The Day I Met Buddha

Annie & I. 

If you met Buddha, would you know it? Or maybe you've already met Buddha, in someone you least expected. The word Buddha, which simply means "the awakened one," doesn't just have to be reserved for the historical figure who lived in India nearly 2,600 years ago. In one sense, the term can be used to represent the inherent goodness and perfection that lies dormant within each and everyone of us, animals included. The problem is that we are ignorant to this inner beauty, and our ignorance leaves this internal gem unpolished. It is only through our own efforts to polish this precious gem that we find this inner beauty shining through.

I met a Buddha, but I didn't even realize it. Her name is Annie, and when I first met her, I didn't like her. There was something about her that rubbed me the wrong way. As she will admit, she's "loud and obnoxious." But what I didn't know, when I first met her, is that there is a reason for her overly positive attitude and joyful spirit. I know what you're thinking, why wouldn't I like someone who is joyful and positive? Well, I guess like some, I might be a bit pessimistic when it comes to someone who seems to be too happy. I guess I just don't trust it in general, and I've often found that it's a cover-up for some deeper issue and is nothing more than a show.

So I had my reservations. The other thing is that when Annie arrived at the yoga/meditation retreat center I was staying at in Cambodia, I was observing silence. To make matters worse, as Annie made her way around meeting everyone, she wasn't aware that I was in silence, so as I attempted to avoid a direct interaction with her, tension between us grew. She could tell I wasn't overly fond of her, and I knew that she could tell. Needless to say, we weren't off to a great start.

"Don't judge a book by its cover."

Okay okay, I know I've heard this a million times, and have had many revelations from this after having wrongly judged someone, yet I still fall victim to the reactive tendency to judge people whom I don't know very well. One thing about observing silence is that it makes it easier to become aware of these judgments that inevitably arise. Without having an outlet for these reactions, they end up bouncing around the head and are pretty hard to miss. Even though I have a practice to help shine a light on the shallowness of the judging mind, which is just to silently note, "judging, judging," there was still a part of myself that believed in the judgments.

Basically, the idea is that the judging mind is just a function of the mind, and its judgments are nothing but reactions based on past conditioning. The judgments themselves can therefore be seen as being temporary, fleeting, and devoid of any intrinsic value. In other words, in no way do our judgments represent who or what we really are, yet we tend to believe them. We can think of the judging mind as a childish prankster who is always fishing for our recognition of what it sends our way. Insecure on its own, it always seeks our approval of whatever judgments it conjures up. When we don't realize what is happening, we unknowingly hand over our approval and even go a step further to write our name on the judgments, thinking they are actually ours to begin with. This is mistake if we are looking to find freedom from automated tendencies of the mind, because by signing off on these judgments, we are effectively stepping down from our platform of control. I don't mean to say that we need to try to control everything, but it's nice when we have a say in the way that we think, act, and respond to life. If we don't, we're nothing more than habituated reactivity in action.

When it came to Annie, I tried not to believe in my judgments of her, but I had no evidence to say otherwise. As the days went on, I started to get more glimpses into who this person was, and she was starting to grow on me. By the time I came out of my 6 days of silence, I had already decided that she was my favorite person at the retreat, but it wasn't until the next day that I really understood why.

On the next day, Annie told her story. When she was 27, she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, and she lost eyesight in both eyes, which lasted for a couple years. She also was slated, according to her doctors, to lose her ability to walk and was facing a life of a being blind and in a wheelchair. Now, she's 32, and as she was telling her story, she was clearly not the person that they said she would be. Her vision is 20/20, and she fits right into the daily yoga classes; you'd never know she had MS.

At some point, during treatment, Annie made a leap of faith. She dropped all of her meds and moved to Colorado to seek out alternative forms of healing. She gives all of the credit of her recovery to amazing healers and doctors of Chinese medicine, and she's telling her story to explain why she has now become an accupuncturist and Chinese herbalist, the very practices that gave her the life she enjoys today. "I'm happy, every single day, because I can see." Hearing her sense of profound gratitude was enough to bring tears to my eyes, especially because my mind was simultaneously being blown in regards to just how wrong I had been about her.

As she reminded us, "You don't know how special something simple like eyesight is until you lose it for two years." Okay, so that's not an exact quote, but you'll have to forgive me, I wasn't expecting anything worth taking notes on. Now, I wish I had been filming her class, which turned out to be a beautiful and moving Dhamma talk, so I could share it with all of you.

