10 Silent Minutes with Buddha

Can't fine the ideal time or the place to meditate?

Here you go, take 10 minutes. No surprises.

A Little Peace

I escaped the floods for two weeks by going to meditate at

Wat Bhaddanta Asahba {http://bhaddanta2.blogspot.com/}

Bangkok Stories

Like all Bangkok stories, this will sound familiar. Going with a friend to see another wat on my list that ended up being closed. My friend instead of getting mad or upset he asked me if I had seen Wat Kanlayanamit before. It was near the closed wat. I replied, no meanwhile touring the kutis of the monks on the way out.

I thought I had been to it before, churning the memory wheel…I had, but that was two years ago and there was a huge festival during Chinese New Year, so I only got as far as the two Chinese pagodas out front close to the river. Walking in from the back, after a stroll through narrow lanes between houses, we came first to the small wihan(see photos at bottom) that has redone beautiful murals from King Rama the III, and gilded lacquer doors.

On top of that it has great ceilings outside, too. That was a treat, until I saw the huge Buddha in the subduing mara in the main Wihan, which was a nice surprise. Built as a gift to King Rama III with this huge Buddha similar to one in Autthya. I thought it must be stone it is so large, but in fact was cast on May 18th, 1837 by Chao Phraya Nikornbodin (Toah Kalayanamit) with a donation from King Rama III. There are also nice tiled gables, and a lot has been redone. It looks like they are trying to replace the huge sandstone pavers outside soon.

There is always merit to be earned by supporting the repairs of these temples. Kalayanamit means true friend or good friend and I hope it is the beginning of a good friendship with the friend who took me there.






As a flew back on the plane one moment out of thousands came to mind. One day, I went to 7/11 to get some water and ran into a monk and he started talking to me of all the people there. We jumped into a conversation, quickly right there, once he got past my voice. He had been to US, and California and stayed in…of all places, Las Vegas.
This lead to my obvious question, “Why there?”



He replied it was where my lady friend lived who paid for his trip. She met him there in Bangkok, and paid for a trip to see the west of the states. She has since sent her son to be a novice for two weeks and has turned out to be a good son. He told me that the best we can do as wise people is help our aging parents until they die, so they die in peace.



Our parents had given up a lot to bear us and clean up after us, and this is how we have to pay them back. The merit alone will help make our own death easier. A wise thought, from a monk younger than I.

Remember you can click on any photo to enlarge.

A Royal Buddhist Monastery Make-Over

Wat Bowon Nivet Vihara buildings are being redone and are nearly finished. I can’t write better than this site on all the history of the buildings. So I’ll just accent it with some photos. A little bit more of historic Bangkok is saved!





Open the Doorway of Impermanence

Reflecting on our own impermanence helps us stop following the dissatisfied mind of desire whose impulses are seen as without meaning in the face of death. When we don’t face impermanence and death, our lives become busy, complicated, and stressful. When we do face them, our lives become simpler and more full of meaning. Our fear of, or aversion to facing these subjects is a trick that the mind plays on itself, which keeps us caught in the trap of self-centered, compulsive, neurotic egotism. The illusion that we exist as solid, permanent entities is in fact a trap or prison for our hearts; facing the truth about impermanence is the doorway out.
–Lorne Ladner, from The Lost Art of Compassion

Bangkok: In One Half Hour

A fellow blogger posts a nice Ode to Chao Phraya here. Hats off to him. I put up a rainbow shot on the river here.





My partner said, "You always go to the river", so there is an attraction beyond the coolness of temperature. The water swirls with my dreams down to the sea.

A Chinatown Stroll

I would venture to say I spend 80% of my time alone, not in some “woe is me, pathetic way,” but as a confident, curious and somewhat reflective state. I can go for hours looking for good light for a photograph, and this day I ran into a guy twice who was doing the same with a old Rolli camera, and the second time he waited for me to shoot and get out of the way for his shot. We shared a common goal, and yet we never spoke. I ran into two other people that day doing different things alone, one was a writer where I stopped for a drink, and a smoker…smoking his way into non-being. Or at least trying to. The woman with her child was more than happy to let me photograph the two of them, after her small son took a photo of me with her camera phone. That was cute and funny, making for a short bond of humanity between us.





I run into people who quickly figure out I no longer the tourist, as foreign as I am and try to bridge the gap. I am friendly and try to talk to people, not shy. I sometimes offer help to other tourists when asked or when it obvious that they are lost. We are lost in one way or another. Can we take being lost as an asset to spend carefully? Where everything we encounter is new, and should be savored. It can be a temporary way to get out of our body, separating our mind. Sometimes our feelings can not be described. So much life we really don’t know what is next, and we sometimes hold tightly to what we do have, presently. The familiar. We do this in an effort to stop change or fear of the unknown. This is the clinging delusion that Buddha spoke of. Meditation will help bring some positive wisdom to your unease.

Meds or Reds

“It’s a rainy night in Georgia” Ugh, ‘cuse me, I mean Bangkok. When the mind gets tight, the meditation helps put everything in perspective. It allows you to separate mind and body sometimes and other times bring it all into sync. The rain becomes something that happens and you just are not attached to how it makes you feel. Divorced from strong feelings you just see it symbolizes impermanence and the cycle of life. After a two hour meditation at a temple, I just floated down the river and back home just barely attached to the body I often call home. The reds came out in full force, while Ms. Cardboard Wai was still waiting for a ride.

Train Market Dedication

My partner and I were chatting, recalling our first meeting, “Do you think that I will be a nice person when we first met? Of course, I said, “Yes!” Our email contact, 8 years ago, while we were both at work for the three months prior to me visiting, I had pretty much come to that decision with great confidence.



I knew that at what he had written to me was truth. I knew about his job, family and life. We had met while I was with friends there, and we planned a trip to the north to see his family. My friends said, “Go, it will be a great experience.”



It was, and was just the beginning. I remember drinking rice wine with his grandfather and later the two us talking about the stars. What I saw and observed was someone who lived his life with honesty and truth. No gaming playing, lying or even being coy.



How refreshing. We had no intention on either one of our parts to be anything more than friends, but a month later we had gradually fallen in love. We both had previous long-term experience, so we knew what we desired in the other. He had met my friends both Thai and American and they too, liked him.



The rest is history, and not without a few difficult times that we crossed with flying colors. In fact, those same difficult times reinforced our love and our heart felt intention. We have rings and much more than that, a commitment that shines brightly when things are tough for either one of us. Last year, we traveled again to where our honeymoon was in 2002, just to reaffirm it. I am a better person from what I have learned from him and it still continues to be fun and growing.



He has picked up enjoying reading from me, and spun it off when he found he liked history besides fiction. We have traveled to a few countries, and want to see many others.



He took these photos of the Train Market for me to put on my blog, hopefully my love of photography has inspired him. This blog is dedicated to him.