I got this idea from a book I got in Thailand a few years ago at a little used bookstore in Chiang Mai. It is called The Wheel of Engaged Buddhism by Kenneth Kraft. There are many ways to remind ourselves slow down, breathe and relax throughout the day. The book also talks about a doctor, a compulsive clock watcher, who put green dots on his watch and the clock in his office. Every time he saw a green dot, he took a breath and relaxed his shoulders. He estimated t

Geeking out with Mia and the Pauls!

hat he took a hundred relaxing breaths throughout a typical day and he slowly let go of his clock watching habit.

Thich Nhat Hanh in his book Present Moment, Wonderful Moment: Mindfulness Verses for Daily Living talks about driving meditation in which we take a breath and gently bring our attention back to the moment every time we see a red light or brake light.

There are so many opportunities in our daily lives to come back to the present. In this way, our meditation can extend beyond the mat to any moment of our day.

Mor Noi with Rick

This article was written by Karen Ufer who joined CSTM in Thailand last March. One of the teachers that we really love is Mor Noi, and this post describes Karen’s experience with her. Enjoy!

Mor Noi: the ‘little doctor’ in Chiang Mai
(Mor = doctor, Noi = little)

A stunning discovery that I made on my last trip to Chiang Mai in March 2011 with the Chicago School of Thai Massage was Miss Amporn (gold from the sky) Srakrupan called Mor Noi – a healer of a kind, a true wisdom woman, a psychic and medical intuitive, a jewel in the lotus flower. She was trained in Traditional Thai Medicine and became a Thai medical doctor. She developed her own theory about the cause of illness and created her own, special method of healing. She represents the ‘soft touch’ of energy healing in Thailand in contrast to the deep pressure often felt with Nuad Boran (Traditional Massage). Her gentle, warm energy hands connect to the natural energy flow of the body as well as to the single cells forming the tissue. She believes that the cells carry the memory of the past and store whatever happened to the body: trauma, accident, disease. Her gentle healing touch aims at the same goals as Thai massage: opening the energy flow, releasing energy blockages, balancing the energy of the elements (air, water, earth, fire) and activating the inherent self-healing mechanisms of the body.

In many ways, her teachings are ‘same same’ to Pichest Boonthumme- a Master of Traditional Thai massage – sometimes even using the same words or phrases. The spiritual healing – healing the thought – is deeply connected to the dharma teachings of Buddhism and is completely in line with the wisdom Pichest embodies. They are also comparable in their teachings about the dominance of the mind over the body and the resulting problems from being too much in the mind. Both healers are strongly influenced by the beliefs about the world of spirit– the need to live in harmony with them and the energies they represent in the world.

Mor Noi’s theory about the four natural elements (water, earth, fire and air) reflecting the physiological processes in the body is also rooted in the old traditions of Thai Medicine. With her broad range of education and her amazing intuitive abilities she adapted this ancient knowledge about energy and elements to the 21st century and our modern illnesses and diseases. With regard to life energy she even refers to concepts of modern quantum physics. Listening to her is a refreshing shower of receiving the magical truth of simplicity.

The difference between Pichest and Mor Noi is the ‘how’ – the way they touch the body and heal the mind; the way they move energy. Mor Noi works on the table with a soft touch and treats the mind and body simultaneously talking to the client and guiding the mind through the body. Pitchest addresses the mind and the body separately. He heals the mind through his dharma teachings, meditation and prayers. His way of healing the energy and releasing blockages happens on the mat on the floor through deep circulatory compressions as an essential ingredient of his famous style of Thai massage.

Mor Noi is the female, yin version of how to connect to the pranamaya kosha – the energybody – and activate the self-healing mechanisms of the physical body by removing energy blockages. Her touch is as powerful as it is soft. She does not press or sink into the body. Instead her touch connects you to a new awareness of the energy flow in your body or your own blockages. She works on both entities – the body and the mind – at the same time. She has a way of withdrawing your mind from processing external signals and directing it towards observing and feeling the body, urging it to LISTEN to the body.