Annie's message is loud and clear, don't miss an opportunity to be grateful for all of the things you have. She even offered us the practice of thanking the various parts of our bodies. "When is the last time you thanked your ankle for doing a great job?" she asked. "Most people wait until something goes wrong with their ankle and then they start complaining, but don't they realize that their ankle was kicking-ass everyday of their life until that moment?"

Not only is she inspiring, but she's hilarious. "If you want to know more, just read my book," she joked. I told her later that she really should write a book, and try to teach as much as she can. It's all too often that someone like me, who is fairly serious and devoted to the spiritual path, becomes bogged down with hardship and finds things to be a bit grim at times. "To me, meditation is about connecting with the inner joy that we always have access to," she reminded us. To do this, we can even start by making ourselves smile, which within 20 seconds, she says, will trigger our brains and actually cause us to be happy.
Usually, it's the opposite, but she says it works both ways, and
the brain doesn't know the difference.

Meeting Annie was something that really touched my heart, and was very humbling. It's a great reminder to not trust the judging mind and to not take myself so seriously. The epitome of someone who lives the life they preach, Annie is an inspiration to us all to connect with the magic and the mystery of life in every moment, and to never take things for granted. I can't believe I was so ignorant to have almost failed to realize that I met someone who was truly a spiritual person, someone who knew what it was like to face hardships and come out smiling, a true Buddha. Thank you, Annie, for showing me the way.


*My apologies for any errors I may have made while recounting Annie's story or the details of what she said. Her quotes, as they appear in this article, are simply from my memory, and not intended to be direct quotes.

Shut Your Trap: Silence and Non-Reactivity

It's interesting that we have this little expression, shut your trap, because that's exactly what this mouth of ours is, a trap. It traps us in reactivity which becomes a form of captivity, and restricts us from freedom. Out of all the reactive tendencies we have, the tendency for reactive speech seems to be the strongest. In other words, controlling what we say is perhaps the hardest thing for us to control, because it all happens so fast.

Now in my 5th day of silence, in a community full of people who are talking, this is becoming more and more obvious to me. But don't be mistaken, reactivity doesn't take place at the level of speaking, it happens before that. Just because I'm refraining from speech, doesn't mean I'm not reacting, it just means that I'm given the opportunity to notice my reactivity more as it doesn't have such a clear outlet of expression.

Let's take a moment to look at reactivity. What causes it?

Well, we can react to any form of incoming stimuli. Whether it be a mosquito that lands on us, a sound we hear, something we see, taste, or smell, or an internal stimulus such as a thought or an emotion. Basically, we are talking about the 5 senses and what in Buddhism is the 6th sense, the mind. Incoming stimuli that trigger reactions can come from nowhere outside of these 6 senses.

It's been very interesting to keep silent like this. I've spent many days in silence on various meditation retreats, and while staying at monasteries, but those were in silent environments. Here, in this community, we have a silent day as a group on Saturday, which doesn't even last all day, and then those who are participating in the more rigid "student program" also observe silence on Friday. I've just simply decided to keep it going, and as I said, the results have been very interesting.

With everyone around me talking all the time, I notice my impulse to chime in. I've always been good at chiming in, offering my two cents or whatever. It seems that young generations are now developing this skill more than other skills, they get a quick tongue and don't hold back in the realm of speech. Although it has proven useful at times, it's also gotten me into a lot of trouble. All too often I find that what comes out of my mouth isn't a good representation of who or what I really am. Either way, it's something I'd like to exercise more control over, or at least understand the cause of. By opting for silence, I can see all of these things happening much clearer, because I'm biting my tongue and then I'm just forced have my reactions bounce around my head with no place to escape.

Reactivity is finding an outlet for incoming stimuli. The stimulus comes in, an impulse is sent out and the corresponding reaction takes place. It might be in speech, in thought, in emotion, or in a bodily action, such as pushing someone who insults you or swatting a fly that lands on your arm. The whole process takes place in the blink of an eye, and an unkeen observer might not even realize what has taken place, or that there was an opportunity to do otherwise. And that's exactly what freedom is, in this sense, is an opportunity to do something other than the impulsive reaction.

