Without Drugs? and Giving Thanks

I am thinking of aging and dieing without major long-term pharma-ceuticals use. This might sound great now, when I have no major illness to maintain or control. But when I was just out of ICU, I quickly convinced the doctor to take me off of blood thinners. Later when they prescribed anti-depressants to help my speech(they did somewhat), I hated the feeling and quickly got off.

I have seen so many older folks end up taking so many pills, that they have no idea of how they combine and react over the long term. Or one drug made for one symptom could easily cause another. Just read the fine print, which I am quickly finding is too damn small for me. Plus, Dr’s in USA are pill crazy, no preventive answers. We all know that aging make your blood vessels smaller and many times ends up with high blood pressure naturally. I posed this in a forum, and one person said my view is provocative and could easily agree. But he was worried about illegal drugs, and the ease of legal drugs and often they are consumed. He did confess he was on High Blood pressure drugs and a statin for cholesterol. Further he said that feels to be in good shape, yet says he doesn’t exercise enough. Signs that he like me could keep on top of our own health better as always.


We all have seen Grandma or Grandpa with their daily pills regime, often times taking multiple pills with nothing but water or juice. Just imagine what your stomach and upper intestines look like. My polyp in my upper intestine was caused by vitamins over the years, lying there dissolving in mass, oftentimes without enough food to absorb. Later, in his further replies were more about addressing life and thinking death is not imminent. Yet, we do not know ever, how soon it will come knocking.

We all probably know someone who died when it wasn’t there time and the shock experienced with this. But, hello …the shock was even more pronounced with the person thus described. Unresolved feelings and appreciations for all life has brought so far. This is why I am going to be a novice monk next month. It will allow such a space to really contemplate life and to give appreciation and thanks to my mother and all my friends, and especially those that stuck by me after my injury. In the midst of life’s total upheavals, I have been fortunate to have love and heart felt concern for my wellbeing. I could only repay this by helping others and making it my life focus. It is good that the money I give to the temple and the foundation attached to be a monk, help disadvantaged Thai and Burmese in schooling and income generating projects.




Next, I will try to convince and pay for my partner to go get his first eye exam at age 30 this weekend, and get his teeth cleaned which he now does every year with my suggestion. Wink. I finally had to get glasses to read outside of home, because it became hard to compose photographs in camera. Oh, well little signs of my stubbornness. We were made for each other.

Waving Away Stress

Monday, I decided to get an exercise stress test here because it is way less costly than at home and I am the age where a heart check-up would be smart. Even though I have a health plan at home that I pay $346 a month, it would cost me three times or more what it costs here. Plus, here you can walk in and ask for it, without a Dr having to first see you to order the test.

While waiting for the room, I saw a very handsome, and obviously well off African couple. The wife, looking worried, while her husband waited to see a Cardiologist. She was wearing a fine tailored silk dress, adorned with jewel-like sequins down the front in lines tastefully and on the cuffs all in great orange harvest moon color. But what made even more a study where how her feet were tattooed in ivy on the sole and up the sides, along with outlines on every toenail. My guess from a African Muslim country with her head-scarf in three stripes of raw silk. She looked proud and so beautiful I wanted to photograph her. But this was not the time and place to do so, but she is now in my memory. She stands out so much from the Arabic countries usually in Black silk, with that ugly face bondage that reminds me of medieval torture…a narrow, metal band on the forehead, and a wide metal band over her mouth, with a husband either in white silk kaftan or western clothes.

I got in within an hour, and the nurses started to put the electrodes on my chest and then tape them down so I could run. When finished she asked me to sit down, and I winced because the tape was so tight and pulling on my hair. She asked, “Are you having a chest pain?” Because most Thai’s don’t see a Dr until it is too late, she still could not figure out why I was there. I just replied, "No, just my hair being pulled by the tape." We did resting test for awhile until the Dr came out from ICU, then on the treadmill trying four increasing speeds on incline while monitoring my heart. The Dr just watched and took a couple of phone calls. It was pretty easy even in hospital clothes and shoes that were not mine. The blood pressure cuff on my arm messed up a couple of times because of how I held the bar, which I usually don’t do while running. The stress of my muscles bumped it too high so I changed position. The test was done in like a half hour, and my heart was fine. The doctor said my two small cups of coffee I had 4 hours earlier showed up as blips. I take no drugs besides allergy medicine in the spring. So he said to cut out coffee or have only a small cup a day. I know that coffee in me feels like speed, makes my eyelids twitch, and often makes short-tempered, so it was good to have him tell me to cut it out. Not bad for a bi-lateral stroke survivor. Damn, now I have no excuse not to exercise. Seriously, I want to keep pushing it to keep my body healthy and lean. Then out the door to see two more temples and back home to run.

Brains, Floods and Books

We went to Wat Pathum Wanaram hosting Buddha’s and other monk’s relics on loan from Sri Lanka. My partner was not being irreverent but he did talk to me about some of them being fossils or in stone form when it is only been 2500 years. One in particular was a small mass of knotted stone that was supposed to be a monk’s brain. He just whispered it takes a lot longer to become a fossil, or to become stone. And he left it at that. One of the many reasons I love him. I did like the fact that the temple had an area to meditate set up and I will return. The rest of the weekend we spend with his friends, who I have known for years, enjoying the storm like ending of both days with a huge lightning and thunder downpours. On Saturday, we had to put up two of his friends stuck here with 2 ft of water flooding the street. I joked we can dive from the balcony. But it was so welcome giving the extreme heat I have seen since I have been here.