Mor Noi teaches you that the mind can make the body sick by making too many demands on the body. She acknowledges that the mind can also make the mind sick. Wrong thinking and judgment of the mind can lead to an even more disturbed perception of the external world. The body can also make the body sick. These are chain reactions of progressive illnesses which cause the weakness to expand throughout the body. The body can also make the mind sick. This refers to dealing with physical problems which change and affect your thinking, perception and emotions about life. Mor Noi regards the body and the mind as separate entities with different energies. The energy of the thoughts is very different from the life energy in the body. It is essential to heal both of them simultaneously. Only the restoration of a healthy communication and interaction of these two important dimensions will lead to true healing of the body-mind-soul unit.

The body does the self-healing best when the mind leaves it alone. This means the complete allowance and letting go of the mind’s need to stay in control even of the process of healing. Mor Noi teaches us that one major ingredient of healing is love. A sign on her desk says, “We need love! The body needs love!”

It takes a really good practitioner, lots of self-discipline and practice of meditation to take your mind to this special state of letting go. Mor Noi can help you do it. She takes you to a deeply relaxed, trance-like state being somewhere between awake and asleep. Once the mind is still and completely present, the body is set free to heal itself.

Her major focus is on the abdominal area as the center of most health problems. Additionally, she intentionally elicits emotions during the session. She believes that energy blockages are caused by negative emotions like anger, sadness, frustration, guilt which are stored in the body. Mor Noi intuitively connects to these emotional blockages. She talks about her sensations and brings repressed emotions back to your awareness.

As a former psychotherapist and neuropsychologist, I know how difficult it is to heal emotional trauma or physical memories through the mind. The state of letting go is not easily achieved with the mind, if at all. On the contrary, it happens quickly in the body, when the mind is still. This experience was my biggest insight into the interaction of the mind and body influencing the energy flow. I experienced the magical moment of energy shifting in the body during my session with her. It seems that if the healer is capable of relaxing the central nervous system to the extent that the client experiences this ‘mindless’ state, the body liberates itself from suffering. Giving the body this kind of freedom and allowance, one might even be able to reverse the dynamics of a given disease, as chronic or progressive as it may seem. Energetically this reversal of the spiraling motion of energy can be compared to reversing the rotation of a ceiling fan. See what happens when you press the appropriate button on the remote control to change the movement of the fan. The movement slows down to the point where there is no motion at all and then it turns the other way. Perhaps it is just the same with the spinning energies in our body?

Of course the client has to be willing to undo his/her obstacles to healthy functioning on all four causes of disease: 1. food 2. mind 3. elements 4. karma. Mor Noi’s clinic with her cooking school and the sweet herbal garden provides everything you need to fully enjoy the holistic healing of your unique body-mind-soul unit. How I enjoyed receiving the wisdom and the touch from Mor Noi. As an advanced Thai therapist having used the tool of traditional Thai massage for the last 6 years, she opened the door to a new way of providing ‘soft’ energy healing for the client.

Karen Ufer (RTT)
Scottsdale AZ
May 2011

Give Me a Handful of Coffeebeans, I'll Show You the World

This morning on “Being” the show on NPR hosted by Krista Tippett, Sylvia Boorstein was interviewed and she has this great reflection that she uses when she finds herself “reacting” to some situation in her life.  I love it.  Especially the “sweetheart” part.  Calling myself “sweetheart” makes me smile.  How you say this to yourself is also important.  If you listen to her say it, you will understand the motherly way that she does it.  Not patronizing or condescending, but full of love and compassion.  http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2011/what-we-nurture/video_in-the-room.shtml  It’s near the end of the interview, just in the last few minutes.

Sweetheart,

You’re in pain,

Relax take a breath,

Let’s pay attention to what’s happening,

Then we’ll figure out what to do!