Since we spend most of our lives reacting to life impulsively, without thinking, we spend most of our lives in captivity to our own mental processes. Observing silence in your life might be the perfect way to get a glimpse at this inner world and learn how to intervene, how to voice your opinion in a way that doesn't require you to actually say anything. If you aren't able to go on a silent retreat, you might just try observing a day of silence at home. You probably think that's impossible, because of your daily responsibilities or your family, but is that just your initial reaction? You might find that you need to speak much less than you'd imagined. I'm still able to be a part of this community, doing my chores, having roommates, etc, all without opening my mouth to speak. I can still answer yes or no questions, by nodding, and even indicate where something is by way of pointing. It's all very interesting.

It makes me want to spend a much longer period of time in silence, because what I'm also experiencing, that I haven't yet mentioned, is that some of these reactive thoughts, after finding no outlet of expression, start to disappear. Space opens up and with that comes clarity, insight, and a much more stable connection to the infinite stillness that is within each and every one of us. I'm finding that I'm much more connected to my own body, my thoughts, and my emotions. Not only that, but as you could imagine, I have lots of extra free time because I'm not spending hours chatting about nothing.

If you can't find an entire day to be silent, you might just try to pick a morning or an evening to spend quietly by yourself. If necessary, just share your intentions with your friends and family, turn your cell phone off, and even give yourself some space, so that you might tune-in to the inner workings of your own mind, in order to find freedom from impulsive reactivity to incoming stimuli. 

Slow Down and Show Up For Your Life

As you may have noticed, if you've been paying attention, it's been some time since my last blog post. You might have thought, "Maybe he's lost his inspiration, or he's stopped practicing."Or, maybe you haven't thought twice about it, but either way, I'm here, writing, again. Despite a few bumps in my practice, it's still going and stronger than ever, but I've been considering dissolving this blog back into the emptiness from which it came. I have many reasons, for and against this idea, with which I won't bother you now. For the time being, the blog lives on, with yet another post.

Slow down. Where are you going so fast? Have you somewhere to be?

We tend to rush through life, always trying to get somewhere, but then when we arrive, we can't wait for the next thing. It's tragic really, because we are missing out on the very stuff of life. Having spent the past 6 months living in Bangkok, I've really become aware of how fast I usually walk. I've never really noticed it before, but I walk pretty fast. This practice that I've come to adopt, one of making an intention to slow down, starts for me by noticing how fast I'm actually going. Once I can acknowledge this and accept it, I'm on my way to learning how to slow down.

As Pema Chodron put it, "Start where you are."We don't get down on ourselves for being broken or needing improvement, we simply become aware of where we are and that's where we start. Maybe you'd like to have more patience, or more presence, or more grace, and that's fine, it's good to have wholesome aspirations for the ways we'd like to improve ourselves.

But then again, maybe you don't, maybe you think you're fine as you are, and that's fine too. I'm not here to try to spoil your picture of reality, just to encourage you to actually know the truth for yourself. If, upon an honest assessment, you find that your picture of reality holds up, then by all means, stick with it. If, like the rest of us, the idea you've been holding onto doesn't quite stand up to the test of observation, then you can consider yourself lucky, because now you have the wonderful opportunity to throw it away and start over again. The more we can start over again, with our ideas and our conceptions, the more able we'll be to stay connected to the magic and the mystery of the ever-passing moment.

One way to find this connection to the present moment is to slow down a bit, to take our time as we move through life. We might have somewhere to be, but that's okay, we can keep things nice and slow simply by leaving a bit early. The secret to patience is to never be in a hurry. We rush to work, and then when we get there, we can't wait to get home again. And then we rush home, and when we get there, we stuff ourselves with food, quite unconsciously and mechanically, and then we turn the TV on, in order to escape the pains of being at home.

Most of the things we do are done in this mechanical and unconscious fashion. It's like we've turned into the machines that we've created. The invitation here is not see every step along the way as a means to an end, but an end in itself. If we give ourselves more time, who knows, we might even enjoy the commute to work, or the long walk through campus to get to class. Maybe we hate work and we hate being at home, for whatever reasons, but we can at least find the spaces in between to be our refuge, our practice.

