The day after I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, my friend/guide invited me to join him on his trip into the Mekong Delta to visit his work friend at his wife's family's rice farm. Wow! We rode on his motorbike 3+ hours to the village (yes, me! and a sore butt to prove it!). It was fantastic. Elderly (80's?) grandparents, half a dozen children, and one grandchild. A bamboo house full of happiness! They served a wonderful holiday meal and root beer - on ice! The beef and marinated eggs were just like Lieu's (our sponsored VN family in Spokane), and was really nostalgic. Later, they took me to the son's rice paddy, where the family earns its yearly income of a few hundred dollars. After a delightful time, especially with the 5 yr old grandson, we left for Ho Chi Minh City. We were too tired to make it, and it was dark, so we stopped at another friend half way there. This couple fed us dinner! We headed back the next day (my sore butt thanking my guide!) What a wonderful experience of hospitality and friendship typical of the VIetnamese people. Here photos of the trip.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Tet in the Mekong Delta
The day after I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, my friend/guide invited me to join him on his trip into the Mekong Delta to visit his work friend at his wife's family's rice farm. Wow! We rode on his motorbike 3+ hours to the village (yes, me! and a sore butt to prove it!). It was fantastic. Elderly (80's?) grandparents, half a dozen children, and one grandchild. A bamboo house full of happiness! They served a wonderful holiday meal and root beer - on ice! The beef and marinated eggs were just like Lieu's (our sponsored VN family in Spokane), and was really nostalgic. Later, they took me to the son's rice paddy, where the family earns its yearly income of a few hundred dollars. After a delightful time, especially with the 5 yr old grandson, we left for Ho Chi Minh City. We were too tired to make it, and it was dark, so we stopped at another friend half way there. This couple fed us dinner! We headed back the next day (my sore butt thanking my guide!) What a wonderful experience of hospitality and friendship typical of the VIetnamese people. Here photos of the trip.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Reflections on a Spiritual Journey
As many of you know, the first purpose of my journey to Asia was joining Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) for the first three weeks of his healing pilgrimage in Vietnam.
Many of you also know that I was born and raised Catholic, was a Franciscan Friar for four years, a Religious Education Director and Diocesan Youth Director for 10 years in my thirties. At the age of 47, however, the Church became actively hostile to people like me and my fellow Catholic LGBT family. Documents characterized us as "objectively disordered" and "intrinsically inclined towards evil." That made the Church a hostile and unsafe place to be, spiritually, emotionally, physically and psychologically.
Fortunately, two experiences helped me through the transition to a spirituality without religion. The first was the TV series "The Power of Myth," a Bill Moyers interview with Joseph Campbell, the renowned historian and anthropologist of world religions. He demonstrated the major themes and stories that appear in most major religions, clarifying their role in making sense out a seemingly erratic and chaotic world. Many different religions pursuing meaning and truth.
The second was my friend giving me Thay's book, "Being Peace." Thay's writings led me deeper into a spiritual practice that taught me how to live in the present moment, to let go of situations that cause suffering and over which I have no control, to transform anger and fear into peace and joy. One of the beautiful aspects of Thay's tradition of Buddhist teachings and practice is that he does not say one needs to be a Buddhist or any formal religion in order to practice. Indeed, he encourages practitioners to honor their religious traditions, as they provide many deep insights and truths that are a part of our spiritual journey.
The other day, I had an interesting experience that brought all this to mind. A delightful young woman employee at my guesthouse escorted me to the bus for my day's excursion to Moon Hill, an incredible mountain with a large hole at its upper peak. On the way, I told her how lucky the Guesthouse owners were to have an employee like her, so hospitable and full of joy. I also asked her how long she has been in Yangshou, and she told me 1 1/2 years. She had left her home town as a troubled person, looking for a place to start anew. She met these owners and they introduced her to Jesus and that has changed her life. I know well of that experience.
As a practitioner, I should have just listened to her go on with the story of her experience, but I still have things to learn. Instead, I responded that I had recently had a similar experience with the teachings of the Buddha. She became disturbed and defensive, and began to explain that Jesus was divine and the only savior who can lead us to heaven. It is my experience that this insistence on there being only one way is the most insidious tenet of any religion, even within different sects of the same religion, leading to adversity, war and a living hell, not heaven.
