Dhammafarers - Photo exhibition by Ajahn Cagino

Journey of Discovery - Part 2

By MAJORIE CHIEW
star2@thestar.com.my
Pictures courtesy of AJAHN CAGINO

“I want to be a forest monk because Buddha himself spent much time dwelling in the forest. It is a strict, disciplined path,” says Cagino.

During the past 12 years, he was in and out of the forest with other monks. But six years ago, Cagino set off alone into the deep wilderness to experience what it was like to be a forest monk. All he had with him were five pieces of cloth, an alms bowl, cup, umbrella, mosquito net and walking stick.

“The stick is important as we can make some noise to warn snakes and other creatures of our presence when we’re walking through the forest,” says Cagino.

Cagino described his wandering years as a journey of exploration and discovery, not a time of hardship.

“I enjoyed those years even though I know not if there was a meal for tomorrow or where I was heading. I just walked on to see the world,” he says.

A forest monk leads a nomadic life as he moves from one place to another to find the ideal location to practise meditation. He usually camps by the river for easy access to water supply.

“We stay 15 days at the most at one place; not too long as we’re not supposed to feel attached to a place,” says Cagino. “If a place has ample food and shelter but is not conducive for meditation, we must leave promptly. If the place is great for meditation, the forest monk will stay a bit longer. It allows us to enhance our wisdom.”

Sometimes Cagino would ask villagers for directions to caves where monks had previously stayed. “There may be a fireplace and an old kettle left behind. Sometimes I will borrow a hammer and nails to make a seat for meditation,” says Cagino.

The life of a forest monk is not without its challenges. There are times when they have to track through muddy paths, cross streams and rivers, or climb down cliffs. One can easily get lost in the jungle, too.

Meal for the day: Monks returning with food offerings from their morning alms round.

The forest monk will usually stay 2-3km from the nearest village so that he can go for alms in the morning. He accepts only food, never money.

Once, Cagino came upon a little girl who blocked his path. He noticed she had something to give. He lowered his alms bowl and she placed a packet of rice, vegetables and a carton of milk in his bowl.

“When I was about to eat, I found a toy egg on the rice. I was touched that the little girl, out of the pureness of her heart, decided to give dana (food offering) to a monk!”

ALL kinds of danger lurk in the woods. So what is a forest monk to do when he comes across wild animals?

“I was fearful initially and thoughts of death crossed my mind. Somehow, I have learnt to accept my destiny,” says Ajahn Cagino, of his years in the forest.

He was at his wits’ end when wild animals came near his camp site in the remote forests of Kanchanaburi in west Thailand, on several occasions.

Sitting in deep meditation: Even a dangerous ledge can calm the mind.

“The first time I was all alone by myself in the deep forest, I was excited and restless. Then fear struck when I heard a leopard’s roar. I knew it was a leopard because I had been forewarned by the locals. I thought I would die. I couldn’t sleep,” recalls Cagino. “I was frustrated that I had no pen and paper to write a note to my mum and sister in case it was my last day alive!”

That night, he sat wide awake until morning.

Cagino also ran into two bears on two separate occasions.

“One night, I was awakened by a loud rustling noise nearby. I stood up and peered from behind a giant tree trunk and shone my torchlight into the darkness.

“When the bear saw the light, it stood on its two hind legs, ready to fight off its foe. When it saw no one, the startled bear fled,” relates Cagino.

The next morning, he saw a clearing in the bushes made by the fleeing bear.

A month later, he saw a bear cub while walking up a hill.

“It looked so cuddly, like a stuffed toy bear. It had chocolate grey fur with a white patch on its chest. I ran towards it and it took off in fright,” recalls Cagino.

On another occasion, Cagino was meditating in a makeshift tent under a mosquito net when he heard a tiger’s roar. When the wild cat continued roaring, Cagino was angry with himself for cowering in fear. He asked himself why he was afraid of the wild cat.

“After a while, I told myself to accept my fate. I plucked up courage and got up to investigate. I took my walking stick, wore a headlight and took a flashlight. I crossed the river to find the tiger but there was no sign of it. I returned to my tent to rest,” says Cagino.

