing for a moment and suggesting an alternative solution, I became defensive and visually upset. Oh, let’s stop gussying up the words – I was pissed-off and I made a scene. I was completely out of sync with the local decorum.

After I was finished with my tantrum, it was explained to me that due to the time (Sunday night, 10pm) and the circumstances (I was staying at an isolated guest house on the edge of town), my debt could be paid in the morning when the banks open. Very simple.

Reading the quote about the chariot, I think not only of how I careered wildly, but also, how I embarrassed myself. Embarrassed because the stands were full when I made the exact wrong decision. Everyone knew it but me, I had let loose my grip on the reins.

Pleasure

2007-06-16T23:06:00.000-07:00

CAUTION: I use a dirty word in this one. If you are under 18, you will have to wait until you are old enough to read this.

“Do not let pleasure distract you
From meditation, from the way.”
- Dhammapada

I don’t like this chapter very much. Admittedly, I misinterpret the meaning. If I look closely at the meaning of the text, it doesn’t say anything about giving up pleasure. If it did, I would probably stop this experiment right now. However, the words do lean toward pointing out some of my “problems”.

I like pleasure. I like the sensual, the passionate, the poisonous fruit of desire. I like the feeling of wanting to hold someone. I like wanting to feel a soft hand in mine. I like craving the caress of a passionate kiss. I like wanting to do something with my life. I like placing importance on things I do and want to do. I like ice cream and comfy sheets and long hot showers. And so, according to the words of the way(again, purposefully misinterpreted), I suffer.

Is it pleasure, per se, which is the corruption of our souls or is it ill-gotten pleasure Siddhartha warned us about?

I often use the example of making love versus fucking to illustrate the difference. Fucking someone or getting fucked is a very lonely and ugly experience – an amplification of our solitude and yearning for companionship. Fucking is suffering. However, if you follow the directions, or if you use a causal GPS, it’s not fucking, it’s making love. Making love goes beyond the physical. It goes beyond the cerebral. It even goes beyond emotion. Making love touches the subtle body which exists beyond the dimensions of existence we comprehend. It is union. Union is the mud and water and seed and air from which the lotus blooms. It makes us stronger, not weaker.

I think I will stick with pleasure for a while. As I go, I’ll try to choose my pleasure carefully instead of stumbling into the night with a fruit I can not call by name.

Joy

2007-06-16T22:17:00.000-07:00

“The winner sow hatred
Because the loser suffers
Let go of winning and losing
And find joy.”
- Dhammapada

Joy is a funny intangible. When I hear the word, my first image is a choir of angels with big golden halos. There are other stereotypes of joy; a newborn baby, grandparents playing with grandchildren, a soldier returning from war. I’m sure we all have other images of joy –personally significant memorable moments.

For me, that’s not enough. I can’t stave off my thirst for joy waiting for babies to be born and soldiers to come home. For me, I need a little joy everyday, even if it’s just a little bit, maybe imperceptible to the untrained eye.

This morning as I write, three little boys are having their daily hammock rides next to me. It's wild and furious event. Each day, they come up to the balcony where I work, collect all the cushions from the floor and methodically place them into the two hammocks. Then they climb aboard and go for the ride of their lives – I’m not sure where they go in their minds, but it sounds like a great place. Today, they have expanded their fun by convincing me to lift them up to the ceiling so they can take down the some of origami decorations; birds.

I’m not sure what it is about the scene around me that gives me joy. It could be that, for once, I get to participate in their games – it’s always fun to play. It could be the 3 silly faces pointed up at the ceiling, arguing about which of the many origami pieces is the best selection. It could be that after two weeks of isolation in the garden of Eden, I can sit and write and concentrate while two or four or six stomp and swing and giggle and drop from the hammocks around me. Whatever it is that brings me joy today is both large and small – a funny intangible.

The Man Who Is Awake

2007-06-16T21:14:00.000-07:00

“If you wound or grieve another
You have not learned detachment.”
- Dhammapada

Visions of Mahatma Ghandi come to mind when I read this quote from the Dhammapada. One individual can change the world with their words and actions. In the pursuit of enlightenment, it is the individual choice to follow the way. The choices of each individual is a big part of the Buddhist philosophy. But what about actions on a larger scale? How can the Dhammapada be applied to corporate life, to government, to international affairs?

The neo-cons are vying for world dominance. To achieve their goals, they create bloody messes, destroying cities, countries, families. They fix markets and manipulate trade. It seems they have their hand in nearly everything… when it’s convenient. Their actions are the antithesis of detachment. In fact, it is desire and greed that fuels the world domination agenda.

Between 1964 and 1975, the United States dropped over 2 million tons of bombs on Laos – one plane load every eight minutes. According to a 2003 news article in The Age,, nearly one quarter of a million cluster bombs were dropped on Iraq (cluster bombs are nasty weapons designed specifically to maim and kill people). There are millions of statistics to illustrate to what extent a nation will go in order to quench it’s thirst. It’s clear the Pentagon has read The Art of War by Sun Tzu, but if any of them have read of the Dhammapada, they might want to go back and read it again.

Or am I misleading you? Could it be that sometimes they practice detachment? Here’s a example, a quote from The International Reporting Project at Johns Hopkins University said this about unexploded ordinances in Laos:

"Just because we dropped the stuff doesn't mean we're going to go in there and clean it up," said a Pentagon official recently. "The cleanup of ordnance is the responsibility of the people who caused the conflict."

Wasn’t it the US who feared the spread of communism to all of Southeast Asia? Maybe I’ve got my facts twisted. The whole era was such a mixed up scenario, it’s pretty convenient to detach from who caused what.

