Jing-reed's Musings from Thailand

"Thai-ness"

 

Had a nice visit on Friday night with a long-time Thai friend who is currently living in Malaysia.  My friend "X" is a native of Chiang Mai, yet has a unique means of looking at himself and his countrymen in that he spent 5 years living in California, and received his engineering degree from UCLA.  "X" has a very responsible position with a department of the Thai government and is currently on TDY in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

We were discussing the fact that having lived here for over a decade, I love the country and people, but I still find it somewhat difficut to understand the average Thai person [and will never understand Thai politicians].

In essence, "X" commented:

"Well, don't feel alone. Most Thai do not begin to understand themselves — nor do most even try. 

They seem to be incapable of learning about their own country, being too deeply entangled in the characteristics of their 'Thai-ness', which prevents them from seeking the truth.

They wallow in superstition, in the importance of image over substance, and of social harmony over truth — they seem to have an unrealistic tolerance of social ills, and a willingness to smooth things over instead of addressing ugly social problems head on.

It is difficult for most Thai to separate their image of themselves as being Thai, from the reality of who they truly are as human beings."

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Becoming A Buddhist Monk

Several days ago I briefly described, and presented a video, about the process of becoming a Buddhist monk here in Thailand.  Several years ago when my neighbor and very good friend Pae [also known as 'Justin'] went through the ordination process, I later wrote about it.  Even posted it on another of my personal web sites, 'Chiang Mai Tales'.   This is the link to the complete story of Justin's ordination.

Many years ago I also went though the Buddhist ordination process, though mine was in 1955 and occurred at the Eiheiji monastery [永平寺] in western Japan.  Many of the features of the process were similar, though couched in the customs and traditions of Japan.  I have also written about that process, and the events which led up to it, in 'The Repository'. This is the link leading up to my own Buddhist ordination process.

The attached video of the Eiheiji monastery was taken by my good buddy from Oz, Yakov Smirnoff when he visited there several years ago.

"Established in 1244 and Japan's most active zen meditation monastery since the late 16th century, Eihei-ji, Temple of Eternal Peace, is about 30 minutes by bus from Fukui and is home to about 50 elders and 250 black-robed trainees. This serene community, set on the slopes of a mountain and surrounded by cedars, is moss-green in summer, and serenaded by cicadas. In winter, snow arrives to transform the complex into a glistening white mountainscape."

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Life in Thailand

This video is so typical of life here in the Land of Smiles.  Abunant music [occasionally quite loud], smiling happy people, a wonderful comraderie, and of course lots of alchohol to keep the gears of society well lubricated.

Nearly every young male in Thailand becomes a monk at some point. although most only do it for one month.  The street, or neighborhood, party occurs on the day before the young men go to the local wat [temple] for the offical ceremony which takes about five hours and includes having their heads shaved.

     Becoming a Monk, The Street Party

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'The Royal Plowing Ceremony' — การพืชมงคล

The contemporary science of agronomics and meterology seem to get lost in the swirling mists of time as Thailand continues to celebrate a ceremony that the oxen that do the ploughing for the rice production have all the answers.  It isn't even a Buddhist belief, but rather borrowed from the Hindu religion.

"In the ceremony, two sacred oxen are hitched to a wooden plough and they plough a furrow in some ceremonial ground, while rice seed is sown by court Brahmins. After the ploughing, the oxen are offered plates of food, including rice, corn, green beans, sesame, fresh-cut grass, water and rice whisky.

Depending on what the oxen eat, court soothsayers make a prediction on whether the coming growing season will be bountiful or not. The ceremony is rooted in Brahman belief, and is held to ensure a good harvest."

This is a Thai news report of the ceremony from 2010.  There is a fascinating homage to HM the King which begins at 04:11 and has subtitles in English.

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The Silence Wins

Dawkins vs. Sri Lanka, and silence wins

"They call it the Pearl of the Indian Ocean, this island of Sri Lanka. But you could just as well call it Religion Island. There are no less than four major religions practiced here, and that doesn’t count the people in villages that make offerings to the local tree gods. Buddhists dominate the religious landscape, but there are Hindus and Muslims and Christians in abundance. I’ve heard that over 98 percent of this island’s population consists of active worshippers of one religion or another. . . . .

It was with some anticipation, then, that those of us inhabiting Religion Island awaited the coming of Richard Dawkins. His book The God Delusion is, after all, meant to be the definitive scientific debunking of religion for our time. Dawkins came to attend the Sixth Annual Galle Literary Festival, which was started by an English ex-pat named Geoffrey Dobbs and has become a major stopping point for international literary types. These days, the festival attracts big names from all over the world. Galle is a beautiful little city at the southern end of Sri Lanka possessing a Portuguese-Dutch colonial fort jutting out from a rocky promontory into the tropical splendor of the Indian Ocean. It is a damn nice place for a literary festival. . . . .


. . . . It seems Richard Dawkins has no place for the statues of Polonnaruwa in his understanding of the world. And so the great confrontation on Religion Island took place mostly as a battle between competing silences. Richard Dawkins touched down upon the soil of Sri Lanka for a few days and then flew off again to his next destination. He preferred not to know much about the religious practices of the people who live here. He preferred to pass over the recumbent Buddhas of Sri Lanka in silence. And they prefer their silence too. Those stone faces have endured every human folly for a thousand years, and will do so, presumably, for a thousand more."