The next morning, after brushing his teeth and washing his face in the river, he went to look for tiger tracks.

“I found a seven-and-a-half-inch paw print some 100m away from my camp near a river.”

Note: A Photographic Journey Of The Dhammafarers is an exhibition of 99 photos by Ajahn Cagino to raise funds for Dhammagiri Foundation to build an orphanage in Thailand. The exhibition is on at White Box, MAP@Publika, Solaris Dutamas, Mont Kiara, KL, from 11am-6pm, until tomorrow. After that, it will be held at Citta Mall, Ara Damansara, Petaling Jaya, from 10am-9pm, Sept 8-20; Bandar Utama Buddhist Society, 3, Jalan BU 3/1, Bandar Utama, Petaling Jaya, from 10am-5pm, Sept 25-Oct 2; and 1 Utama Shopping Centre, Petaling Jaya, from 11am-9pm, Oct 8-9. To view clips of the photos, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEVIJAZj3xo

Journey of Discovery - Part 1

By MAJORIE CHIEW
star2@thestar.com.my
Pictures courtesy of AJAHN CAGINO

A photography exhibition offers a rare glimpse of the lives of forest monks.

VENERABLE Ajahn Cagino, 43, lives in a cave with two snakes and eight bats. The cave is 2km from the nearest village in Mae Hong Son in northern Thailand. Nestled in a deep valley hemmed in by high mountain ranges that border Myanmar, Mae Hong Son is isolated from the outside world and is covered with mist throughout the year.

“I’ve had enough of wandering,” says the Malaysian monk of the Thai Forest Tradition, which is a branch of Theravada Buddhism.

Silence in the streams: A monk practising sitting meditation by the running waters of a waterfall

For 12 years, Cagino had been walking through the remotest jungles of Thailand, before settling down in a cave. It was all part of the spiritual training of a forest monk.

All those years in the forest have brought out the best in him. Cagino, who is back in Malaysia on a vassa (a three-month annual retreat observed by Theravada practitioners during the rainy season), is out to raise funds to build an orphanage in Thailand.

“When I was a forest monk, the villagers gave me food as alms. Now I want to give back to these impoverished tribal people,” says Cagino who hails from Seremban.

The way it is: 'I enjoyed those years even though I know not if there was a meal for tomorrow or where I was heading,' says Ajahn Cagino

Cagino, a former professional photographer, found a new focus in life after he set up the Dhammagiri Foundation in Mae Hong Son in 2009. The foundation was established when local Buddhists met a group of forest monks who were passing through the village several years ago, seeking help for the tribal communities.

Cagino rang his sister, Crystal Lau, to ask for financial assistance for a few orphans. Later, when the school headmaster asked the monks to help “adopt” more orphans who were staying in the school, more individuals were recruited to sponsor a child each.

“We rented two houses – one built of bamboo and another of wood – which could accommodate only seven children. We’re planning to have a bigger place to house more orphans.”

The foundation hopes to provide financial support for 21 children, aged six to 18.

Cagino, who was an award-winning photographer, is putting up his first solo photo exhibition (as a monk) to raise funds to build an orphanage.

The sixth of seven siblings, Cagino (whose birth name is Lau Yong Fang) studied at SM Datuk Sheik Ahmad in Seremban before he graduated with a diploma in graphic design from the Malaysian Institute of Art in Kuala Lumpur.

He found work as a professional photographer, and his first job was at a bridal house. He quit after a year as he did not enjoy coaxing smiles and taking posed shots of newly-weds. Cagino became a freelance photographer and part-time lecturer, teaching students of photography clubs in schools and colleges.

He took part in various photo competitions and won over 40 prizes, including the first prize of RM10,000 in the Asian Photography competition organised by Country Heights (Kajang, Selangor) in 1990.

Despite his success, Cagino did not find happiness and fulfilment. As a photographer, he had to keep honing his skills.

“What used to be the best photo was not the best anymore. At the next photo contest, you’ve to improve your skills and get the winning shot,” he says. “Nothing seems to be the ultimate.”

Floating to the other shore: Meditating on a bamboo raft for spiritual tranquility.