Another bit from today’s chapter on The Man Who is Awake (I especially like the word “slaked”)…

“The rain could turn to gold,
And still your thirst would not be slaked.
Desire is unquenchable
Or it ends in tears, even in heaven.”

In Laos, for 11 years, the rain turned to something even more expensive than gold – weapons. The desire to prevent the Domino Effect was never quenched. In the end, someone ended up drinking the paper dominos.

The World

2007-06-16T21:02:00.001-07:00

“The fool laughs at generosity.
The miser cannot enter heaven.
But the master finds joy in giving
And happiness is his reward.”
Dhammapada

In the village where I am living (ok, I’m visiting, but I’m alive and it feels like I’m living), the local residents are very musically inclined. They love music and I love the voyeuristic thrill of listening to their freedom. During the day, the teenagers take turns playing guitar for each other (school’s out for summer – they don’t know the song). In the late afternoon, the children sing songs as they splash in the river. In the evening, I sometimes sit with a group and pass around the iPod until we’ve squeezed every bit of charge from the battery. At night, I loan my friend, Kao, the iPod so he can listen to it while going to sleep.

I am lightly ridiculed for loaning Kao my iPod. ‘Maybe stolen… lost… broken… never see him again…’ All sorts of circumstances threaten my iPod will cease to be my iPod. Yes, any of these ‘might happens’, might just happen. Or… a jet may crash into this tiny village and destroy all that is here and my iPod itself, will cease to be.

I’ll take my chances. I’ll take my chances because, as I wait for the impending 747 to land on my head, it makes me feel good to trust someone, to share music, to detach myself from prizing my possession too much. It adds to my happiness. It helps me sleep peacefully through the night while the cockerels crow long before the day dawns.

Yourself

2007-06-15T21:46:00.000-07:00

“Never neglect your work for another’s,
However great his need.

Your work is to discover your work
And then with all your heart
To give yourself to it.”
- Dhammapada

Once, two great boons to corporate humanity merged. During the merger, there were natural and normal reactions to new policies, procedures and ethics. I worked there. I stuck it out for a while. Some of us jumped ship immediately. Others stuck it out knowing things would eventually settle down. One of my colleagues, for whom I had a great deal of respect, left to teach school in an emerging country – Tibet it might have been. His decision increased my respect for him and also made me want to follow the same type of course.

My departure from Initech had less to do with my dissatisfaction with the company and more to do with my personal discontent. Although I had done very well in business, I was not following my passion. And time was moving on.

I don’t know how common it is for people to know what they want to do and not pursue it. I’m guessing there are quite a few people out there who are not happy with what they are doing. I’m also guessing a very small percentage of those people know what they would do if they could.

Part of this experiment of mine is to do something that means something. Although it may seem the jury is still deliberating on the verdict, I spend each day with my heart fully committed to my dreams. For now, that is quite sufficient. Maybe someday I will find out that in some small way, I made a difference.

Old Age

2007-06-15T21:27:00.000-07:00

“The ignorant man is an ox.
He grows in size, not in wisdom.”
- Dhammapada

CAUTION: The next paragraph is not very nice. I don't mean to slag Israelis - I've met quite a few nice people from Israel.

For the past few days, I’ve had the great pleasure of sharing my guesthouse with a band of Israeli backpackers. Israeli backpackers have a pretty bad reputation of being loud, inconsiderate and generally obnoxious. Based on what I’ve witnessed over the past few days, the bad reputation is justified. Their display of self-centeredness and deliberately inconsiderate behaviour is astounding. They put toilet paper in the toilet despite clearly posted signs to use the waste receptacle. They wore muddy flip flops in the bathroom and throughout the house, despite clearly posted signs to remove their shoes. They cooked food in their room and left the washed pots and pans blocking the entrance to guest's doors, despite clearly posted signs to no bring food into their room – (they told me, in a very agro tone, rice was not food). They even deliberately drained the rain barrel as some form of expression of discontent. They stomped about and spoke in unnecessarily loud voices. When it was time for them to go to bed, they banged on the wall for others to hush beyond a whisper. My point is not to slag Israeli backpackers – they make their own beds. I guess they will grow up someday.

One of the things I like about getting older is that I no longer have to monitor my etiquette so closely. It’s not that I don’t need manners. Rather, it’s that they are now so deeply ingrained they come out by habit. This isn’t true of all “grown ups”. In fact, it is typically the opposite. It’s the old people touching museum exhibits and snickering at Caravaggio’s perversions. It’s the older couples bickering too frequently. These, too, are deeply ingrained habits.

Although I am generally uninterested in becoming a “grown up”, I am glad that on my path of getting older, I’ve taken a little time to develop good manners – good habits. It wasn’t very difficult a thing to do. I wonder if the recent gang of undesirable guests will grow up to be snickering septic saboteurs or will they someday catch a glimpse of the reaction they are causing and change their ways – in their old age.

Violence

2007-06-15T21:14:00.000-07:00

“He who seeks happiness
By hurting those who seek happiness
Will never find happiness.”
-Dhammapada

It is difficult to be in Laos and not think about violence. For those who are not aware of the Secret War, here is a brief history of the situation. Laos holds the title of the most bombed country in the world. During the American war in Vietnam, North Vietnamese supply routes ran through eastern Laos, specifically, the Ho Chi Min Trail. In addition, a significant, but debatable number of North Vietnamese troops were occupying Laos, assisting in Hanoi’s move to bring Laos into the fold of communism via the Pathet Lao party. As part of a Geneva Conference agreement, it was determined to be illegal to involve a third country in an existing war. The US was providing military assistance to South Vietnam and involved Laos in the fight between North and South Vietnam. It’s a complex story, but basically, the United States CIA set up a private air charter company called Air America to provide air support over Laos and the Ho Chi Min Trail. US President Richard Nixon finally acknowledged US involvement in Laos in March, 1970 – 5 years after continuous bombing in Laos had begun.