We reached the bus, and I began my climb of 1251 steps to the summit, plus another 300 or so on a different path to an outlook. The bamboo forest provided a beautiful atmosphere for walking meditation, breathing and dwelling in the present moment. At the summit there is a sign describing the building of 16 trails up the mountain over the past 14 years by two American climbers. Sixteen trails, which all converge at the ascent to the summit. A metaphor in my face. Continuing through the hole, there is a promontory on the other side, allowing a view through the large hole to the green and blue misty mountain peaks of this famous terrain in China. It appears as a doorway to heaven, and the scene is truly heavenly. My fellow climbers all gasped when coming upon that view.
If Abraham and Moses, the Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Confucius, and so on, realized mystical sainthood and found truth and meaning in the universe, surely they would have met each other at the convergence of their paths, just like sixteen trails leading to the same path to the doorway to heaven.
I call my journal On the Path. We all are on the path, whatever our religious tradition or beliefs. Thank you for traveling with me!
Many of you also know that I was born and raised Catholic, was a Franciscan Friar for four years, a Religious Education Director and Diocesan Youth Director for 10 years in my thirties. At the age of 47, however, the Church became actively hostile to people like me and my fellow Catholic LGBT family. Documents characterized us as "objectively disordered" and "intrinsically inclined towards evil." That made the Church a hostile and unsafe place to be, spiritually, emotionally, physically and psychologically.
Fortunately, two experiences helped me through the transition to a spirituality without religion. The first was the TV series "The Power of Myth," a Bill Moyers interview with Joseph Campbell, the renowned historian and anthropologist of world religions. He demonstrated the major themes and stories that appear in most major religions, clarifying their role in making sense out a seemingly erratic and chaotic world. Many different religions pursuing meaning and truth.
The second was my friend giving me Thay's book, "Being Peace." Thay's writings led me deeper into a spiritual practice that taught me how to live in the present moment, to let go of situations that cause suffering and over which I have no control, to transform anger and fear into peace and joy. One of the beautiful aspects of Thay's tradition of Buddhist teachings and practice is that he does not say one needs to be a Buddhist or any formal religion in order to practice. Indeed, he encourages practitioners to honor their religious traditions, as they provide many deep insights and truths that are a part of our spiritual journey.
The other day, I had an interesting experience that brought all this to mind. A delightful young woman employee at my guesthouse escorted me to the bus for my day's excursion to Moon Hill, an incredible mountain with a large hole at its upper peak. On the way, I told her how lucky the Guesthouse owners were to have an employee like her, so hospitable and full of joy. I also asked her how long she has been in Yangshou, and she told me 1 1/2 years. She had left her home town as a troubled person, looking for a place to start anew. She met these owners and they introduced her to Jesus and that has changed her life. I know well of that experience.
As a practitioner, I should have just listened to her go on with the story of her experience, but I still have things to learn. Instead, I responded that I had recently had a similar experience with the teachings of the Buddha. She became disturbed and defensive, and began to explain that Jesus was divine and the only savior who can lead us to heaven. It is my experience that this insistence on there being only one way is the most insidious tenet of any religion, even within different sects of the same religion, leading to adversity, war and a living hell, not heaven.
We reached the bus, and I began my climb of 1251 steps to the summit, plus another 300 or so on a different path to an outlook. The bamboo forest provided a beautiful atmosphere for walking meditation, breathing and dwelling in the present moment. At the summit there is a sign describing the building of 16 trails up the mountain over the past 14 years by two American climbers. Sixteen trails, which all converge at the ascent to the summit. A metaphor in my face. Continuing through the hole, there is a promontory on the other side, allowing a view through the large hole to the green and blue misty mountain peaks of this famous terrain in China. It appears as a doorway to heaven, and the scene is truly heavenly. My fellow climbers all gasped when coming upon that view.
If Abraham and Moses, the Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Confucius, and so on, realized mystical sainthood and found truth and meaning in the universe, surely they would have met each other at the convergence of their paths, just like sixteen trails leading to the same path to the doorway to heaven.
I call my journal On the Path. We all are on the path, whatever our religious tradition or beliefs. Thank you for traveling with me!
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Savor Every Grain
When I was in Cambodia, I passed a family one day eating on small stools on the sidewalk, as is the custom. A small boy, I would guess 3 years old, was holding his bowl by his chin. Unable to wield the chopsticks just yet, he was scooping the rice into his mouth with his fingers. I noted that he did so until he had scraped every last grain from the bowl, and then put it down with a sigh.
I saw a lot of rice fields in Vietnam and Cambodia. Now I have seen rice paddy terraces in Sapa, Vietnam and China, and it gives me a whole new perspective on eating rice. As I ride the 22-hour bus and train from Lijiang to Panzhehua and Chengdu, we pass an unending spectacle of steep, high mountains plunging into deep valley villages. These mountains are covered with rice terraces in the seemingly most impossible places. I wouldn't think there was enough oxygen that high to even grow rice.