Cagino was miserable and disillusioned, and wondered if there was more to life than its never-ending challenges. At 27, Cagino turned his back on all material pursuits, sold off his worldly belongings, and became a monk.

Over the next two years, Cagino visited forest monasteries in Thailand and New Zealand to learn more about Buddhism.

Cagino was ordained as a samanera (novice monk) at 29, and stayed at Ang Hock Si Temple in Perak Road, Penang, for the next one-and-a-half years.

He trained as a forest monk under Thai master Ajahn Ganha for five years, and was re-ordained at Wat Pah Nanachat (The International Forest Monastery), a Buddhist monastery in north-east Thailand, in the Theravada Forest Tradition.

The monastery was established by the late Ven Ajahn Chah to provide English-speaking monks the opportunity to train and practise in the way Buddha taught his monks in the forests 2,600 years ago.

The Thai Forest Tradition stresses on meditation and strict adherence to monastic rules. Known for its orthodoxy, conservatism and asceticism, the Thais greatly respect monks who observe this tradition.

Scaling new height: Sometimes there are no roads in the woods and you have to climb the rocks to get over the other side and continue your journey, says Ajahn Cagino. Once he did this ‘stunt’ and fell off the ledge. Fortunately, his fall was broken by the branches of a tree before he landed by the riverside.

Reappearance by Aspiration

Found an interesting Sutta, the 120 Sankharupapatti Sutta from the Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha. By Buddha's own words, in his talk, reappearance by aspiration: it is your mind state that determines what you are now; what you will be after the dissolution of body; and even further, the deliverance of mind, that set yourself free by the wisdom. And finally, with the destruction of the taints, then you do not reappear anywhere again. So lucid and succinct talk! (ref. 37)

Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Sāvatthī in Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika’s Park. There he addressed the bhikkhus thus: “Bhikkhus.” ― “Venerable sir,” they replied. The Blessed One said this:

1. “Bhikkhus, I shall teach you reappearance in accordance with one’s aspiration. Listen and attend closely to what I shall say.” ― “Yes, venerable sir,” the bhikkhus replied. The Blessed One said this:
2. “Here, bhikkhus, a bhikkhus possesses faith, virtue, learning, generosity, and wisdom. He thinks: ‘Oh, that on the dissolution of the body, after death, I might reappear in the company of well-to-do nobles!’ He fixes his mind on that, resolves upon it, develops it. These aspirations and this abiding of his, thus developed and cultivated, lead to his reappearance there. This, bhikkhus, is the path, the way that leads to reappearance there.
3. “Again, a bhikkhu possesses faith...and wisdom. He thinks: ‘Oh, that on the dissolution of the body, after death, I might reappear in the company of well-to-do brahmins!...in the company of well-to-do householders!’ He fixes his mind on that...This, bhikkhus, is the path, the way that leads to reappearance there.
4. “Again, a bhikkhu possesses faith...and wisdom. He hears that the gods of the heaven of the Four Great Kings are long-lived, beautiful, and enjoy great happiness. He thinks: ‘Oh, that on the dissolution of the body, after death, I might reappear in the company of the gods of the heaven of the Four Great Kings!’ He fixes his mind on that...This, bhikkhus, is the path, the way that leads to reappearance there.
5. ....

37. “Again, a bhikkhu possesses faith, virtue, learning, generosity, and wisdom. He thinks: ‘Oh, that by realizing for myself with direct knowledge, I might here and now enter upon and abide in the deliverance of mind and deliverance by wisdom that are taintless with the destruction of the taints!’ And by realizing for himself with direct knowledge, he here and now enters upon and abides in the deliverance of mind and deliverance by wisdom that are taintless with the destruction of the taints. Bhikkhus, this bhikkhu does not reappear anywhere at all.”

That is what the Blessed One said. The bhikkhus were satisfied and delighted in the Blessed One’s words.