I look around the village where I am staying and I have counted at least 1 septuagenarian and 4 others who are quickly approaching. In a country where life expectancy is about 55 years of age, the sight of very old people is notable. Very delicately, I asked a local villager who was a child at the time of the war how the village was so lucky to have so many very old residents. He explained that the villagers had taken refuge in the many caves in the area and that is why so many people have survived to know their great great grandchildren. It’s quite beautiful to see a 107 year old woman look endearingly at the brood around them in a place that once was a living hell. They don’t seem to be all that resentful. They seem to have moved on to better things.

The other night, in a village upriver of where I am staying, a Welshman and a Frenchman got into a bit of a scuffle. Allegedly, the Frenchman attacked the Welshman because he was talking too much. The Welshman never struck back and now has a big net of bandages over his bruised and ring-slashed nose. The Frenchman was charged with a $100 fine; the Welshman was fined $50. Apparently, the Frenchman was trying to “knock some sense into” the other.

I can see how the guy from Wales might annoy others. He speaks in a very strange collection of Thai, Laos and mostly English. And he does so non-stop. On a few occasions, when speaking with him, I have watched for an opportunity to politely excuse myself so that I can get away from his racket. However, the idea of beating him in the face and trying to throw him over a balcony never crossed my mind.

There are so many people in this world that annoy me. In fact, I find most people to be annoying for one reason or another. However, I’m not looking to be annoyed. I’m not looking to be bothered by the things that other people want to do. I’m not asking anyone to retool their mindset to better accommodate my own preferences. I really can’t be asked to ruin my day simply because I find someone else lacking in one way or another. It’s their affair, not mine, and I always have the choice to rise above annoyance and seek my own happiness. I always have the choice to retreat to a cave – maybe it’s not ideal, but it’s effective. When it’s over, I will come out of the cave, and resume my life fishing and planting and harvesting and singing and watching the people around me grow old.

Mischief

2007-06-15T21:08:00.002-07:00

I like mischief. I always have. It’s not a virtue, I know. As I get older, I don’t seem to be settling down, but I do notice that my mischief is changing a bit. Years ago, I was more prone to do something that would make another person uncomfortable, or even hurt their feelings. I wasn’t really bad, but in all honesty, I was not very good either. Now, as I’m exercising much more control in my thoughts and actions, I am finding that my mischief had changed from manic malicious to simply silly.

When I was a very young boy, my grandfather used to tease me by setting up my stuffed animals in some kind of silly scene. One of his more popular setups would involve a plush alligator with a bright red flannel mouth. He would move the alligator to the corner of the bed and put the corner of the duvet in its mouth. When I would stumble on this scene in my room, it would send me giggling into an imaginary world of daydreams and fantasies where plush alligators would fly with me to other planets where duvets were grown and we would together devour the whole crop. My grandfather’s mischief brought a lot of silly fun.

Somewhere in between then and now, I explored a lot of other kinds of mischief. I tasted nearly every offering on the after dinner mischief cart. I had a lot of wild times doing so. But the cost of those experiences was quite high and I grew tired of having to fork over so much energy for my thrills. Maybe I just got tired or maybe I jut got wiser, I’m not sure either is true, but it’s the logical explanation. Whatever the reason, I ended up agreeing with my grandfather and the alligator and found less and less use for the drunkard and the fools.

A while ago, I was giving private English lessons to a student. I was experimenting with using the Dhammapada as the text to learn vocabulary. I remember clearly getting to the Mischief chapter.

‘Do not make light of your failings,
Saying, “What are they to me?”
A jug fills drop by drop.
So the fool becomes brimful of folly.

Do not belittle your virtues,
Saying, “They are nothing.”
A jug fills drop by drop.
So the wise man becomes brimful of virtue.’
- Dhammapada

“Brimful” is not a word we use much in English, but my student wanted a definition and naturally it was not in the translation dictionary. In order to explain “brimful”, I set an empty glass on the desk. Making a funny sad clown face, I made a little dance and song about “empty”. I poured some water into the glass and made another song about “some” – ho hum, but I got some, at least I got some so not so ho hum. I poured more water into the glass so that it was full. Another song about “full” drove the point home. I poured the water so that it was just a tiny bit more than the glass could hold. “Brimful” was quite an extraordinary character. To this day she remembers “empty”, “some”, “full”, and maybe “brimful”.

Later that day, I probably went out for another night of shenanigans. I probably got very drunk. I might have toyed with the mind of a naïve backpacker or tickled the underbelly of some other sordid scenario. I can’t remember what mischief I got into that night. But I will always remember the brimful character from earlier that day.

I admit, goofing around during English lessons is pretty tame compared to some of the things I get myself into, but I think it’s a good illustration of how avoiding mischief doesn’t mean not having fun.

The Thousands

2007-06-15T21:08:00.001-07:00

“Better than a hundred years of mischief
Is one day spent in contemplation.
Better than a hundred years of ignorance
Is one day spent in reflection.
Better than a hundred years of idleness
Is one day spent in determination.”
- Dhammapada

We want to be better people. We want to find truth. We want to have peace in our minds, our families, our world. We want our soldiers to protect and rescue those who are in trouble. We want our leaders to forge diplomatic alliances which bring the world together. We want our neighbors to love us and accept our differences and we want to do the same. We want to change and create and do so much, but the mountain is too high.

We look up to the mountain, we see it clearly in front of us, but we don’t see the mountain at all. Instead we see all the vines and slippery rocks and impassable terrain. Like the forest and the trees, the mountain becomes invisible. How often do you hear a person saying they want to change? We sit about and talk about how we should be more this or more that and less this or less that. We talk about it and think about it, but more often than not, the same conclusion is reached: It’s too hard. There are too many obstacles. I can’t.