As I'm writing this, I'm on my third day of silence at a yoga and meditation retreat in Cambodia, and it's this very silence that has really put me in touch with my own tendency to hurry. Just walking around this community, I see the temptation to pick up the pace. But why? Isn't there enough time? Ah, the gentle reminder to slow down, and a sense of gratitude that follows. Without this gentle reminder, that comes from the awareness of what it is I'm actually doing, I wouldn't have ever realized how fast I was going in the first place. So we can start by setting the intention to slow things down, and then pay attention to the reminders as they arise.

My parents always go for a walk around the circular neighborhood they live in, and I remember always being confused by that. "Why go for a walk in a circle, only to come right back to where you started?," I'd think. But now I understand the wisdom in this intentional act. The point was never to go somewhere, but simply to arrive right here and enjoy the moment. Hell, even if you don't enjoy it, at least youre showing up for your life, whatever it may be, and that's more than most people can say.

So as I walk, barefoot, along the dirt paths that wind through this beautiful community here in Cambodia, keeping to myself and trying my best to stay present, I'm reminded of just how real life can feel when we pay attention. I can feel the ground beneath my feet, I can hear the sounds of the birds and the insects, and I can feel this urge to speed things up. They're all there, it's all happening in the now. There's nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to be. It's just my life unfolding before my very eyes, and it's beautiful. It's also painful, and lonely, and neurotic, and compulsive, and judgmental, and sometimes it makes me want to scream and break my voluntary silence, but it's beautiful, because it's real.

I invite you to take the time you need for yourself, by slowing down, to be with the passing moments of your short time here on this earth. You'll find that there's never a dull moment, and even though not everything is pleasant, just being here is enough.

Taking the "Edge" Off

Despite the fact that I've been sober for 8 months now, I still find other ways to "take the edge off" after a long day at work. In this article I want to a.) define this "edge" and b.) find wholesome ways to "take it off."

a.) defining the edge

I'm sure you know the feeling. Whether it's pressure from your job, or just the build of stress from the hustle and bustle of your daily life, you get that feeling that you need some sort of release. It's an uneasy feeling, one that lets you know that things aren't okay, and it feels uncomfortable just to have it around. Usually, what happens next is it triggers the voice in your head to start scheming for its removal. And this is precisely why so many people are driven to use substances such as alcohol, marijuana, or tobacco to bring them back to their comfort zone. 

b.) taking it off

When we feel uncomfortable, we usually adjust something to fix it. When we are hungry, we might take some food, and when we have pain, we might take a pain-killer. It might even be something as simple as rolling over in bed when we can't fall asleep. While these processes are quite natural and helpful, they tend to happen automatically, and if we're not careful, we lose the ability to monitor and control what we end up doing in order to seek this level of comfort. 

Before we know it, we've become slaves to our comfort-seeking tendencies and almost look for an excuse to need to tip the scales back in our favor, another excuse to indulge. For me, having quit smoking and drinking, I now turn to movies and food. I feel it before I leave work, that uneasy feeling, and I can't wait to get home to some food and turn on my favorite show or put in a movie. Now, this seems like a preferred alternative to going out and getting wasted or even ingesting some mind-altering substance into my body in order to relax, but it does the same thing in terms of rendering my ability to cope with myself useless. 

On occasion, when I've noticed this happening and feel strong, I intuitively know what to do: slow down, and take a deep breath in. Just allowing myself to "catch up" to the moment, to face this uneasy feeling in its entirety, actually makes the feeling lessen. What seems to multiply the feeling of uneasiness is the mind's sense of urgency to escape from it, so by turning to face it, we empower ourselves to handle the situation without the use of external stimuli. Even if we are going to come home, eat some food, and sit down to watch something, can we at least do it with a little bit of poise and mindfulness, instead of feeling like we are racing against our minds?

In addition to slowing down and taking a deep breath in, we can use meditation and yoga to get in touch with ourselves and see the truth of the situation we are in. The truth is, it's just a passing feeling, and it doesn't represent who or what we really are. It's almost like we think there is something wrong with us, and so we run away from ourselves, but if we see the truth of the emptiness of such states, we can sort of laugh at them and treat them as a leaf blowing in the wind. There is nothing here that can harm us, only this compulsion to hide from the way we are feeling. Instead of being scared to feel something uncomfortable, we should be scared to go unconscious. Consciousness is perhaps the greatest tool we have been given, so let's not waste it. If what you are conscious of is unpleasant, simply acknowledge it as so and remind yourself that "this too will pass." Then wrap yourself in a warm blanket of compassionate understanding and ride the storm out, remembering that clear skies are on the other side. 