And I love that it really brings compassion / lovingkindness meditation into the moment.  Let’s break it down:  sweetheart  – immediately we remind ourselves to love ourselves.  There’s something about that word that is like us as a child melting into our mothers arms and her saying, sweetheart, it’s going to be alright! You’re in pain – It comes from the fact that mentally clinging to anger, irritation, annoyance causes ourselves mental pain.  The recognition of our own suffering is the baseline for the development of compassion and understanding.  Relax, take a breath – Coming back to the breath is what we do in the formal meditation practice when we find ourselves getting caught up in a “story”.   It helps us to recognize the physical tension in our body that we are creating with our mind and reminds us to let it go.  And the exhaled, sighing breath assists us in letting go.  Let’s pay attention to what’s happening – Once we calm our body and mind, we can be more clear about the reality about what is happening at the moment and see it in a more dispassionate way.  When we let go of the emotion around a situation and just see it for what it is, we can make better decisions, which of course leads to the final sentence in this mantra.  Then we’ll figure out what to do – Patience, putting space in between an event and our reaction to it can help us to have more compassionate, conscious reactions to situations.  We can understand what is happening more clearly and then act in a way that creates less dissonance, less difficulty, less pain and suffering, and more peace in ourselves and others.

Thank you Sylvia for this offering!

Temple outside the northern Thai city of Chiang Dao

When I was in Thailand a few weeks ago, I was talking to Paul W. on the phone about the stress and tension he was feeling on his return to the west.   I said, let’s start a “Relaxation Revolution”!   Let’s make it “OK” for us to take off and rest when we are sick or tired.  Let’s feel ok about not getting everything on our list done today.  And yes, let’s block out time for “ourselves”.  But let’s not be fooled by blocking out time for ourselves.  Because it’s not enough to kill ourselves working for a week and then take half a day at the Korean spa.  It’s more about how we approach our life every moment, every day.

When I was in Thailand this time, as usual, I quickly sunk into their way of walking; slow, leisurely and in no hurry.   After a short time, I didn’t have to think about it too much, it’s just the way I walked.  Sometimes, when I would walk with Thai people, I would be walking really slowly, and to my surprise, I would realize that they were walking even slower!  I mean, they were barely moving forward.  I intend to keep walking this way.  And I can do it.  The only thing I need to do as a compromise to this culture which values promptness, is that I need to leave earlier.

The other day I was walking to the train and I had plenty of time.  But after a block or two I realized my pace had moved back to Evanston speed.  I caught myself, just like I catch my mind when it is wondering in meditation.  It’s like, “oh yeah, that’s my intention!” Then I bring my mind back and slow down.  And as soon as I do so, just like in seated meditation, just like in that race in high school, it’s like this wave of tension instantly exits my body.  And suddenly I am alert to the moment, I notice the trees, the smells, the birds, the sidewalk, the feel of my feet touching the ground, my breath, and when my mind drifts, I notice that too.  What I realize is that the fast walk happened when I was thinking about what I “needed” to do that day, who I “needed” to see, and all the things I “needed” to do.   When I slowed down, all that disappeared like a ghost when the light gets switched on.

I am appealing to you all right now.  Remind me.  Next week, next month, three months from now, will I still remember?  Will I be able to protect myself from the strong energies of this fast paced, materialistic society we have created?  I can with your help.  We all need each other.  We need each other’s help and support.   After all, the third jewel in the Buddhist doctrine is the Sangha.  (Buddha and Dhamma, being the first two).  We bow to the sangha because it is bigger than us.  It is the collective practice of all those looking to develop their minds in beneficial ways.  The sangha can guide us, support us, and help us.  We are the sangha.  And we must not forget our responsibility to hold space for each other and remind each other what’s possible, even in the “modern world”.

So the drum that I am beating beats out a reminder to slow down.  It’s a slow beat.  It’s the beat of the breath over the beat of the heart.    And when I follow the beat of the breath instead of the heart, I find that my heart has space to grow stronger.  And when my heart grows stronger, there is more space for compassionate understanding.  Perhaps you feel that too.

“Cha cha” they say in Thailand.  “Slowly, slowly”.   The future will arrive soon enough.