I have marveled at the vast horizon to horizon wheat, rye, corn, and soybean fields in the U.S, in Kansas, along the deserts of the Columbia Basin in Washington State, and even the rolling volcanic dunes of Eastern Washington, with its quilted pattern of fallow fileds, newly sprouted winter wheat, waving mature grain, and the stuble of harvested stalks with golden glow in the setting sun. It often made me wonder how there was enough grain produced to feed the world, and especially curious about the production process of rice. Well, now I have seen it, and it blows my mind.
Whereas U.S. crops are planted and harvested by machines, rice is produced entirely by hand, except for a few small harvester machines that can fit in the paddies in the flat lands. Otherwise, machines would crush the mud walls that frame the paddy.
In this one journey in China, I saw every stage of the production process, from turning over the hard, burned dry paddy with hoes featuring a swinging blade, to plowing with water buffalo or oxen in the dry and flooded paddy. I saw the seedling beds, as bright green as a St. Paddy's Day costume. I saw the men and women, of all ages, bent over all day, planting the seedlings into the flooded paddy, and then tending the crop as it grows. I saw the rice (looking much like wheat now) being harvested with a sickle, again the workers bent over. The rice is gathered into a two-fist size bundled, tied with a rice stalk, and laid down in the field in simple but exquisite patterns as if by an artist, the finished canvas framed by the paddy walls. Then the rice is threshed by beating these bundles against a board onto tarps or cloths for carrying from the field. The threshed bundles are then stacked again and carried on the back to become haystacks for the cattle. Then the cycle begins again. To think of this process being carried out up steep mountain sides is unfathomable, but they do it. It appears that every arable hectare is under cultivation, defying the obstacles of the terrain.
We are accustomed to some form of grace before meals, whether "from Thy bounty" or, as in a lengthy Buddhist prayer, thanking those many hands who made it possible for this food to be before us. Bro. Thay encourages us to meditate on these many hands, being mindful of who they are and what they do. One day, I was with two of my grandsons, seven and five, as they ate their cereal and milk and a glass of orange juice. I invited them to count with me all the people we could think of who were involved in that meal, from plowing to harvesting, from milking to the carton, from the orange grove to their glass, including shipping, stocking and selling. We came up with 57! I asked them to imagine them all present in their kitchen as they ate! Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), oddly enough, has an interesting "commercial" on PBS showing a boy eating his cereal, with a video collage of these very farmers, dairymen, and retailers behind him!
A lot of us were raised to not waste food, take more than we need, throw it away. I hate it when served more rice than I can eat when in a restaurant. From now on, it will always remind me of these rice farmers bent over from dawn to dusk making it possible for the world to have enough rice, even to throw away.
But, like that little boy in Cambodia, I will savor every grain.
I saw a lot of rice fields in Vietnam and Cambodia. Now I have seen rice paddy terraces in Sapa, Vietnam and China, and it gives me a whole new perspective on eating rice. As I ride the 22-hour bus and train from Lijiang to Panzhehua and Chengdu, we pass an unending spectacle of steep, high mountains plunging into deep valley villages. These mountains are covered with rice terraces in the seemingly most impossible places. I wouldn't think there was enough oxygen that high to even grow rice.
I have marveled at the vast horizon to horizon wheat, rye, corn, and soybean fields in the U.S, in Kansas, along the deserts of the Columbia Basin in Washington State, and even the rolling volcanic dunes of Eastern Washington, with its quilted pattern of fallow fileds, newly sprouted winter wheat, waving mature grain, and the stuble of harvested stalks with golden glow in the setting sun. It often made me wonder how there was enough grain produced to feed the world, and especially curious about the production process of rice. Well, now I have seen it, and it blows my mind.
Whereas U.S. crops are planted and harvested by machines, rice is produced entirely by hand, except for a few small harvester machines that can fit in the paddies in the flat lands. Otherwise, machines would crush the mud walls that frame the paddy.