On Desire, Imagination, and the Buddhist Path -Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Part 4)

Once you’ve silenced these voices, the next step is to take responsibility for your actions and their consequences. This requires being willing to learn from your mistakes. Several years ago, a sociologist studied students in a neurosurgery program to see what qualities separated those who succeeded from those who failed. He found ultimately that two questions in his interviews pointed to the crucial difference. He would ask the students, “Do you ever make mistakes? If so, what is the worst mistake you’ve ever made?” Those who failed the program would inevitably answer that they rarely made mistakes or else would blame their mistakes on factors beyond their control. Those who succeeded in the program not only admitted to many mistakes but also volunteered information on what they would do not to repeat those mistakes in the future.

The Buddha encouraged this same mature attitude in his first instructions to his son, Rahula. He told Rahula to focus on his intentions before acting, and on the results of his actions both while he was doing them and after they were done. If Rahula saw that his intentions would lead to harm for himself or others, he shouldn’t act on them. If he saw that his thoughts, words, or deeds actually produced harm, he should resolve never to repeat them, without at the same time falling into remorse. If, on the other hand, he saw no harmful consequences from his actions, he should take joy in his progress on the path, and use that joy to nourish his continued practice.

Although the Buddha aimed these instructions at a seven-year-old child, the pattern they outline informs every level of the practice. The whole path to awakening consists of sticking to the most skillful desire; you progress along the path as your sense of “skillful” gets more refined. If you act on an unskillful desire, take responsibility for the consequences, using them to educate that desire as to where it went wrong. Although desires can be remarkably stubborn, they share a goal—happiness—and this can form the common ground for an effective dialogue: If a desire doesn’t really produce happiness, it contradicts its reason for being.

The best way to make this point is to keep tracing the thread from the desire to its resulting actions and their consequences. If the desire causes suffering to others, notice how their corresponding desire for happiness leads them to undermine the happiness you seek. If the desire aims at a happiness based on things that can age, grow ill, die, or leave you, notice how that fact sets you up for a fall. Then notice how the distress that comes from acting on this sort of desire is universal. It’s not just you. Everyone who has acted, is acting, or will act on that desire has suffered in the past, is suffering right now, and will suffer in the future. There’s no way around it.

Unskillful desires don’t really give way, though, until you can show that other, less troublesome desires really can produce happiness. This is why the Buddha emphasized learning how to appreciate the rewards of a virtuous, generous life: the joy in fostering the happiness of others, the solid dignity and self-worth in doing the hard but the right thing. It’s also why his path centers on states of blissful, refreshing concentration. Accessing this refreshment in your meditation gives you immediate, visceral proof that the Buddha was no killjoy. The desires he recommends really do produce a happiness that can give you the strength to keep on choosing the skillful path.

That’s the next step: patiently and persistently sticking with the desire to do the skillful thing in all situations. This isn’t a matter of sheer effort. As any good sports coach will tell you, hours of practice don’t necessarily guarantee results. You have to combine your persistence with intent: sensitivity, discernment, ingenuity. Keep an eye out for how to do things more efficiently. Try to see patterns in what you do. At the same time, introduce play and variety into your practice so that the plateaus don’t get boring and the downs don’t get you down.

The Buddha makes similar points in his meditation instructions. Once you’ve mastered a state of concentration, see where it still contains elements of stress. Then look for patterns to that stress: what are you doing to cause it? Find ways to gladden the mind when it’s down, to liberate it from its confinements, to steady it when it gets restless. In this way, as you learn to enjoy rising to the challenges of meditation, you also gain familiarity with subtle patterns of cause and effect in the mind.

The fourth step, once you’ve mastered those patterns, is to push their limits. Again, this isn’t simply a matter of increased effort. It’s more a rekindling of your imagination to explore the unexpected side-alleys of cause and effect. A famous cellist once said that his most exhilarating concert was one in which he broke a string on his cello and decided to finish the piece he was playing on the remaining strings, refingering it on the spot. The most obvious strings in meditation are the specific techniques for fostering stillness and insight, but the more interesting ones are the assumptions that underlie the quest for skill: lack, strategy, dialogue, your sense of self. Can you learn to do without them? There comes a point in your meditation when the only way for greater happiness is to begin questioning these assumptions. And this leads to some intriguing paradoxes: If desire springs from a sense of lack or limitation, what happens to desire when it produces a happiness with no lack or limitation at all? What’s it like not to need desire? What would happen to your inner dialogue, your sense of self? And if desire is how you take your place in space and time, what happens to space and time when desire is absent?