 

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New Banner

In an attempt to keep this blog interesting I occasionally change the masthead. This new banner design contains a digitized version of my Japanese 'hanko' [name stamp].

In 1954, when I was working in Japan, for the U.S. government, I became friends with a most remarkable person, the abbot of a small rural Soto Zen temple.  Rev. Shimizu becama a personal friend and mentor during my four year stay in Hokkaido.  During one of our many conversations he suggested that I get a personal hanko, or name stamp. In Japan it is the custom for all adults to have a personal name stamp which is used in lieu of a personal signature and is used in all documents, office paperwork, contracts, art, or any item requiring acknowledgment or authorship.

And to this end he transformed a part of my surname into Japanese kanji characters, striving to combine the phonetic sounds with kanji characters which had a connection to nature..   And so I became 栗巣帝 [Kirusutei].

   栗 'Kiru' can be traslated as 'chestnut tree',
   巣 'su' means 'bird nest',
   帝 'tei' means 'along the royal way'.

Tashi Mannox - Tibetan Calligrapher

Tashi Mannox  CALLIGRAPHY ARTIST

"Tashi is an Englishman who started on his path in the arts and meditation at the tender age of 11. After he finished his formal art degree training, he became a Buddhist monk in the Tibetan Karma Kagyu order. For the next 17 years he studied under a Tibetan master of arts called Sherab Palden Beru, apprenticing in the elaborate art of temple decoration and Tibetan calligraphy. In his finishing year as a monk, Tashi studied under a master of the rare ancient Sanskrit forms, namely Lantsa and Wartu in Dharamsala. Since the beginning of the Millennium, Tashi has been actively creative in Tibetan calligraphy and iconography, established as an internationally known artist. This blog is an attempt to share knowledge on Tibetan related scripts, upholding the integrity of their ancient heritage, through a concern in conservation and preservation and to communicate Dharma; is very much at the heart of Tashi's work as an artist. ..."



Tashi Mannox Calligraphy [YouTube]

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Mandala Tibetan Gold

                                  [   click to enlarge ]

As frequent visitors to this small niche of the internet know I have been intrigued by the Mandala art form for well over 25 years.  Both the traditional Tibetan sand mandalas and thangkas as well as more contemporary forms, especially those produced by fractal design. I have been using the Ultrafractal software for well over ten years, one of the finest creative programs ever produced for the PC.

In common use, 'mandala' has become a generic term for any plan, chart or geometric pattern that represents the cosmos metaphysically or symbolically, a microcosm of the Universe from the human perspective.
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Sukhothai — สุโขทัย

Sukhothai  [ สุโขทัย ] — The first capital of Thailand

It is now more than a decade since my first  visit to the ancient capitol of Sukhothai ["Dawn of Happiness"], which is now designated as a UNESCO World Heritage historical park. One of the most beautiful, and enchanting, sites I have ever had the privilidge of exploring.  It is breath taking at every turn.   I have lost track of how many times I have visited there, alone or with friends. 

 


The Sukhothai Kingdom was an early kingdom in the area around the city Sukhothai, in north central Thailand. The Kingdom existed from 1238 till 1438 at which time the capitol, for political reasons, was moved further south to Ayyutaya. But Sukhothai, and Sukhothai alone, embodies the tranquility, peace, and spirit of ancient 'Siam'.



 

With each visit I have encountered new treasures, and a different means of appreciating the glories of the past and the beauty of the present.





And in my estimation there is nothing in the enormous complex more beautiful, and characteristic of the period, than the statue of the 'Walking Buddha', which embodies a grace and elegance rarely encountered in relgious artifacts.

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Sam Harris - A Voice of Reason

Sam Harris is an American author, neuroscientist and CEO of Project Reason. He received a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA, and has a B.A. in philosophy from Stanford University. He is a proponent of scientific skepticism and is the author of The End of Faith (2004), Letter to a Christian Nation (2006), a rejoinder to criticism of his first book, and The Moral Landscape (2010).

...Harris found himself interested in spiritual and philosophical questions when he was at Stanford and the notion that he might be able to achieve spiritual insights without the help of drugs. After leaving Stanford, he traveled to Asia, where he studied meditation with Hindu and Buddhist teachers. Eleven years later, he returned to Stanford and completed a B.A. degree in philosophy. In 2009 he earned a Ph.D. degree in neuroscience at University of California, Los Angeles, using functional magnetic resonance imaging to conduct research into the neural basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty.

While often defined as an atheist, Harris asserts that the term is not necessary. His position is that "atheism" is not a worldview or a philosophy, but the "destruction of bad ideas." He states that religion is especially rife with bad ideas, calling it "one of the most perverse misuses of intelligence we have ever devised." He compares modern religious beliefs to the myths of the Ancient Greeks, which were once accepted as fact but which are obsolete today.


   Why I Criticize Religion

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  Modern Science vs. Religious Dogma

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