“When you throw a stone into water, it hurries the quickest way down to the bottom of the water. So it is when Siddhartha has a goal, a purpose. Siddhartha does nothing, he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he passes through the things of the world as the stone passes through the water, without doing anything, without touching anything; he is pulled, he lets himself fall. His goal pulls him toward it, for he admits nothing into his soul that would resist the goal.”

–Siddhartha, Herman Hesse (translation by Rika Lesser)

Riley as Ruesri at Wat Po

Paul Fowler read this to me, sitting in his apartment in Chiang Mai one evening as we shared our latest theories on self-healing. I love it because it reconciles two apparently contradictory ways of living, both of which I believe:

1.“Let go and go with the flow.”

2. “You create your own life.”

The first seems passive, and the second, quite active. Both seem true, but how can I let things happen and make things happen at the same time? Siddhartha tells me these are not two choices, but one . . . or as Thai people are fond of saying in English: “Same, same.” I make something happen by allowing it to happen, by stepping aside and not preventing its happening. I create something by allowing it to come into being, by admitting nothing into my soul that would resist.

The Thai healers I met in and around Chiang Mai understand this deeply. They taught me to heal my body by allowing it to heal, to relax a muscle by inviting it to relax and then giving it the space, love and support to do so. Even the woman who gave me a spectacularly uncomfortable abdominal organ massage works gradually, gently – always with my body, never against. At the first placement of her hands over my abdomen, she announces, “Ah. Energy block here,” and proceeds to focus on unsticking the energy that has been stuck for years in my core. In the process, her hands happen to find themselves quite deeply embedded in my psoas, my kidney, my pancreas, my who-knows-what . . . but this is secondary, only a result. In her mind, she is following energy. Opening, never forcing, but encouraging each block until it opens, in which case she whispers, “Thank you,” or until it doesn’t, in which case she moves on.

Another bodyworker I met, who insists that her work is Thai massage even though it looks different from all other Thai massage I’ve seen, works by allowing my muscles to float up to the surface and meet her hands. “You push, they cower away. They scared,” she says. She impersonates my muscles, flinching and curling up into a ball. “You have to work gentle, like this. Not need more than this. You work too hard.” She tells this to every Westerner I’ve seen her encounter: “You work too hard. Let it go.” She moves her hands over my body, sensing heat and emotion. She pauses, lets her hands come into contact with my body and then waits, listens, allows. “It’s okay,” I imagine her saying to my muscles, “Let it go. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.” Lying in bed that night, I feel aches reaching up from deep inside my back and hips, connecting my conscious mind with muscles I have ignored for years.

It is this touch, more than anything else, that I bring home with me, that seeps into my way of being. It is this question with which I challenge myself as I work and live: “What can I sense if I just stay here, silent and still and present? How much can I learn by just pausing and listening? How can I relax more deeply into this moment? These questions are with me in the softly-lit massage room as I settle into my first physical contact with the person on the table or the mat, the person with whom I will spend the next hour of my life. But they do not leave me when the hour is up; they follow me down the sidewalk and slide with me through the train’s closing doors, tug my sleeve as I reach into the cabinets to find dinner, climb into my lap to block my view of the computer screen and remind me to breathe.

Paul had warned me that each time he goes to Thailand, he comes back intending to keep living in that “cha, cha” (“slowly, slowly”) way, and that each time, it eventually gets lost in our forward-thinking American culture. After my month-long stay, “cha, cha” keeps me faithful company for about a week before threatening to beat a hasty retreat back across the Pacific Ocean. It isn’t the pace of my fellow CTA-riders’ footsteps or the immediacy and precision with which we demand food, service and answers; it’s my own thinking that is beginning to scare away the calm. The content of the thoughts is not the disturbing factor. The thoughts are pleasant and exciting, inspired by e-mails, phone calls and meetings and centered around new opportunities for healing, relationships and work. It’s merely their presence that overwhelms me. They show up in droves, stealing from me the pure awareness of waking up, sucking the life out of my food and turning a deliciously hot shower into the thing I have to do before going to work.