The Buddha encouraged these queries by describing the awakened person as so undefined and unlimited that he or she couldn’t be located in the present life or described after this life as existing, not existing, neither, or both. This may sound like an abstract and unreachable goal, but the Buddha demonstrated its human face in the example of his person. Having pushed past the limits of cause and effect, he was still able to function admirably in this life, happy in even the most difficult circumstances, compassionately teaching people of every sort. And there’s his testimony that not only monks and nuns, but also lay people—even children—had developed their skillful desires to the point where they gained a taste of awakening as well.

So imagine that. And listen to any desire that would take you in that direction, for that’s your path to true happiness.

On Desire, Imagination, and the Buddhist Path -Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Part 3)

The first is to use your ingenuity to fight off the chorus of inner voices trying to dissuade you from making the effort to be skillful in the first place. These voices are like devious lawyers representing strongly entrenched interests: all your threatened unskillful desires. You have to be quick and alert in countering their arguments, for they can come from all sides, sounding honest and wise even though they’re not. Here are some of the arguments these voices may use, along with a few effective responses:

Trying to manipulate your desires like this is unnatural. Actually, you’re already manipulating your desires all the time, when you choose one desire over another, so you might as well learn to do it skillfully. And there are plenty of people out there only too happy to manipulate your desires for you—think of every advertisement you’ve ever seen, heard, or read—so it’s better to put the manipulation in more trustworthy hands: your own.

Trying to change your desires is an attack on your very self. This argument works only if you give your sense of self—which is really just a grab bag of desires—more solidity than it deserves. You can turn the argument on its head by noting that since your “self ” is a perpetually changing line-up of strategies for happiness, you may as well try changing it in a direction more likely to achieve true happiness.

To think of “skillful” and “unskillful” desires is dualistic and judgmental. You don’t want nondualistic mechanics working on your car, or nondualistic surgeons operating on your brain. You want people who can tell what’s skillful from what’s not. If you really value your happiness, you’ll demand the same discernment in the person most responsible for it: yourself.

It’s too goal-oriented. Just accept things as they are in the present. Every desire tells you that things in the present are limited and lacking. You either accept the desire or you accept the lack. To accept both at once is to deny that either has any real truth. To try to dwell peacefully in the tension between the two—in a “path of no craving” to be rid of either—is what the Buddha called limited equanimity, and what one Thai forest master called the equanimity of a cow.

It’s a futile attempt to resist such a divine and mysterious power. Desire seems overwhelming and mysterious simply because we don’t know our minds. And where would we be if we kept slapping the term “divine” or “cosmic” on forces we didn’t understand?

Arguing with unskillful desires is too much work. Consider the alternative: an endless wandering from one set of limitations to another, continually seeking happiness and yet finding it always slipping from your grasp, repeatedly taking a stance with one desire one moment and shifting to another desire the next. Right effort at least gives you one steady place to stand. It’s not adding a more demanding desire to the chaotic mix; it’s offering a way to sort out the mess. And the Buddha’s path holds open the hope of an unlimited happiness, preceded by increasing levels of happiness all along the path. In short, his alternative is actually the one that’s more enjoyable and involves less work.

On Desire, Imagination, and the Buddhist Path -Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Part 2)

Both sorts of people share a common assumption that true, unlimited happiness lies beyond reach. Their imaginations are so stunted that they can’t even conceive of what a true, unlimited happiness in this lifetime would be.

What made the Buddha special was that he never lowered his expectations. He imagined the ultimate happiness—one so free from limit and lack that it would leave no need for further desire—and then treasured his desire for that happiness as his highest priority. Bringing all his other desires into dialogue with it, he explored various strategies until he found one that actually attained that unlimited goal. This strategy became his most basic teaching: the Four Noble Truths.