In this one journey in China, I saw every stage of the production process, from turning over the hard, burned dry paddy with hoes featuring a swinging blade, to plowing with water buffalo or oxen in the dry and flooded paddy. I saw the seedling beds, as bright green as a St. Paddy's Day costume. I saw the men and women, of all ages, bent over all day, planting the seedlings into the flooded paddy, and then tending the crop as it grows. I saw the rice (looking much like wheat now) being harvested with a sickle, again the workers bent over. The rice is gathered into a two-fist size bundled, tied with a rice stalk, and laid down in the field in simple but exquisite patterns as if by an artist, the finished canvas framed by the paddy walls. Then the rice is threshed by beating these bundles against a board onto tarps or cloths for carrying from the field. The threshed bundles are then stacked again and carried on the back to become haystacks for the cattle. Then the cycle begins again. To think of this process being carried out up steep mountain sides is unfathomable, but they do it. It appears that every arable hectare is under cultivation, defying the obstacles of the terrain.
We are accustomed to some form of grace before meals, whether "from Thy bounty" or, as in a lengthy Buddhist prayer, thanking those many hands who made it possible for this food to be before us. Bro. Thay encourages us to meditate on these many hands, being mindful of who they are and what they do. One day, I was with two of my grandsons, seven and five, as they ate their cereal and milk and a glass of orange juice. I invited them to count with me all the people we could think of who were involved in that meal, from plowing to harvesting, from milking to the carton, from the orange grove to their glass, including shipping, stocking and selling. We came up with 57! I asked them to imagine them all present in their kitchen as they ate! Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), oddly enough, has an interesting "commercial" on PBS showing a boy eating his cereal, with a video collage of these very farmers, dairymen, and retailers behind him!
A lot of us were raised to not waste food, take more than we need, throw it away. I hate it when served more rice than I can eat when in a restaurant. From now on, it will always remind me of these rice farmers bent over from dawn to dusk making it possible for the world to have enough rice, even to throw away.
But, like that little boy in Cambodia, I will savor every grain.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
First Theft Experience: They Stole My Heart
Dear Family and Friends,
Continuing with my story of Cambodia. Once we returned to Phnom Penh, I invited my friend to go to Angkor Wat with me, as only two members of his family had ever been, and most Cambodians can't afford the trip. The bus is $10 r/t, and his admission is free as a Cambodian, and food is really cheap. He was delighted, like a kid, and constantly thanking “Father!” We were there from April 7- 11, when he returned to PP to join his family for Khmer New Years, a week long holiday here. Angkor Wat (as well as Angkor Thom, Bantay Srei, the river carvings, and Ta Prohm), cannot be described, so I will post photos as soon as I can, hopefully today! He was so delighted with seeing the temples, and had an especially good time hiking through the jungle and seeing big rocks/boulders for the first time on the way to the river carvings
On Thursday, I went to a coffee/Internet cafe, and met a young man who told me about an orphanage he stayed at, the Director being a friend he grew up with in an orphanage. Well as you probably have anticipated, he took me to visit the next morning. I met the fifteen children who had no family to visit during the holiday, half of the normal population. They greeted me with the hands-folded at forehead (for an elder) bow, and gathered in the dance and classroom, where translation made it possible to communicate with them. Such beautiful faces, such poverty, as this orphanage is not funded by the government or any foundation or benefactor. The children range in age from 10-19, and are delightful. I taught an impromptu English class, and again, eager students! They just love “If you're happy and you know it,” which became our theme song.
I had a conversation with the Director and volunteer staff, and learned how he runs it by the seat of his pants. Well, actually the seat of the pants of the homemade traditional costumes used in their dance performances, which supports the orphanage at $90 a gig. I saw them perform at a 5* hotel for a Thai Tour Group, and a second time, by contrast, an hour into a country village on creek bed roads for about 200 farmer families. The 15 year old girls transform into beautiful young women and perform meticulous formal dances, and then both boys and girls perform folk dances. Well, I had a few days left on my Temple pass, so I visited the next few days and continued the English lessons. We really began to form a bond. I brought a 50 lb. Bag of rice, New Year's decorations, and three friends from my guest house – they also contributed a bag of rice and fruit and toys, and helped with English lessons for several days. By now, the children were running to me for a hug when I arrived, usually as a crowd, and I definitely got my kid-fix! As it turned out, day by day, I found I couldn't leave, so I spent another week all together.
One day after classes, I was invited to join the staff on an outing to a holiday BBQ at the beach. The five of us started out in a pickup, and half an hour into the trip, the skies unleashed another torrential storm, forcing the bed riders into the cab through the slider window. I suggested maybe we turn back, as an American would think this was no time for the beach. Crazy Khmers, continued on for another half hour over creek bed roads full of bumps and potholes. We finally arrived at the beach, filled with thousands of family holiday revelers. We got out of the truck and crossed the river in the road to shelter under a tarp. It was so cold, three of us huddled for warmth wrapped in my kroma (scarf) for a half hour more. The rain finally became a drizzle, and we made the treacherous descent in the mud to the three-tiered tarps along the curved sweep of a long beach. Now I could see why they continued (they seem to know the country!), as we enjoyed a BBQ, some went swimming (in their clothes as is customary here), and we had a great time – photos to follow.