Mischief, ignorance, idleness and contemplation, refection, determination– these are the contrasting words of today’s Dhammapada quote. We think it is easy to bask in ignorance and idleness, but this is not true. The troubles that linger around us when we are unfocused are very time consuming. They take away from our reserves of energy, patience, compassion and so forth. They delay us from beginning our journey up the mountain.

Contemplation, determination, and reflection are the vines and the slippery rocks and the impassable terrain on the way up the mountain. Addressing these, we find focus. Crossing over these, we find peace in the very world we thought would be so hard. Do not avoid the mountain. If you avoid it, it will eventually destroy you. If you embrace it, it will embrace you and you can become as solid and true as any mountain.

How many does it take to get to the midIdle...

2007-06-14T21:05:00.000-07:00

Mr Owl... how many post-dated posts does it take to get to the middle of the Dhammapada?

I mentioned that I was very diligent about writing a daily post while I was out of touch from "modern" society. Now, I have a dilemma. Should I publish all of the back dated writings or should I publish just a few each day until I am caught up. I think I will do 5 each day unless someone complains.

Cheers to all that I met before, and to those I meet along the way.

The Master

2007-06-14T21:00:00.000-07:00

“… And wherever he lives,
In the city or the country,
In the valley or in the hills,
There is great joy.”
-Dhammapada

I have the great fortune to be almost anywhere I like. That’s partly true. Recently, I have been staying in a small village on the banks of Nam Ou in Laos. On the surface, one will identify what we in the west call poverty. There are no screens on the windows, “running” water is actually a rain barrel and a hose. Electricity comes in dull two hour increments each night. Children play flip-flop toss in the street, their shoes serve as shoes and cushions and toys and weapons and whatever other practical use they can find. Adults draw from the river their sustenance and mend their nets in the heat of the afternoon shade.

Every once in a while, I can peer past these attributes and see wealth. Out of the corner of my eyes across the rice paddies children play in the sun and laugh carefree. Do I see Eden out there, in the corner of my eye? Not everything is perfect. Life can difficult here, too. Some times the stakes are very high – life or death. But is this really different than anywhere else? Maybe we have removed ourselves so much from the basics of being human that when we see it in full force, it appears as poverty and high risk.

In this place, I can hear my thoughts more clearly. I can feel the rising and cresting and sinking of the sun. I can smell the sappy dew of incoming rain. I can taste the broth of endlessness and immediacy stewed together to make the feast of today and tomorrow. It is just like being back in Brooklyn.

Exactly like Brooklyn except there are no cars, no horns, no film crews banging outside my window at 5 a.m. It is just the same as any city, except there are no flashing lights or rumbling sounds of shopkeepers’ metal gates slamming their merchandise into safety for the night. There are no loud noises and no pushing people an no irate customers and no very busy, very important, very overwhelming people high on the fumes of the social status machine. Yes, where I am now in Laos is exactly like anywhere else. Just a little different.

Behind the noises of the street, beyond the thunderous approaching airplanes, just below the roar of the subway, there exists everything that exists here on the banks of Nam Ou – happiness, serenity, joy. Sometimes it takes a trip to a place like this to realize it. Sometimes people get confused and think they need to be here to listen to the sound of joy.

The Wise Man

2007-06-14T20:56:00.000-07:00

“Do not look for bad company
Or live with men who do not care.
Find friends who love the truth.”
- Dhammapada

Last night we had a party – sort of a Laotian Full Moon party, if you will. There were quite a few people up on our regularly peaceful balcony. In contrast to the daily routine of waking with the roosters and retiring just after the 10pm generators turn off, the voices of our party shattered the nighttime silence of the village. Needless to say, the neighbors were not impressed.

One of the late-night revelers (it was 11pm) did more than his fair share of noisemaking. He was drunk on Lao Lao and insisted on passing the glass around after the bottle should have been put away. He was speaking Laos very badly in a loud voice. He was making advances towards one of the village girls, despite her boyfriend sitting on her other side. He categorically refused to hear any request to keep his voice down.

Every 5 minutes, from the road outside, would come an impassioned plea for the party to end. But no one wanted to stop, so the sounds in the night continued. The neighbors’ tone became increasingly annoyed.

“All you people talking. Stop it. Stupid talking. Talk. Talk. Talk. You people stupid. Just listen to guitar. Stop talking,” the feisty young guesthouse hostess tried to relay the requests to the party goers. She was, however, the instigator of the party and more inclined to play than to hush. She is too big for this town – the city life and party lights beckon her from Luang Prabang and Vientiane. At 19 years, she is an earthquake sunami forest fire hurricane in this placid riverside village. She puts on a good show, “Hey, you guys, be quite now.”

The loud, drunk, Lao Lao guy gives a loud guffaw, makes a few animal sounds and resumes his bold and futile pickup agenda. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care who can’t sleep. He doesn’t care who’s shouting from below. He doesn’t care if the guy he’s handing the over-poured shot of Lao Lao doesn’t like it. He doesn’t care at all. I can’t say I enjoy his company.

The guy who doesn’t like Lao Lao, I like him. He goes out walking, meets villagers, has intelligent conversations. Another guy, his friend, also talks about intelligent things; the sensitivity of others, the impact of our travels here, the differences in our worlds. I enjoy his company, too. At the party on the balcony they are both quiet. They are listening. They are observing. They are wondering when everyone will go back to their own guesthouses so that we can go to sleep. They also feel uncomfortable by mother yelling from down below. They care.