It becomes an ongoing cycle, this process of forgetting and remembering, of allowing myself to be carried away by thoughts and then feeling the gentle voice of my grounding questions, pulling me back to here and now. And slowly, I become aware of a change in my view of this, the meditation of life. The task of remaining in the present moment is becoming the joy of existing in the present moment. I first practiced meditation grudgingly, because monks and teachers told me I should, because they did and because they looked peaceful. Now I am beginning to experience how much better my food is when I taste it, how much more joy I find in walking to the train when I feel my feet on the ground. Mindfulness is growing from a distant intellectual concept into my favorite state in which to live.

With this tool, I can allow opportunities to flow into and out of my life, to receive each one as it comes . . . hold it, but gently, not pinning it too tightly to lists or calendars. Bless it, delight in it . . . then let it go, give it space to become the fullest expression of whatever it is. As Paul told me recently, “I have an amazing life and that has nothing to do with a perfect life which doesn’t exist. So I prefer to focus on the amazing part!” Instead of trying to fit each thing into its perfectly scheduled slot in my life, I choose to experience it where it is, when it is there, and to see the beauty in that.

Michelle, Paul W. and Paul F at Sunshine School in Lahu Village

I was working with my friend and teacher Chance the other day.  We talked about inversions.  Inversions Thai style.  First, let’s define.  An inversion is when the heart is higher than the head.  Simple as that.  Let’s think of all the poses that we do where the head is higher than the heart.  There’s not a lot perhaps, but a good number.  Now, let’s think about what it takes to put someone in that position.  Is it easy or is it difficult?  Does it take strength or energy on your part, or are you able to use gravity and alignment to make it happen?  Are we doing it because we think the client expects that from a Thai massage?  Or is it because we want to “wow” our client with some “cool” Thai massage moves?  I can only answer these questions for myself of course.  And for me, most of the inversions take energy and often times they are difficult.  And sometimes, I find myself trying to “wow” my client, especially if it seemed to be a pretty low key, “uneventful” session.  All this begs the question, could it be that for most of the inverted poses, our western bodies are not able to receive it comfortably?  Could it be that for most of the inverted poses, our western bodies are not able to give it comfortably?  Here’s another question.  How often do you use inverted poses in your practice?  For me, the answer is very rarely.  They just rarely feel good.  And I’m often concerned that I might injure someone.  So, why are inverted poses included in the traditional Thai massage sequence (and for beginners no less)?  I don’t know the answer to that.  But I do know that when I receive sessions here in Thailand, I am rarely put into an inversion.  It seems they’ve pretty much gotten rid of it here.  So why do we hold on to it in the west?  Because it’s “traditional Thai massage?”

I am in the process of breaking down every single pose that is in a
“traditional Thai massage” sequence.  And if I cannot do it comfortably, and I mean COMFORTABLY, I am leaving it out, throwing it in the trash, and walking away.  I have no desire to maryr myself for another person (and of course, if it’s not comfortable for me, it’s not comfortable for them either and then how can it help them?).

Right now, Paul and I are taking a hard look at the “sequence” as we have been teaching it.  And we are going to have to make some hard choices.  In an interview I had with Homprang earlier in the week, I asked her about putting together a sequence from a western perspective, using what we know in the west and who we are in the west, and she answered strongly in the affirmative.  After all, she made up her sequence based upon her experiences and training.  Pichest did too (though he has long since thrown out the idea that a sequence can be beneficial at all).  Why shouldn’t we do the same?

And here’s the fact.  All the teachers who are worth their salt (ie. Pichest, Homprang, Mor Noi) are saying the same thing over and over and over again.  Create a practice that works for you and for your client.  Throw out the book.  Throw out your idea of Thai massage.  Throw out the “teachings”.  Just tune into the body and what it needs.  It is your body first of all.  And the clients body second of all.  And if you are uncomfortable in any way when you do the practice, stop, back up, back off, and take another look.

As for inversions, suspensions, lifts, and the like, ask yourself when you are doing them, “if I was to stay here for 5 minutes would I be comfortable? Would my client be comfortable?” If the answer is no, then whatever you hoped to achieve by doing that move, see if you can achieve it another way.  A way that is more supported for both you and your client.