A Forest Full of Dhamma Friends

I can't even tell you how happy I am to be here, at Wat Baan Taad Forest Monastery in Udon Thani, Northeastern Thailand. I've been looking for a place like this, a place to come to be with myself and practice the Dhamma. It's not that I'm happy in the sense that I'm elated, but a more profound sense of connecting with my purpose. The late Abbot, the Venerable Luang Ta Maha Bua, was arguably Thailand's greatest monk of the 20th century. Having died just a few short years ago, I feel like his presence is still here, and the monks here (most of them) are diligently following his teachings.

My walking meditation path.

With virtually no schedule, other than an 8am meal and 30 minutes of sweeping at 3pm, the whole day is left to the meditator to practice at their own pace. There aren't many rules here. Talking is permitted, as is reading, writing, and listening to recorded Dhamma talks, if you have the electronics to do so. You don't even have to wake up at a certain hour, what freedom!

You may think it's so lax that I've come here just to lounge around and eat free food. The truth is, I've been so inspired that I've done nothing but practice or read Dhamma books the entire time. For the time being, I've given up the luxuries of the modern world, as I sit on the hardwood floor and write this by candlelight. No phone, no internet, no electricity, just the animals, the Dhamma friends of the forest, to keep me company, and there are plenty of them! Chickens and peacocks are everywhere, and the trees are full of white squirrels that jump from limb to limb. Last night, I had to stop for a turtle to cross my walking-meditation path, which was also lit by candles. I'm getting used to creatures stirring in the bushes, so I'm not as jumpy as I was when I first got here. Back and forth I pace, contemplating the ever-passing moment.

White rabbits, snakes, giant lizards five-feet long, frogs that almost glow in the dark, spiders the size of your palm, and miniature deer, about the size of a wiener dog, also call this place home. I've never seen a forest so abundant with wildlife! I guess people aren't the only ones privy to the greatness of Maha Bua.

I'm so full of the Dhamma right now that I didn't bother taking the one meal of the day today, and I'm not the least bit hungry (I actually ended up skipping the next day's meal as well). I've got 3 full water bottles, a stack of candles, Dhamma books, and mosquito coils, and am determined to use my time here wisely. As I continue to dive into Maha Bua's teachings, and put them into practice, I feel in my heart that there is enough here to discover the true nature of the mind. The citta, what Maha Bua calls
"the essential knowing-nature of the mind," is never born and never dies, it is the deathless.

He emphasizes the use of Samadhi, or a concentrated state of one-pointedness of mind, to develop wisdom and eventually find peace. I've largely neglected developing samadhi in my practice, and have spent most of my time trying to use wisdom directly to perceive of the truth of the passing moment. While this has been effective, to some extent, as Maha Bua puts it, the practice becomes "pachy" if you don't have a strong base of concentration.

His instructions are quite simple, to use a "preparatory meditation-word whose continuous mental repetition acts as an anchor that quickly grounds the meditator's mind in a state of meditative calm and concentration."

From that point of stillness and clarity, the real work of investigation can begin.

I've come across this teaching before, but I sort of wrote it off as being an elementary practice, this just repeating a word or focusing on the breath. Now, I'm getting back to the basics...

Miniature deer!

Finding Gratitude for Every Experience of Suffering

Lotus flowers in Nepal. 

Just now, as I was feeling rather awful again, I experienced of a moment of gratitude for exactly what I was going through. With every obstacle an opportunity, there's always a reason to be grateful. In fact, we can go even further to truly appreciate the hardships in life, honoring as them as our great teachers of life.

The problem with me, like many others, is that I'm scared to suffer. As soon as I feel something that is less-than-desirable, I shrivel up a bit inside and try to cover it up with something. Anything that I can do to not have to face that feeling is done out of some idea that I need to be shielded from the harshness that life inevitably brings. I know I'm doing this because I can see myself doing it. I'm watching my reactions and finding that inside, I'm nothing but a big baby. Although I've been able to exercise some amount of discipline and self-control in my practice and my life lately, I'm still just as afraid of embracing the pain as I ever was.