Given the choice between the precocious hostess and loud, drunk Lao Lao guy or the other two guys that think about something and notice that we are disturbing others, it’s not a difficult decision. In fact, it’s not even something that I have to consider. Such choices do not always show themselves so clearly at the time, but as the rest of the night unfolds, I sometimes wonder how I am so often confused.

The Fool

2007-06-14T20:46:00.000-07:00

It can happen that your life can change in an instant. What we think will happen, who we will love, how we will live, can all disappear from view in a single moment. We like to make plans because they give us comfort – an assurance of the future. Sometimes plans fail or change and we are disappointed with how the future materialized. It is as if we are surprised again and again that our lives can change in a moment.

When we think of these rapid changes of expectations, often the catalyst is considered “bad”. We think of traffic accidents, random shootings, a cancer diagnosis, an unexpected heart attack as the things that unexpectedly change us in a moment. The opposite pole, we also think about, but that is the thing of which fairy tales are made: winning the lottery, meeting a new love, unexpectedly getting a new job offer. These, too, can change our lives in a heartbeat.

What about all that might exist between disaster and euphoria? These things also have the power to change our plans. Little things that happen during our day can adjust our course, perhaps very slightly at first glance – and have a tremendous effect on our lives.

“The tongue tastes the soup.
If you are awake in the presence of a master
One moment will show you the way.”
-Dhammapada

We need to be awake in this world. If we are awake we can see the subtleties that surround us, inviting us to live better lives. With our eyes open, we can see the force of potential, the force of change, inviting us at every turn. But if we are asleep, we don’t see or hear or feel these things. We wait in a blackened slumber waiting for the booming sounds of cataclysm to awaken us and explode the unexpected into our dreams.

Flowers

2007-06-14T20:39:00.000-07:00

“Like garlands woven from a heap of flowers,
Fashion from your life as many good deeds.”
- Dhammapada

I know a girl who is alert. She is conscious of her virtue, her sensitivity, her awakenings, and she is conscious of right mind and right action. She contemplates the way and the ways of the world. She is alert, yet still finding her footing.

“But what should I do with it?” she wonders.

Her wondering sounds as if there were that one action, one occupation, one gift that is perfect and correct. It doesn’t matter. Be a Microsoft engineer. Be a pharmaceutical sales representative. Be a Unitarian minister. Be a mechanic. Be a gardener. Which flowers you grow are not important. How you plant and feed and harvest is the true test.

“What should you do with it?” I repeat. “Do good in this world.”

Do good in this world and release yourself from your deeds. Collecting goodness, patting yourself on the back, is of no value. You can make your actions your possessions - like trophies on a shelf. But these are only icons of actions which have past – only words describing something that once happened.

Do good in this world and let your actions be a garland of goodness that streams behind you like the wake of a boat – caused by the boat but completely indifferent and unfettered from its next action.

These are the flowers which can be looked for and caught and categorized or they are the flowers which are simply planted and left to grow.

Mind

2007-06-14T20:37:00.000-07:00

“Like a fish out of water,
Stranded on the shore,
Thoughts thrash and quiver.
For how can they shake off desire?

They tremble, they are unsteady,
They wander at their will.
It is good to control them,
And to master them brings happiness.

But how subtle they are,
How elusive!
The task is to quieten them,
And by ruling them to find happiness.”
- Dhammapada

Mindfulness. Mist on mountains from a distance are opaque and shroud the mountaintop from view. From the valley floor, we look up to the mist and we see it clearly. From the bottom we climb up to the mountaintop to get a closer look. When we arrive at the summit, the mist is not as it seemed from below. Up close, we can not see what is obvious from far away. Perhaps the sun has burned it away or the wind has cleared the view. Or, perhaps, it is that we are so close to the mist that we can not distinguish it from pure air. From the mountaintop, we see the next cluster of mountains to the west, cloistered in mist.

Mindfulness, is like the mist far away at the mountain top. It can be looked upon and analyzed from a distance. From that vantage, we can remark on the unsteadiness, the wandering of the unbridled mind and see clearly the pitfalls and dangers. We can see how ruling our thoughts can release us from suffering. But like the mist in the mountains, our thoughts and our mindfulness is elusive.

Return to Civilization

2007-06-13T05:01:00.000-07:00

Today I returned to civilization with a continuous stream of problems. My friend woke me up to tell me my fourth cell phone of the year is broken. Then I realized the going away ceremony last night included much more Lao Lao than I should have consumed. Then, I pulled out my camera which is telling me something about a card error. Not needing to use a camera, I decided I would sort through the past two weeks of email. I tried for an hour to connect to a wireless network before giving up and looking for an alternative hot spot. I found one where a cup of tea is 4 times the normal price. The man behind the counter told me they only have hot tea, no iced tea – he said this as he was cracking ice for a fruit smoothie.

Some days are just not as good as the one before. Tomorrow is a 10 hour bus journey so it should be much better than today. It’s great the way life works like that.

As I intended, I managed to write a bit about the Dhammapada over the past couple weeks – one entry everyday. I will have to wait on posting them because I’m just not in the frame of mind to do that right now. It’s great the way life works like that.

Wakefulness

2007-05-28T19:03:00.000-07:00

Wakefulness is the second chapter of the Dhammapada.
I only have about 2 minutes to say something about wakefulness because I am running late to catch a bus. Maybe just a quote to contemplate while I head up the Nam Ou in Luang Prabang Province, Laos.

"The beggar who guards his mind
And fears the waywardness of his thoughts
Burns through every bond
With the fire of his vigilance.

The beggar who guards his mind
and fears his own confusion
Cannot fall.
He has found the way to peace."
-Dhammapada
While I type these words, I wonder how much more peace there can be. Can I help it along in some way. Can I guard my mind from wayward thoughts and become a better person? Can I reject confusion and serve as an example somewhere to a more peaceful world? We will just have to wait and see.