Most people, when looking at the Four Noble Truths, don’t realize that they’re all about desire. They’ve been taught that the Buddha gave only one role to desire—as the cause of suffering. Because he says to abandon the cause of suffering, it sounds like he’s denying any positive role to desire and its constructive companions: creativity, imagination, and hope. This perception, though, misses two important points. The first is that all four truths speak to the basic dynamic of desire on its own terms: perception of lack and limitation, the imagination of a solution, and a strategy for attaining it. The first truth teaches the basic lack and limitation in our lives—the clinging that constitutes suffering—while the second truth points to the types of desires that cause clinging: desires for sensuality, becoming, and annihilation. The third truth expands our imagination to encompass the possibility that clinging can be totally overcome. The fourth truth, the path to the end of suffering, shows how to strategize so as to overcome clinging by abandoning its cause.

The second point that’s often missed is that the Noble Truths give two roles to desire, depending on whether it’s skillful or not. Unskillful desire is the cause of suffering; skillful desire forms part of the path to its cessation. Skillful desire undercuts unskillful desire, not by repressing it, but by producing greater and greater levels of satisfaction and well-being so that unskillful desire has no place to stand. This strategy of skillful desire is explicit in the Buddha’s explanation of right effort:

"What is right effort? There is the case where a monk [here meaning any meditator] generates desire, endeavors, arouses persistence, upholds, and exerts his intent for the sake of the non-arising of evil, unskillful mental qualities that have not yet arisen... for the sake of the abandoning of evil, unskillful qualities that have arisen... for the sake of the arising of skillful qualities that have not yet arisen... for the maintenance, non-confusion, increase, plenitude, development, and culmination of skillful qualities that have arisen. This is called right effort." (Digha Nikaya 22)

As this formula shows, the crucial elements for replacing unskillful mental qualities with skillful ones are desire, persistence, and intent. Desire gives the initial impetus and focus for right effort, while persistence provides staying power. Intent is the most complex factor of the three. The Pali word here, citta, also means “mind,” and in this context it means giving your whole mind to the work at hand: all your powers of sensitivity, intelligence, discernment, and ingenuity. You don’t want your mind to be split on this issue; you want all of its powers working together on the same side.

These three qualities—desire, persistence, and intent—underlie every attempt to master a skill. So it’s useful, in undertaking the path, to reflect on how you’ve used these qualities to master skills in the past. The Buddha made this point in his many similes comparing the person on the path to a master craftsman—a musician, carpenter, surgeon, acrobat, cook. As with any skill, there are many steps to developing the path, but four stand out.

On Desire, Imagination, and the Buddhist Path -Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Part 1)

Fire - Burning Desire

All phenomena, the Buddha once said, are rooted in desire. Everything we think, say, or do—every experience—comes from desire. Even we come from desire. We were reborn into this life because of our desire to be. Consciously or not, our desires keep redefining our sense of who we are. Desire is how we take our place in the causal matrix of space and time. The only thing not rooted in desire is nirvana, for it’s the end of all phenomena and lies even beyond the Buddha’s use of the word “all.” But the path that takes you to nirvana is rooted in desire—in skillful desires. The path to liberation pushes the limits of skillful desires to see how far they can go.

The notion of a skillful desire may sound strange, but a mature mind intuitively pursues the desires it sees as skillful and drops those it perceives as not. Basic in everyone is the desire for happiness. Every other desire is a strategy for attaining that happiness. You want an iPod, a sexual partner, or an experience of inner peace because you think it will make you happy. Because these secondary desires are strategies, they follow a pattern. They spring from an inchoate feeling of lack and limitation; they employ your powers of perception to identify the cause of the limitation; and they use your powers of creative imagination to conceive a solution to it.

But despite their common pattern, desires are not monolithic. Each offers a different perception of what’s lacking in life, together with a different picture of what the solution should be. A desire for a sandwich comes from a perception of physical hunger and proposes to solve it with a Swiss on rye. A desire to climb a mountain focuses on a different set of hungers—for accomplishment, exhilaration, self-mastery—and appeals to a different image of satisfaction. Whatever the desire, if the solution actually leads to happiness, the desire is skillful. If it doesn’t, it’s not. However, what seems to be a skillful desire may lead only to a false or transitory happiness not worth the effort entailed. So wisdom starts as a meta-desire: to learn how to recognize skillful and unskillful desires for what they actually are.

