Ok, it’s really not that hard to grok.

thailand doesn’t have a six flags, disney world, or even a lego land … we do have dream world (“the world of happiness”) tho. it was built well over 10 years ago and probably hasn’t been touched much since then. the upside is that we never had to queue long for rides but the downside is that there really wasn’t much to queue for … still tho, we had loads of fun.

last sat was sherry’s birthday (yes, more geminis seem to work their way into my life) and a bunch of us all took dream world by storm. we rode all the fun rides (some twice), saw the hollywood action show (complete with simulated mustard gas poisoning), abused the sculptures and of course took tons of pictures.

hollywood action mustard gas special

this ride was way more fun than it looked at first

sherry and tim

pank flirting with the locals

almost got a case of the vapors

pank feeling hungar pangs

me, kicking ass as usual

room full of midgets

my new hair don’t as it waits for the hollywood action show

we didn’t do much of this

me trying to wake up the drunks

thich nhat hanh is in thailand now along with 90 monastics from his temple in france. he lead a day of mindfulness in lumpini park yesterday, is leading a retreat in chiang mai soon and will have three more talks in bkk towards the end of the month. all of the talks are build around the theme “peace in ones self, peace in the world”

i can’t get up to chiang mai, but did attend the program yesterday … the program was billed as running from 2-8, with a talk at 2:30 and walking meditation at 6. we got there around 2 and the hall was filling up pretty fast, at 2:30 they locked the doors so we could meditation for 30 min and then the doors were opened again at 3 to let in the rest of the people. he taught in english, but paused after each sentence to allow it to be translated into thai. this turned out to be a really nice way to hear the talk as there was room for it to settle in.

this is the third opportunity i’ve had to be with him, the first was in berkley years ago, then 7 days in france last year and now this time … i’ve also read many of his books. he has this way of explaining the dharma by breaking it down into very simple steps. mostly he teaches to be present with our breath, to realize that non-peaceful states are caused by non-peaceful emotions and that if we realize this emotions are impermanent that we can allow them to pass and not impact our judgement. sometimes he gets a little headier than that, but the core of the teaching is always about the present moment and using the breath as a tool to come into the present. this teachings have often had me thinking about the western approach of analyzing everything, often over and over. there is a point where thinking about past mistakes and problems can be beneficial, especially if they are problems that repeat …. BUT when we are constantly analyzing the past, it means we are dwelling in the past and not in the present. we can often create anxieties for ours selves this way ….

after his talk, we had a short break and snack and then walking meditation. when i was in france, there were 1000 of us that peacefully walked together after the dharma talk each day. we still peacefully walked together here in bkk, but it was interesting to see how much people really wanted to be near thich nhat hanh and every more interesting to see the way that the paparazzi swarmed near him. thich nhat hanh may very well be enlightened already (although he doesn’t claim this one way or another) and people really wanted to be close to him. running in front of the walking meditation was a group of photographers from various publications, constantly shooting photographs of the scene. in some ways it’s kinda cool that enlightened monks are treated like rock stars in thailand, and thich nhat hanh’s mindfull presence through this could probably be a lesson to so many hollywood types that bitch about too much media coverage. he left in a van escorted by police and surrounded by people respectfully bowing.

when i got back from france i wrote an article about the trip for the thai version of yoga journal (well i wrote it in english, they translated and i double-checked their translation … i still can’t write well in thai) … the article was postponed for months and finally came out this month, timed perfectly with his trip. scans from the article are below … it’s all in thai, and the scans aren’t the best quality. if you want to read it, you probably should buy it … but if you just want to see the pics, click the thumbnails below.

after the talk, pank and i had dinner at siam paragon and took these pics at this killer orchid show they have on now

the new issue of vanity fair has a photo spread on indian and western yogis … some pics are a little odd, but most are rather pretty.

here’s the pic of guruji, looks like it was probably taken within the last few years. it captures his smile rather well … he has this love and happiness that seems to radiate from the inside.

i’ve been thining about this upcoming india trip as something that is happening soon, but still far off. i finally looked at a calendar and realized that i’m leaving in 2.5 weeks. i guess there really isn’t a whole lot i need to do to prepare, i have a couple of things to buy and i need to get my apt ready for someone to live in while i’m gone … but that’s it really. i’m looking forward to having the time off over there to focus on my yoga studies, both asanas and sanskrit. i have room here to focus on it too, but there i will not have anything else i need to deal with, no teaching, no big social events … just getting up early, doing the practice, doing my studies, eating healthy … probably taking loads of pictures too.

i just booked my ticket to mysore, leaving bangkok on june 7 and coming back on august 29th. nok air, a thai-based discount airline, just started offering service from bkk< ->bangalore for around $200 which is a huge savings off the $500 price on thai airlines. my only other trip to india was 2.5 years ago, and lately i’ve been thinking about how different this one will probably be (then again i could be totally wrong).

when i first went, i had been practicing about 7 years but my primary series still needed work. at first they stopped me soon after navasana, and then slowly gave me all of primary series over the two months i was there. back then i didn’t really know anyone else there, i rented an apt by myself (and spent a lot of time alone), read, studied sanskrit, ended up deciding to leave LA and move to bangkok … lots of other things really.

this time around, my practice is in a much different space, but i still could get stopped early. i think one thing a good teacher can feel is when to hold strong students back if they are too attached to the practice. students who are constantly wanting and grasping for new poses, probably have more to learn from not getting them.