Choices

2007-05-28T00:23:00.000-07:00

Choices is the title of the first chapter of the Dhammapada.

We have choices. On the corner of the main street in Luang Prabang there is a market selling textiles and other Laos souvenirs. Along the edge of the sidewalk are a number of vendors all selling baguette sandwiches. All the vendors sell the same type of sandwich for the same price. I go to the same vendor every day. She can’t speak a word of English. A translation dictionary does no good because her eyesight is poor and she can not read. Why, then, do I choose her baguettes over the others? Because she is happy. She has a big smile. She doesn’t care that I can not speak Laos well – she just keeps talking to me. I enjoy my lunch each day quite a bit. Her heart is pure. She just wants to earn her living laughing, talking and making sandwiches.

My guesthouse, Nam Now Guesthouse, came highly recommended by a Bavarian friend of mine. I can see why he recommended it. It is a lovely building and the rooms are clean and spacious. Some of the rooms have balconies overlooking the Nam Khan river. The guesthouse is off the beaten path but not too far from the town center. Outside is a very nice garden where guests and family sit and eat and talk. It is an idyllic setting.

When I arrived at my guesthouse, they were very pleased to welcome me as a guest. However, when I pulled out my passport, I felt a rapid change in the mood. It seemed that being an American, was not in line with what they were expecting. At first, I thought it was my imagination. Even now, there is a chance that I am imagining things. However, I have observed very carefully how the owner and his family interact with the guests. Most of the guests are Japanese. Others are from Australia, England, Germany and Canada. All of the guests who are not American – which means everyone but me - are treated quite pleasantly. The family likes to joke with them and they smile at them and they remember what they have for breakfast everyday. I, on the other hand, am treated with indifference at best and civil hatred at times.

The owner of the Nam Now Guesthouse has a choice. They can choose to hate Americans regardless of how peaceful and polite the American may be. They can choose to pretend not to speak English despite all evidence to the contrary. They can choose to pretend that their guest can not speak a word of Laos – especially please and thank you. They can choose to blatantly insult their guest as if the guest was a complete idiot. They can choose to be mastered by something which will enslave them forever.

“Look how he abused me and beat me,
How he threw me down and robbed me.”
Live with such thoughts and you live in hate.

“Look how he abused me and beat me,
How he threw me down and robbed me.”
Abandon such thoughts, and live in love.

In this world
Hate never yet dispelled hate.
Only love dispels hat.
This is the law,
Ancient and inexhaustible.
-Dhammapada

I, too, have a choice. I can think about the happy sandwich lady. I can focus on how much I don’t mind paying for a small triangle of mad cow cheese with my grilled bird flu sandwich. I can go to any number of the available guesthouses in Luang Prabang. I have considered changing guest houses every day for the past week, yet, I have chosen to stay here because I refuse to allow prejudice to win. Instead, I have gone out of my way to be as polite as possible. I have chosen to give a friend free English lessons in the guesthouse garden where they can see what I do. I have chosen to confront their hatred with love and decency and an example of generosity. I don’t seem to be making any progress at all, but I will not be intimidated by ignorance. Not all Americans are evil and those of us who are not must serve our ambassadorship with pride.

I highly recommend the Nam Now Guesthouse in Luang Prabang, Laos. If you are non-American, you will love how kind and friendly the family will be towards you. If you are an American, you will enjoy the free exercises in detachment – or you will check out. It’s just a choice.

What's Next

2007-05-27T01:06:00.000-07:00

Do you remember the paramis? In case you don’t remember, here they are in short form:

· Dāna parami : generosity, giving of oneself

· Sīla parami : virtue, morality, proper conduct

· Nekkhamma parami : renunciation

· Paññā parami : transcendental wisdom, insight

· Viriya parami : energy, diligence, vigour, effort

· Khanti parami : patience, tolerance, forbearance, acceptance, endurance

· Sacca parami : truthfulness, honesty

· Adhi ṭṭāna parami : determination, resolution

· Mettā parami : loving-kindness

· Upekkhā parami : equanimity, serenity

I know I said in Free at Last that I reject structure, but now that I’ve stepped away from it, I miss it. Isn’t that always the way – we don’t like something someone some act some whatever or other and then when it’s not around, we yearn for it. I miss the structure. It’s good for me. I think.

I’ve been tossing an idea around for a few weeks and I’m still not sure how I feel about it. Unlike the paramis where I just stepped right in it and had not choice but to wipe it off my boot, my idea is a bit more premeditated. I’ve been looking for a structure to prevent me from posting random thoughts. I considered going over the paramis again, but I can’t be bothered with that right now. So, I’m thinking of using the Dhammapada as a structure.

Over the next 26 days, I’m going to cover the 26 chapters of the Dhammapada. I am using a pocket-sized copy which I have carried nearly every day since 1990 – in truth, it has gone unopened for years at a time, but I’ve still carried it. This particular version is the one published by Shambhala Press in 1993 translated by Thomas Byrom,.

Now, don't get your hopes up. I know nothing at all. As many times as I have read the Dhammapada, I know less and more and everything I’ve learned has turned into something else. I should know more than I do now. I should keep my mouth shut. I should not think so much.

It’s an experiment, Like business or science or marriage or procreation or the idea that we are all better than average drivers, it has a very good chance of failure. But, I will try to get through these 26 topics, if, for nothing else, the structure.

There is one problem. In a few days time, I will be heading into the jungle where there are no internet connections or cell phone service. I am expecting to spend a week or two there. As a result, I will not be able to post on a daily basis. Internet connection or not, my plan is to spend some time each day on each of these subjects. That’s the structure for the next month. Let’s see how it goes.