At Chatujak market on Sunday looking for a chameleon, had spicy noodles and walked around for two hours, before I left them and bee-lined home to read and relax in AC. I am currently reading, “A Year in Green Tea and Tuk-Tuks” about settling in Sri Lanka to have a organic farm. This is particularly interesting to me as both my partner and myself would like to settle there after visiting there a few times. The author runs Samakanda the bio-diverse idea that brought him to Sri Lanka and inspired this book.

Suffering Without A Camera Battery

There are times when you leave the mind and body connection and today was just one of those days. After taking the boat to the pier close to some temples I wanted to visit, I walked in the hot sun with the brain still ticking, constantly asking ….how will my stay at a temple change me?

I have already met and talked to a couple of people. Yesterday, while waiting to have my hair cut a monk walked in. He was tired from a bus ride back to Bangkok from Chiang Rai. We talked until it was my time for the chair came up and I offered to him. He said, “You go ahead.” A quick buzz later, and before biding good-bye offered to get him something cool, and again he said, “ No, thank you.” This short encounter showed me some of his wisdom and pure heart. He was friendly and interested in me as an equal …albeit suffering person.

Back to today, I walked to Wat Ratchapradit, just in time to sit and watch and pray with the Monks. They do it all in Pali, but the first prayer of refuge is to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha(Buddham saranam gacchami). That I can join in, knowing it in English, but thinking about next month I’m curious how much Pali I will have to learn. It was just me and older folks in a beautiful painted temple. Oh, wait I am old, I'm one of those, sorry I forgot. I watched the monks when they entered and during the prayers, holding hands in prayer for an hour(difficulty), and few times they would glance at the asperas painted on the wall above. It was hot, even with the fans in the temple, and I saw a couple of older people fight sleeping. But extreme peace came over me and made me separate mind and body. I moved with purpose with this calm.


I did not take photos after my battery needing charging from earlier. It was just as well. I think it would have been rude. Just outside I had a talk with a sangha member, who was in a chair because it hurts too much to sit. I sat down and talked to him, peaceful and attentive to his questions. The number one question I get is, You are not Christian???? Once I get past this, it seems to open a door with everyone including my cab driver later. I am a farang in looks only, but we all bleed the same!

Temple Guards

I sometimes put pressure on myself to make the most of any visit, seeing temples I have not seen, and really getting out there in 95+ heat and incredible air pollution. This is after an early wake-up to enjoy coffee with my partner before his work. So, I venture out in fresh clothes, and a location in mind. Hoping to find something that catches my critical eye visually, and challenges me to be a better photographer. An hour into it, and even with 55 spf, and I am looking for the shade, and moving like a wilted flower and looking spent.
Looking around, Thai’s are fanning themselves in the shade, or napping. I half-way wished I were in AC and reading while sipping iced tea…and drifting into a nap.
With all this I am trying to smile, to lighten up my expectations of the location and myself. And yes, my meditation has slacked only because of the new schedule, and fatigue of doing too much. Making it to the temple I wanted to see, only to find out it was closed. Then I retreat to the river, for some breeze and refreshments. It is no wonder that it is just too hot to bother getting angry, and so now I see how “cool heart” was a logical way to deal under these circumstances. Today is Wisakha Puja Day, the sacred occasion of Buddha’s enlightenment or passing into Nibbana. It will make for an interesting day and perhaps a photo opportunity after I make merit.

Going, Going, Gone

I cry for you, Krung Thep. You are making a foolish mistake. I saw this time, the tri-point colonial house off Phet Buri is gone….flattened! It was pinned uncomfortably between ugly apartment houses. Can’t you please rehab them? Impermanence, you say. I have not learned, yet. Next the old firehouse on the river will go. If you have something better I would say fine and let go. But most buildings built here, never last 20 years with the poor maintenance. Now don’t get me started on the teak houses quickly leaving as well. Pssst. I know something hella modern you like so much, like a building made of bricks of IPhones. That kills two birds with one stone, name brand identity and it makes noise.

Finding Peace in Odd Moments

My plane was late taking off so I took the opportunity to meditate in a place away from people and in a corner. About 20 minutes into it(yes, I set my cell alarm for 30 minutes), I was kicked by a woman, who upon opening my eyes was bending down to pet my knee saying, " Sorry, I did not see you!" It was not like I was in high traffic area, and if she did she was walking straight towards a pillar that supports the structure with no possible way to go further unless she planned on jumping through the window. What was amazing, I was really not fazed, nor even expressed any anger, and only a bit surprised, so I just looked at her and said, “Don’t worry, I’m fine and it’s OK”. I continued with my meditation until the gate call. I was able to get a business class seat in my own row, only to be lucky to have a couple with a young son behind my seat, to keep me up the entire 10 hour flight. The child was not abnormally loud for his age, but even so, did not allow me to sleep. The parents apologized, but I found his hide and seek with me charming, far more than annoying. The plane after this, way was worse. I am trying to transform every experience this trip into a pleasant one, knowing trying to control the world, which I finally found out you can’t possibly do. Maybe I am slow learner. Nevertheless, it helped to make for a great three days upon arrival, running on nearly little sleep we packed a weekend with my nephews within two hours of arrival. Everyone knows two seven year olds can wear you out fast, but we still managed to teach them to swim in two days, go to the zoo, and more.