Unskillful desires can create suffering in a variety of ways. Sometimes they aim at the impossible: not to grow old or die. Sometimes they focus on possibilities that require distasteful means—such as lying or cheating to get ahead in your job. Or the goal, when you get it, may not really keep you happy. Even the summit of Everest can be a disappointment. When it’s not, you can’t stay there forever. When you leave, you’re left with nothing but memories, which can shift and fade. If you did mean or hurtful things to get there, their memory can burn away any pleasure that memories of the summit might hold.

In addition, desires often pull in opposite directions. Your desire for sex, for instance, can get in the way of your desire for peace. In fact, conflict among desires is what alerts us to how painful desire can be. It’s also what has taught each desire how to speak, to persuade, to argue or bully its way into power. And just because a desire is skillful doesn’t mean it’s more skillful at arguing its case than the unskillful ones, for those can often be the most intransigent, the most strident, the slickest in having their way. This means that wisdom has to learn how to strategize, too, to strengthen skillful desires so that less skillful desires will listen to them. That way desires can be trained to work together toward greater happiness. This is how a mature and healthy mind works: conducting a dialogue not so much between reason and desire as between responsible desires and irresponsible ones.

Even in a mature mind, however, the dialogue often yields compromises that don’t really go to the heart: snatches of sensual pleasure, glimpses of spiritual peace, nothing really satisfying and whole. Some people, growing impatient with compromise, turn a deaf ear to prudent desires and tune into demands for instant gratification—all the sex, power, and money they can grab. But when the rampage of gratification wears itself out, the damage can take lifetimes to set right. Other people try their best to accept the compromise among desires, trying to find a measure of peace by not reaching for what they see as impossible. Yet this peace, too, depends on a deaf inner ear, denying the underlying truth of all desires: that a life of endless limitations is intolerable.

懺悔歌

Song of Repentance 懺悔歌

我們一起來懺悔，遠離那世間是與非。

我們現在來懺悔，放下煩惱與怨恨嗔恚。

我們用心來懺悔，願彌陀擦掉我的淚。

我們真誠來懺悔，願彌陀洗滌我心扉。

往昔所做諸惡罪，皆因貪嗔癡所累，

我今皆懺悔，不願再違背，彌陀無怨無私的教誨。

不管身心有多疲憊，求生淨土願不退。

我今皆懺悔，念佛不怕累。

斷煩惱，彌陀永相隨。

Self Reliance

Self Reliance

By ourselves is evil done

By ourselves we cease from wrong

By ourselves become we pure

No one can save us but ourselves

No one can and no one may

We ourselves must walk the Path

Buddha merely shows the Way

Monks Ordination Day - Rite & Ceremony

Shaving the head - the first ceremony for ordination

Paying respect and expressed gratitude to the sponsor & his mother

Listening to the Chief monk sermon & instruction

All monks family members participated in the ceremony

With Akk's family members

Nok, a doctor in psychology, practicing in a general hospital

Akk's mother & his sister

Time to say goodbye to his family, leads a monk-hood life from here & now

This is the first time, as a sponsor for monk's ordination and yet it happened in Thailand. There were 5 monks to be ordained on that day, out of good affinity that I met and linked to this family.

Akk, one of the 5 Thai monks that selected by the Abbot (the Chief Monk of Tham Tong monastery) to be the monk to receive my sponsorship. He came from a simple family, with a mother (father passed away) and a sister. For Thai and buddhist tradition, to become a monk is an honorable and meritorious deed for whole family. Though from financial aspect, the family is losing out a supporter for earning a living. Now, the burden and responsibility rest onto his sister, Nok, who is a doctor, specialized in Psychology. Currently she is working in a provincial general hospital, a very intelligent lady, caring daughter and also well verse in Buddhism.

Well, rite and ceremony for ordination ended in a day, but leading a monk-hood is a whole life business. Wishing this newly ordained monk, Akk, having a wonderful and successful monastic life. As I promised to visit him when I come back for my next retreat, sure will visit his family too.

Merit sharing: May the power of the merit of this ordination brings happiness, peace to this family, and those who are connected and having affinity.