Clear as Mud

2007-05-27T00:34:00.001-07:00

In case you are coming to Laos and are wondering what the official regulations are, I have copied the notice which hangs on the wall in my room. It is transcribed exactly as it was printed in 1999.

Lao people’s Democratic Republic

Peace Independence Democracy Unity Prosperity

Regulation to link the guest who come to stay.

Staying at hotel or guest house to attach guest inside and forige country guests. Come to stay.

I. In order to tidy the sociality and safety – peace to the guest who come to stay also in sure to the way policy nation wided tourism in Lao P.D.R.

The officer authourities had to limited regulation for acting austene as following:

Touris, visisting of the guest had to back the hotel or guest house before 12 o’lock
when you check in the hotel or guest house have to bring your passport, document to the reception section or receptionist.
Guest house will not responsible for you valuable has lost in the room, if necessary please deposit to the reception section or receptionist.
Prohibit to bring any prossession into the hotel or guest house that illegality.Including other weapons exception the officer authori ties military who’s allow to get alicence to hold agun only.
Disallow to apply another dopes and betting in the guest house or hotel.
Every tim you get in and get out please locked your room then bring the key room to the receptionist before you leaving out of the room.
checking out of the guest house, hotel always before 12 o’clock in the afternoon and inspected all your belonging before you get out of the room.
Forbid to get every thing in the room that belong to the hotiel, guest house, whenyou checking out the hotel or guest house.
Please meet your guests at the reception room that guest house, hotle had provided. Awesom received or lead the guests in to your room before you get allowed from the staff of the hotel,guesthouse.
If any one not perform this regulation, will get penalty to put on trialby the law.

Luangprabang

Immigratin and foreignes mancegement

02-Apr-1999

New Tricks

2007-05-26T05:14:00.000-07:00

Here’s a news flash. The world has changed. It’s always changing. What is good for you today, may not apply tomorrow. What was annoying back then makes me smile today. The ants in my laptop that drove me nuts a year ago are now ants in my pants and somehow they don’t bother me at all. They don’t even bite. The world is always changing and will continue to change. There is a reason why we use digital screens instead of stone tables in the modern world.

Many people think that to be a monk you need to wear ochre, orange, or brown robes and live in a temple and not drink or smoke or have sex or pretty much anything other than read and meditate and pray. Monks light incense and they shave their heads and they often wear funny hats and don’t interact with people outside the monastery. They do nutty things like whip themselves for impure thoughts and wear hair shirts to learn humility. Yes, this has been the way for thousands of years. The world has changed.

No longer do the merchants support the monks to ensure redemption. No longer are great monasteries built so that mendicants can pursue a spiritual path free of charge. Today, we must fend for ourselves.

Is this an abandonment of Buddhist principles? Not at all. Some people in Laos cringe and discredit that I was once a monk because I was married (to a nun) at the time. Just recently I told this to some Laos girls and they were so revolted by the thought of a monk marrying a nun, it looked as if they would vomit. There is nothing in the dhamma that says you must follow the dogma of 2000 years ago in order to follow the path. In fact, if you read closely, you will see that it doesn’t matter at all.

In the Bangkok Post yesterday, there was an article about the upcoming observance of the birthday Siddhartha Gautama Buddha. The article focused on Danai Chanchaochai, the CEO of a public relations firm in Bangkok. I found the article to be perfectly aligned with my own beliefs of combining spirituality and modern necessity.

“…dhamma is a natural force, and if we are pursuing a working life we can walk the dhamma path and the two will be going in the same direction. I found that everything in our lives – work, leisure, friends, partners, faith – are all inseparable from dhamma.” – Danai Chanchaochai

I’m not sure why, but it helps me along the way to know that I am not some lunatic trying to cut corners and that there are others who also believe that you can pursue spirituality (watch out! That’s a trap!) without going back to the dark ages and a perfectly useless dogma for today’s world.

Is this just about Buddhism? Not at all. No matter what faith you find is best to help you along the path, it is important to know that the world is changing and no matter who your messiah may be, they probably wanted you to stay current. The world is changing very fast and the batteries on my laptop are running out and there is an ant in my pants and a Beer Lao dark before me and a big smile on my face because I have no guarantees that I will live beyond this moment.

How about you? Are you happy in this moment? Did you think you had to wear a habit to talk to God? Think again, that was soooo five minutes ago.

Dog Beua

2007-05-25T06:17:00.000-07:00

There is a prayer, or mantra, in Tibetan Buddhism: Om mani padme hum. It doesn’t translate into English well. The most common translation is ‘The jewel is in the lotus’, which doesn’t get us very far in understanding the meaning. For a very long time, I have worn a ring which has this mantra written on it, in Tibetan script. Most recently, for no specific reason, I have worn the ring on my right ring finger.

In Laos, many people ask me about it. Not only do they wear wedding rings on either the left or right hand, but the script is vaguely similar to Laos script since both Tibet and Laos written language have shared origins in Pali and Sanskrit. Although I enjoy the inquiries, it is not a short conversation.

First, I have to explain that I am ‘poo bow’ – a single man. Naturally, this is met with surprise and playful flirtation and sometimes a rather awkward discussion about someone’s daughter, mother, niece, etc. Then, I have to explain the meaning of Om mani padme hum – the jewel is in the lotus. I’ve translated the English translation into Laos, ‘Kuang mii kaa nái dog beua’. Needless to say, this seems to perplex the person more than the English version.