I know that it might be a radical thing to say to get rid of most of the inversions in your practice, but what is more important, your own and your client’s health, or “doing traditional Thai massage” as you were taught?  Obviously, this question is rhetorical.  But then again, it is not for me to tell you to get rid of most of the inversions in your practice.  After all, the teaching needs to come not from me, another teacher or any book, but from tapping into your own wisdom.  So it would be better for me to rephrase and simply say, pay attention to your body when you put someone in an inversion.   And then let your body and not your mind be your guide.  You will then know exactly what to do; not because it came from me or some teaching, but because you are listening with compassion, sensitivity and your inherent wisdom.

The journey continues. . .

Paul F

Breakfast!

I am titling this blog post “rant” because that how I discovered it on my computer. I only use this computer in Thailand. It’s a little thing and I just don’t have much use for it stateside. So when I opened this strange document called “rant”, I found myself drawn in. I didn’t much recall writing it. I write a lot of things that I don’t recall writing. But I thought it was a worthy post. But I will make a caveat. I talked to Michelle (my partner in crime here in Thailand) and asked her if she thought it was a bit too generous to the Thai people. She nodded in the affirmative. I am usually careful to not idealize a people or a culture or on the otherhand, diss a people or a culture. All cultures have their light side and all have their shadow side. I just happened to, at this moment see the light side of one culture and the shadow side of another. But given another day, I could easily turn it around as there are many shadows lurking in these parts, that’s for sure. So with that preface, here’s me ranting (probably fueled by a cup of coffee or two!)

