Next Life in the Afternoon

This is a video I made when Phramaha Nattapong came to visit me in Worcester, MA a couple years ago. He is the Buddhist monk I went to Thailand with in 2004, the one who encouraged me to come and stay in the temples and ordain as a monk. In this video, he is giving a Dhamma talk, which is something like a sermon, if I were to relate it to something we are familiar with here in the States.

Worcester Magazine had done a story on me and my Worcester Diaries project. You can catch someone taking picture of my robed friend. She was a student photographer with the magazine sent to get some shots to accompany the story. As luck would have it, I had a monastic visitor when she came and she got a whole lot more than she had bargained for, I think. Great times!

Technorati Tags: video, Phramaha Nattapong, Buddhist, monk, Thailand, Dhamma, sermon, Worcester Magazine, Worcester Diaries

I have been living in two worlds for three and a half years. When I left to go to Thailand, I knew to expect a little culture shock. It was a three-week trip and I had been there before, so I more or less knew what to expect. It was a little stressful to adapt while I was there, but not too bad.What I did not count on was the transition of returning to the States. I had spent three weeks taking bucket showers, scrounging and hording food and sleeping on the floor. Suddenly, when I came home, I had things like hot water anytime I wanted. I heard English spoken almost all the time and had a structured job to go to.

It was familiar but it wasn’t so comfortable. I wanted something else – something different – but I didn’t know what. I never really felt accepted in Thailand, mostly because I was very obviously a foreigner, and while most people there were friendly and welcoming, nobody wants to invest too much emotionally into someone they know will soon leave their life.

When I got home, I knew I did not really fit there either. The thing about travel is that it changes you. Your experiences and insights alter your very being, almost like a chemical reaction. You can’t undo that change. Maybe you can learn a new or different way of being so you can better adapt to your circumstance, but that experience will always be with you.

For a long time I lived like this, remembering Ajahn Kamtan‘s words on meditation. “Breathe in, think, ‘Bud.’ Breathe out, think, ‘dho.’ In-out, you think, ‘Bud-dho.’ You do that. You meditate on Buddho.”

Meditation helped. It calmed my mind, put out the fires of my passions and let me see the world as part of a cycle, both on the macro and micro scale. Just as the world is impermanent and in a grand cycle, I am the same way, as are my thoughts and emotions. Everything arises, exists and passes away. This feeling of confusion and culture shock will also pass. This, too, is impermanent.

The confusion has faded over the years but still sometimes rears its head, especially since I am writing about my experiences and reliving memories on a daily basis. One moment I am in a remote jungle monastery, surrounded by the sounds of animals – monkeys, insects, birds – and the next moment I am jarred out of it by a cell phone’s ring in the coffee shop where I do much of my writing.

Sometimes it is hard to make the distinction between here and there, especially as I dive deeper into the stories, fleshing out dialogues and storylines with memories of travel and excitement. At times it seems so far away, so long ago, but I need only make an attempt to recall a precious interaction, a meal, a shared laugh, a gift. Those things are always in my heart and mind and will not change, even if the moments in which they occurred have long passed.

To recall the present moment – that most important of all moments – I need only recite what Ajahn Kamtan told me. Buddho. It brings me to that still point in my mind, the warm place in my heart, the deepness of the connection I share with all people regardless of culture. It brings to the place I call home.

Technorati Tags: Thailand, culture shock, travel, Ajahn Kamtan, Buddho, Meditation, writing, present moment

One of the ascetic practices some monks undertake is that of observing death in its many forms, from the ever-frightening threat of death to the ghastly specter of what remains after death. This is a practice designed to help them let go of attachments to the physical world and come to know in a very deep way that we are all subject to the same certain eventuality of pushing up daisies. Or tamarind trees, as the case may be.

I never intended to have this type of practice during the trip I made to Thailand three years ago but for most people it’s not something they plan for. When the threat of death comes, that horrid vision and realization of our own mortality, what do we do? Running toward danger is not a very smart action but running away from what we perceive to be dangerous may lead us to other dangers.

Here is a taste of what I did while in Old Sukhothai and finding myself among dangers I had not anticipated:

At other ruin sites the paths and lawns were clear, but at this one the paths I trod had me wading through ankle-deep leaves. The clearing where grass could conceivably grow was so covered that nary a blade showed itself if any were there at all.

I had recently stopped at a temple whose very large fire ant population kept me from staying long, so I was delighted to be among tall-growing hardwoods without obvious fruit that might support a healthy colony of little stinging creatures. Yelping and dancing a jig to get the fire ants off me was not a reflection of my best self.

The idea of encountering the dreaded king cobra or other death-giving creature had not crossed my mind when I noticed the leaves around my feet rustle with such vigor that my neck hairs stood erect in the still air.

I looked and could see the leaves moving among the fallen pillars and overgrown weeds at the edge of the clearing. Something was crawling in the underbrush. I didn’t know what type of creature it was and did not care to find out. My first thought was to leave at once, bidding adieu to my ground-dwelling companions. At some point, though, you have to figure that if you are halfway through the woods, you still have halfway to travel. That is, trying to extricate myself hastily would not prove any more effective if the same distance would be traversed regardless of speed. Any snakes that might be in the leaves and ready to strike would be there whether I ran or strolled.

Then comes the matter of strategy in walking. Do I walk noisily and hope to scare the snakes into slithering away ahead of my feet, or will that simply anger the gutsier of them into staying and attacking? Would a stroll, feet padding along silent and catlike, be more effective in trying not to scare the snakes, or would that ensure their complacency instead of their flight? Such are the thoughts of a man who would prefer to avoid certain death but knows that the number of fangs will likely remain unseen and unknown, and unknown even if seen.

So how did I walk? Slowly and noisily. Did I get bitten? No. By not running from danger and instead having a walk in the woods, I was able to enjoy what could have easily been my last minutes.

In the end, it is not avoiding death that matters. The quality of a life is not measured in time but in substance. If I were to get bitten and die there, I think I could have called my life and experiences quite full. Or someone could have, on my behalf. All the same, I am glad for the opportunity for future richness.

Technorati Tags: ascetic, monks, death, Thailand, mortality, danger, Sukhothai, ruin, snake