I've heard it said that suffering is pain multiplied by resistance. We can try our hardest to avoid pain, but that just seems silly. Pain is going to come, we all have to die someday, and we are all subject to old-age and sickness. Resistance, on the other hand, seems to be somewhat of a choice. No, I don't believe that labeling something as a choice and walking away helps us understand how the mind works. Just because a choice is possible, doesn't mean that it's readily available to us. That all depends on past choices that we've made as well. For example, if we are raised in a violent household, and violence is all we know, it's not helpful to say that when we are met with violence, we should just choose non-violence. When we are dealing with years of conditioning, we must understand that freedom, or the ability to do otherwise, is very limited or maybe even impossible.

What it takes then is a radical willingness to change our lives, and that's where we can come in, at whichever moment we finally choose to surrender. If we keep going along with whatever is happening like there is no problem, nothing will ever really change. It's only when we're completely fed up with our lack of freedom that we have a chance at tipping the scales in our favor. You'll know when you've had enough of being led around by the conditioned mind, and are ready to step into a new world that is fresh and full of possibilities.

If you're like me, you might have come to this place but then wondered exactly what to do next.

Here are some things that I am looking to remind myself of now, because I know I haven't exactly been great at implementing them lately.

1. Break down the unpleasant experience. 

Let yourself see the combined parts of what you are feeling. Is it physical, mental, emotional, or maybe a combination? Try to separate the different elements that are at work in creating your suffering. You can try using mental labels to keep things clearly identified and distinguishable.

2. Let it be. 

Paul McCartney was right. Once to know what you are experiencing, just let it be. Just let the bare sensations be sensations, without letting your mind get wrapped up in identifying with them. Let heat be heat, let a throbbing sensation be a throbbing sensation. Let loneliness be loneliness.

3. Find gratitude for your pain. 

Be grateful for all that you are feeling, for it means that you're alive and able to experience life in all its fullness. It also means that your head isn't so far up your ass that you can't even realize what's happening. Even though you might be miserable, at least you know you are miserable. As it turns out, that is a crucial step in being able to step into something greater. Regardless of what you are experiencing, you can remind yourself of your gratitude by repeating, "I wouldn't have it any other way."

4. Surrender. 

Just let go of all your resistance. Let yourself feel everything, without covering it up, without feeling sorry for yourself. And if you do feel sorry for yourself, that's okay too. Just allow whatever it is that you are experiencing to be without trying to control anything. Anything you are feeling will leave just as it came in. Don't mistake a drawn out experience for something permanent. Surrender to the changing moment.

5. Be compassionate to yourself.

Sometimes, the best thing we can do is just wrap ourselves in a little bit of our own love and let something run its course. We shouldn't feel sorry for ourselves, but it's okay to acknowledge that what we're going through is indeed tough. This let's us feel our own support and desire to make it through to the other side.

6. Feel good about your endeavor to face suffering head-on.

Yes, you can give yourself a bit of a pat on the back, but not too much. Be careful to not overdo it, and develop some sort of pride about it. Remember, there is no one really here to be proud or to be proud of. Everything is always changing and existing due to the conditions that support it. Seeing the error in identifying with our suffering means that we also don't take credit for any sort of victory. Instead, we can gently acknowledge that we've done something good for ourselves and know that it hasn't gone unnoticed.


So, just like that, I hope to able to be able to have something a little more tangible to put into action the next time I feel that life has got me a bit down. It's nice to know that we all have this feeling, and that we aren't helpless in what we can do to deal with it. More than anything, we learn from these difficult situations, and without them, the human experience would be radically different. Let's be grateful for all that we have, including this.

A Call to Action at Wat Asokaram

Wat Asokaram. 

Not exactly built on solid ground.

                                                                            I didn't want to go anywhere. I woke up with     

 that feeling that I'd rather just stay at home than bother with packing my bag to head out to the monastery for the night. But, if I've done anything with my practice, I've developed a bit of a drive that can keep me going when I'd just rather give up. It's like that feeling that if I don't take advantage of the opportunities to practice, I'll be disappointed in myself, and that will be just another thing to bury under the layers of stored emotions and consciousness   

A monks living quarter, or kuti. 