Finally, I had to get to Bangkok to apply for my visa to return to Hanoi en route to China. We had a very tearful good-bye, hugging them one by one, the first refusing to let go. I miss them so much, I could have stayed and settled there. As it is, I am attempting to set up some development fund for them when I return to have a more reliable flow for food and clothing and school supplies.
Well, once again, a long account – I hope you enjoyed the journey, and can see the smiles and feel the joy these children brought into my life.
Till next time,
Love, Peace and Joy always!
David
Continuing with my story of Cambodia. Once we returned to Phnom Penh, I invited my friend to go to Angkor Wat with me, as only two members of his family had ever been, and most Cambodians can't afford the trip. The bus is $10 r/t, and his admission is free as a Cambodian, and food is really cheap. He was delighted, like a kid, and constantly thanking “Father!” We were there from April 7- 11, when he returned to PP to join his family for Khmer New Years, a week long holiday here. Angkor Wat (as well as Angkor Thom, Bantay Srei, the river carvings, and Ta Prohm), cannot be described, so I will post photos as soon as I can, hopefully today! He was so delighted with seeing the temples, and had an especially good time hiking through the jungle and seeing big rocks/boulders for the first time on the way to the river carvings
On Thursday, I went to a coffee/Internet cafe, and met a young man who told me about an orphanage he stayed at, the Director being a friend he grew up with in an orphanage. Well as you probably have anticipated, he took me to visit the next morning. I met the fifteen children who had no family to visit during the holiday, half of the normal population. They greeted me with the hands-folded at forehead (for an elder) bow, and gathered in the dance and classroom, where translation made it possible to communicate with them. Such beautiful faces, such poverty, as this orphanage is not funded by the government or any foundation or benefactor. The children range in age from 10-19, and are delightful. I taught an impromptu English class, and again, eager students! They just love “If you're happy and you know it,” which became our theme song.
I had a conversation with the Director and volunteer staff, and learned how he runs it by the seat of his pants. Well, actually the seat of the pants of the homemade traditional costumes used in their dance performances, which supports the orphanage at $90 a gig. I saw them perform at a 5* hotel for a Thai Tour Group, and a second time, by contrast, an hour into a country village on creek bed roads for about 200 farmer families. The 15 year old girls transform into beautiful young women and perform meticulous formal dances, and then both boys and girls perform folk dances. Well, I had a few days left on my Temple pass, so I visited the next few days and continued the English lessons. We really began to form a bond. I brought a 50 lb. Bag of rice, New Year's decorations, and three friends from my guest house – they also contributed a bag of rice and fruit and toys, and helped with English lessons for several days. By now, the children were running to me for a hug when I arrived, usually as a crowd, and I definitely got my kid-fix! As it turned out, day by day, I found I couldn't leave, so I spent another week all together.
One day after classes, I was invited to join the staff on an outing to a holiday BBQ at the beach. The five of us started out in a pickup, and half an hour into the trip, the skies unleashed another torrential storm, forcing the bed riders into the cab through the slider window. I suggested maybe we turn back, as an American would think this was no time for the beach. Crazy Khmers, continued on for another half hour over creek bed roads full of bumps and potholes. We finally arrived at the beach, filled with thousands of family holiday revelers. We got out of the truck and crossed the river in the road to shelter under a tarp. It was so cold, three of us huddled for warmth wrapped in my kroma (scarf) for a half hour more. The rain finally became a drizzle, and we made the treacherous descent in the mud to the three-tiered tarps along the curved sweep of a long beach. Now I could see why they continued (they seem to know the country!), as we enjoyed a BBQ, some went swimming (in their clothes as is customary here), and we had a great time – photos to follow.
Finally, I had to get to Bangkok to apply for my visa to return to Hanoi en route to China. We had a very tearful good-bye, hugging them one by one, the first refusing to let go. I miss them so much, I could have stayed and settled there. As it is, I am attempting to set up some development fund for them when I return to have a more reliable flow for food and clothing and school supplies.
Well, once again, a long account – I hope you enjoyed the journey, and can see the smiles and feel the joy these children brought into my life.
Till next time,
Love, Peace and Joy always!
David
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