It’s easy when talking with English-speaking Christians about this. I simply say ‘God exists within all things’. This seems to be a satisfactory translation and a palatable thought. However, when dealing with Laos Buddhists through a very thick accent (to them, I must sound like a 2 year old with a speech impediment), it’s far more challenging. Over the past year, I have had the conversation enough times that I can now get my point across in less than 5 minutes without the use of illustrations (I’ve decided my illustrations all look like low budget, sci-fi erotica, so I’ve abandoned them).

What is most surprising in these discussions is the apparent skepticism once the message has been received. At first, when I point to myself and say ‘Buddha in me’, they nod in agreement. Then I point to them and say ‘Buddha in you’ again, they agree. Yet, when I point to a child or a woman or a dog or a beggar, Doi turns to baw; yes, turns to no. I’m not 100% certain why.

Yes, there is a good amount of archaic thinking about women’s role in Laos society. However, Laos women are remarkably strong and resilient and they are frequently passionate about their spirituality. In my day-to-day observations, I don’t see a lot of people considering women weak or inferior. In terms of the beggar, there is a distinction between rich and poor, but many of the monks come from very poor families – often times it is because of poverty that they will join a monastery in order to get an education. I may be pushing it when I point to a dog, but in the true essence of the mantra, the dog has a chance at nirvana, also. (as a side-note, in Jack Grace band’s latest news letter he said ‘Dogs are more relaxed about sex than you are’ – I had to laugh!). Back to my point, if I have one.

I really can’t determine which is the truth. Sometimes, I think it is a combination of archaic thinking, class-ism, sexism and maybe a few other ism’s that make Om mani padme hum not acceptable. Other times, I think this idea – the idea of the Buddha-nature being in all of us – is so much a part of Laos culture that intellectualizing it is just pointless, crazy-talk.

Once you have learned the way to enlightenment, you must – or more accurately, you will by nature of enlightenment itself – throw away all that you think. Maybe I think too much. I probably do. Still, I can’t get my head around the reactions, given they so naturally demonstrate the jewel in the lotus in their day to day world.

Resonance

2007-05-24T07:01:00.000-07:00

Resonance is a big part of our existence which few of us consider in our day to day lives. It has a lot more influence on behavior than we realize. Resonance is a two way street. Resonance influences how others react to us and it influence how we react to others.
I know a man who seems to work very hard at being frightening to others. He is very big and very strong and appears ready to fight at any moment. I don’t know this man very well, but I’ve watched is interactions closely. People are afraid of him. Some of his friends say he’s a very nice guy, but I will probably never know because he resonates violence and I don’t like violence.
I know another man who is very kind. He exudes adaptability. His manner is soft and pliable. Even his face seems to say ‘I am kind and generous and caring. Welcome to whatever I have.’. People take advantage of him. They don’t manipulate him; they just do whatever they want. They eat his food, drink his beer, spend his money, and sleep in his bed. They mistake his kindness for weakness. He resonates vulnerability.
How we resonate can, and does, affect how others treat us. It affects who comes near. It affects who stays away. What we exude determines if we are mugged or hugged. And those reactions to our own resonance come back to us and they grow exponentially.
I know a country who has picked a fight with the world. Rear admirals at the front of the fleet braze their might in broad daylight. Representatives feel the cold walls of the corner where they stand; they pick their battles and hope July will show sunnier skies. I know a country which resonates fear and violence, yet its citizens still struggle to live with love and hope and decency and dignity and patriotism. They yearn to keep an even keel.
Keep an even keel in this world. Do not vibrate on the frequency of violence and hatred. Do not tune yourself into a doormat, either. Respect both yourself and others equally. Speak your mind but do not shout it. It is something we all know, yet we all struggle with it from time to time.
You are here. You will resonate, whether you know it or not. Chose wisely the song you sing because the airwaves are far more precious and far more listened to than you can imagine.

Thinking Cage

2007-05-23T06:28:00.000-07:00

We think a lot. Maybe we think too much. We think and we identify. We think and we assess and we categorize and classify. We decide who we are. We decide what is and what is not. We decide how and when and where. We solidify everything, everything in motion and everything at rest, with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we build safe, inescapable cages.
All too often I hear tourists in Laos say, ‘Oh, the Laos people are so friendly.’ They find the people of this country to be so friendly and happy and kind and genuine. People remark on how babies don’t cry and children sit patiently on busses. They remark on how women will sit not waiting, not being patient, not being anything at all; they will just sit, as if they have transcended patience and impatience and all that is in between. People remark on how friendly the Laos people are. This, too, is a trap.
The Laos people are not innocent nor naïve. They are not beyond suffering or hatred or greed or violence. In contrast to the west, they are indeed far more healthy in their mindset, but there is more to the Laos demeanor than the very friendly face the passer by might witness.
It is fine to have illusions, if you like. It is fine to think ‘Life is X’. It is fine to think ‘I am Y’. It is fine to think ‘You are Z’. It is fine to think ‘Laos people are always friendly’. But know that this illusion is a cage that may disintegrate at any moment with no notice. When your marriage fails, friends evaporate, health turns sour, what will you do? When a jaded Laos person shows their racist hatred, how will you exist now that you have been thrown from your cage? Will you have the energy to redefine your world? Will you have the time to restructure while your illusions burn? Will you have the clarity to define satisfactory new illusions to build a new cage? Will you like your new cage?
Throw away the bars. Throw away the bricks. Throw away the chains. Find freedom without your cage. You can not find freedom outside your cage in the same way you can not find freedom within your cage. You must find freedom with no cage at all. Look for your freedom without definitions and categories and assessments. When you have found this, you will be free. When you have thrown away the shackles of dogma, the bars of subjective thought, the oh-so-breathless, oh-so-shapely, oh-so-accepted corset of mental modification, you have found the natural state, the Buddha-mind, the Brahmin which exists within us all.