So I pulled myself out of bed and hopped in a van to head down to the neighboring province of Samut Prakan, to visit Wat Asokaram. The temple, which I had previously visited nearly a year ago, is famous because it was founded by Ajahn Lee Dhammadharo, who was a disciple of the great Ajahn Mun. Coming from Ubon Ratchathani in NE Thailand, Ajahn Lee was trained in the strict Thai Forest Tradition. Although it's not purely a forest monastery, given it's close proximity to Bangkok and it's location in a marshland, they still follow the one meal a day rule and wear the brownish robes.

I swear, I didn't pick this room. Or did I?

That being said, the atmosphere is quite relaxed and I wasn't ever asked to go anywhere or do anything. It's interesting to be in a position like that. It stirs up all sorts of things in the mind, because here you've come all the way from your cozy little apartment, to be put into a much smaller room, given a thin mat to sleep with on the floor, and then left to do whatever. It makes you wonder, why didn't you just stay home and practice?

Security guard...

At some point, that might be a better idea.
Why spend the time and energy (and money) to go somewhere to practice when you can just practice wherever you are with whatever you have? Granted, it only took a couple hours door to door and only cost a couple dollars in bus fares, but upon arriving, you set your bag down, and then what? Isn't it the same?

As for now, I'll still choose to get out and connect with Thai Buddhism every chance I get, just to be filled up with the Dhamma, just to have the short conversations and the few words of encouragement from passerbyers. On this occasion, I was barely met with the temptation to practice laziness over meditation. I felt very peaceful in this place, like I was coming home. Although it's not the perfect monastery for me, it was nice to be given my own room and have the freedom to practice as I choose.

The main sala. 

In the main jedi, there are life-like statues of the great masters of this lineage. Seeing them in meditation posture, I felt a strong sense of my purpose in this life. When you have so many great individuals to look-up to, you feel compelled to follow in their footsteps. Especially with a message so clear, could they have been wrong? Or is it not for everyone?

In my opinion, it's obvious that it's not for everyone. So how to determine whether or not it's for you?

When I have been able to quiet the mind, I feel like I am being called into action. Have you ever had that feeling? It's the feeling that there is more to life than this game of worldly pursuits. There is a higher purpose, and that is to wake up from the dream. It's not common to walk this path, even over here where Buddhism is strong. Most people, monks included, aren't really concerned with waking up, they are just getting by.

And therein lies a great reminder. There is nothing that is supposed to be happening. We aren't supposed to wake up, it's only optional. But what I want to remind myself is that if the phone is ringing, pick it up. If you are receiving a message, as I am, that is telling you to take a closer look, that there's something to this idea of waking up, I urge you as I am urging myself to follow that lead to see where it goes.

Walking meditation. 

If the courage and the curiosity can come together to allow us to follow this path, I'm sure that the fruits will be better than our limited perspectives can even imagine. Part of that comes from this faith that I have been developing. Not a blind faith, but a trusting of sorts, that lets me take the words of wisdom as passed down by the Buddha and other enlightened teachers as being valid. It is truly a hopeless generation that can no longer accept the wisdom of its elders.

So it is to this generation that I am writing this to, not to instill some idea that age denotes wisdom, that is ridiculous. There are plenty of people who grow old and die and haven't learned a damn thing along the way. Very few are the ones who figure out what life is about, and fewer still are those who are able to put that into practice before breathing their last breath. It becomes our challenge, as the youth, to seek out those who have gone before us that really became the change they wished to see in the world, especially those whose ideas of change are aligned with our own. What are we willing to fight for? Are we willing to fight the darkest army in the history of humanity, our own inclination towards greed, hatred, and delusion?

If you are feeling like you need a little help, you aren't alone. Pull yourself off the couch, or out of bed, and connect with whatever resource is around you. If nothing else, utilize the internet as a resource, to find free information, e-books, audio tracks, and videos that are freely available to help spread the teachings that lead to liberation from identification with a false sense of self. And when you do, and you become infected with the power of truth, as seen and understood by your own ability to see and know, please, by all means, share it with anyone who is willing to listen!

What's called Sai-bot, or giving food to the monks.

Pindabat this morning with a Spanish monk.

THE MASTERS OF THE THAI FOREST TRADITION

Ajahn Sao.

Ajahn Mun. 

Ajahn Chah. 

Ajahn Lee, the founder of Wat Asokaram.

Inside the main sala. 

Walking meditation tracks.

It doesn't look real, does it?

Sunset over the bay. The monastery's property extends to the coast.