Yesterday, while I was sitting and eating in the little restaurant downstairs at my hotel, there were three farang (westerners) eating. I had what I thought was a good idea for a Thai person who wanted to make some money. There are a lot of Thai cooking courses in town here, but there are no Thai eating courses. You see, most Thai people do not eat in the restaurants catering to farang. They mainly eat in from the roadside stands that tend to gather in local markets around town. These markets, which are the Jewel/Whole Foods to most Thai’s are also where the best food in town happens to be cooked. There are usually tables set up around these stands so when you get your food, there is a place to sit down and relax and eat. And of course they are super cheap. A curry that might cost 100 baht or more in a restaurant catering to farang, will run about 35 baht at one of these stands. And more farang would eat at these little stands if they recognized the food and could figure out how to order it. So my suggestion, which I gave to a Thai friend of mine who waitresses in a couple restaurants in town including the one downstairs, is to have a Thai eating class. Where they meet at a local market and learn about the various foods that are available and then sit down to try them, learning what stands make what kind of food and then how to order what they like. Mysteries abound. Often times, there are people selling something wrapped expertly in banana leafs. But you never know exactly what’s going to be inside though the size and shape are often the clues. But how would a farang know that. There are bizarre colored candies in some stands but how is one to know what the different colors are or what the candy is even. There are stands with soups (Thai’s love soup the best), but there are so many different kinds. And so on. The variety is astounding and the flavors are often intense, so a class sampling different foods would give people a safe way to try them. By the way, Thai restaurants in the US are like restaurants for farang here. Not surprising of course, but pretty far removed from the intensity of flavor and heat of a typical Thai dish. Anyways, I didn’t begin writing to talk about Thai food. The juice for this came from my moment with the three farang in the restaurant to whom I was bouncing this idea. It was breakfast, there was no one else in the open airy restaurant, and it didn’t feel like I would be intruding by saddling up and asking them what their thoughts were on the subject. They were maybe 30 years old, one man, two women. As I was conversing, it was really only the man that bothered to respond, saying he might not be interested as he was not an adventurous eater (they were in the process of putting butter and jam on their white toast – all three things being totally foreign to Thai people). The other two barely looked at me, and in fact one didn’t even turn her head to acknowledge me. After hanging out almost exclusively with Thai people for the last month (since I stopped going to Pichest’s, I no longer have much interaction with farang), it took me back. It was so different from the easy engagement of the people here. It is like when you walk down the street and you pass someone. If you pass a Thai person, they will look you in the eye and smile if you do. It doesn’t matter, young or old, male or female. They will give you an easy, generous smile. And this is not just to farang, they engage each other this way too. If you pass a farang on the street and smile, they have no idea how to react and usually look down or respond with a tight, uneasy smile that looks more like pain or constipation than anything resembling a smile. This is the nature of our western culture. I don’t pretend to know why it is. Maybe we are afraid that someone might want something from us. Maybe we just don’t have enough socialization. Maybe it’s a cynicism or just a general sense that if we engage, it might take up some of our precious time. Because it is true that time in Thailand is different from time in the west. It’s more fluid here. The clock is not central to their lives. It doesn’t own them like it owns us. But it seems like fear to me. It smells like it. If you boil it to it’s very essence, fear is what lays dry and crusty on the bottom of the pan. It’s not our fault. It’s the nature of our culture. Culture, it seems to me, is the single strongest determiner of our thoughts and actions. This came as somewhat of a surprise to me on this trip. We think we are such independent thinkers, that everything we do is so self determined. Of course, that is what our culture tells us to think Even our thoughts of independence are culturally created. As this is not the culture here and they don’t think of themselves that way. I met a guy in Bali. He was talking to someone about the possibility of them renting a motorcycle. He has a motorcycle in the states. When he rides his motorcycle in the states, he wouldn’t think of going out without full leather, helmet and the works. But here, where people are on motorcycles from the moment they are born, give no thought to that sort of protection. Though some wear helmets, they almost all wear flip flops, shorts, t shirts etc. And when he is here, that’s what he does too. And he doesn’t think twice about it. When in Rome….And yet, that saying assumes that you bring consciousness to conforming. Maybe at first, that is the case. But go anywhere for long enough, or not even that long, and you begin conforming to culture without thinking about it. And if culture is so strong in swaying one to it’s side so quickly, imagine it’s power when you grow up in it. You have no idea all your thoughts have been so determined by it until you leave it. I talk about what a relief it is to leave the bubble of the west, the bubble of my culture. It’s like being able to breathe fresh air after being cooped up for so long. I know, this sounds blasphemous. Unappreciative and all that. It’s not that I don’t appreciate what I’ve been given. I’m thankful for it every day. It’s just that I feel so much more at ease here. There is so much more ease here. You can feel it when you saddle up to a few farang and try to engage in a simple repartee and end up feeling kind of lousy, like there is something wrong with you for trying to make the most basic of connections. I was going to make a point about the lack of direction in the west, of a lack of someone, some institution, holding down the moral center. How we flit and flitter between science and politics, looking for direction and end up either in scandal or on the moon. We are great at looking outside of ourselves in the west. Who is to blame for our problems. We follow politics, blaming the other side, the right, the left. We follow science, looking for answers on the moon. They have it right here. It is the temple that holds things together here. It is the monks. The monks, who spend their lives asking the right questions, and seeking the right answers. The most honored and revered of all Thai society. The monks place is second to none. It is because their role is so important. They are the ones who look for answers the only place they can be found, inside of us. Cultivating and understanding compassion, wisdom, patience, humbleness, simplicity, and love. And because these are the true leaders of society here, people cultivate those values within themselves as well. So that what you end up with is a society that is clear on what is important, where relaxing and laughing with friends and family is the best possible use of time (though they don’t think of it in terms of “use of time”). This is so unlike our confused, greedy, fearful and violent culture, twisting this way and that like a flag in a hurricane, desperately clinging to politics, science or religion. Seeking a way out while it’s only serving to deepen our suffering and give sense that we are lost in our own backyard. We can see our house, but just can’t figure out how to get back there.

Receiving Instruction

Ps.  This picture has no relation to my post.  It’s just a cool mushroom (Amanita muscaria if you need to know) Oliver and I saw while on a long day hike near Aspen.

I will no longer underestimate the power of smart, healthy eating, and it’s primacy in our spiritual practice.

I will relate more about the specifics of the diet in another post.  But I will tell you that it is much more than just giving up the sweet stuff that was poisoning my body!

Paul F