i’ve also rented a three bedroom house, my mom, step-dad and many friends from bkk will be visiting, so i’lll often have people around … what i’ve been thinking about most lately is where things are with the shala.

when i was first there guruji, sharath, saraswathi and manju were all teaching together. now guruji is sick and will likely not be teaching the whole time i am there and sharath will be taking off the month of july to recover from a back injury … i’ve been thinking about how this practice is so much stronger than any one person. that even though guruji may never teach again, that there are others who will teach. guruji claims no ownership or patents over the ashtanga system. in fact he makes it clear that he is just teaching what his guru taught and it is a system that is thousands of years old. guruji’s karma allowed him to be our teacher, and my karma allowed me to be his student. there was a point where i lamented the fact that i met him so late in his life and that i only had a few times to study with him, but that’s where my karma dumped me. lately much more so than lamenting, i’ve felt really thankful to have found the practice. guruji loves to say “do your parctice and all is coming” which doesn’t mean mountains of gold will flow if you practice ashtanga, rather (i think) it means that dedication to the traditional ashtanga practice will leave you feeling that you have everything you need already

when i think about how this practice will continue, i also think about the importance of keeping it very traditional and the detachment from the ego that requires. this is a very old system, guruji has fine-tuned some things but really hasn’t changed much.

in ashtanga yoga practice and philosophy gregor maehle has the following to say about the importance of a traditional practice. rishi vamana is the man credited with developing the ashtanga system many thousand years ago. pattabhi jois discovered this system written on old scrolls and popularized it, but aside from some minor changes he didn’t create any of it.

The surrender of the illusion of free will is reflected in the vinyasa system by acceptance of the original system as expounded by Rishi Vamana. Of course it is easy to make up your own sequences of asanas, and possibly commercial success and fame will result. But then we run the rish of falling for the ego, which says I am the doer and the creator. We are only pure consciousness – the seer, the witness, the self – which as the Samkhya Karika says, plays no active part in this world.

That does not mean that we can not adapt the practice for some time if difficulties are to be met or yoga therapy needs to be practised. We need to return to the originally system whenever possible, though. Rishi Vamana’s system leads through outer structure and limitation to inner freedom. If we constantly practise self-made sequences, we create inner limitation though outer freedom.

The rishis of old did not conceive the ancient arts and sciences by trial and error. The method they employed is samyama, which combines concentration (dharana), meditation (dhyana) and absorption (samadhi). In that way, deep knowledge of how things really are can be gained. Patanjali himself explains in the Yoga Sutras how he gained his knowledge. Knowledge of the mine, he says, is gained by doing samyama [combined application of dharana, dhyana and objective samadhi] of the heart.

a few years ago the tourist authority of thailand decided to help establish ampawa as a tourist destination. located in samutsongkram province about 90km south of bangkok, it may be the last city in thailand that has been able to resist getting a 7/11 or mcdonalds. the city looks much like thailand (bangkok included) did 50+ years ago, houses are built along a network of canals and people do their primary shopping and transportation using the canals. there are roads now, but the canals are still very much used as part of daily life. in the evenings there is a floating market, which unlike the more touristy floating markets this one primarily sells food items used by the locals.

zak and i went down friday afternoon and came back up sat evening … we rented a room in a small guest house right on a canal and pretty much just chilled, read, took pictures, relaxed. in the evening (especially this time of the year) there are zillions of fireflies, we took a boat out friday night and saw trees lit up like christmas time …. here’s the first batch of pictures all shot with the holga (highlights are below but many more in the gallery), many of them shot with the fisheye lens zak gave me for my birthday. i have loads more digital pictures that i’ll probably put up soon.

the hell-bus-ride from lumpini felt totally worth it when we saw pokhara. the city is a common starting point for trekking and is in the foothills of many mountains, including the annapurna range which we were planning to trek. we only spent two days in pokhara, but manged to get out and see lots of cool stuff. it was nice to finally have some fresh air again, sometimes i don’t realize how bad it is in bkk until i get out of here. the air in katmandu was better, but was constantly infused with the smell of burning trash. up here it had a clean crisp feeling that i hadn’t felt in a long time.

pics are here and highlights are below

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it’s been a big week for russian / us relations, first off russian president vladimir putin compared US policies to the third reich and then my interview in russian newsweek appeared. probably not related but there might be some sort of star alignment that caused it all to happen at once. first off the quote from putin:

“Moreover, in our time, these threats are not diminishing,” he said. “They are only transforming, changing their appearance. In these new threats, as during the time of the Third Reich, are the same contempt for human life and the same claims of exceptionality and diktat in the world.”- Russian President Vladimir V. Putin

it really does warm my heart to know that bush will be gone soon, unfortunately he probably will not spent the rest of his days locked in a small jail cell somewhere. the man that actually drove me to vote for john kerry (which trust me is a big thing for this lifetime libertarian) has done more to harm us relations that any president in history … something pretty amazing for someone so stupid.

ok, on to more exciting stuff … my mention in russian newsweek.

ИОГА ИЛИ САМОУБИИСТВО
На Западе дауншифтеры появились во второи половине прошлого
века. Никаких экономических мотивов уезжать из страны у них уже
не было. Было лишь желание сменить обстановку и жить в свое
удовольствие. Встретив таких в Таиланде, сразу понимаешь, что
между русским и американским дауншифтером – пропасть.
….

if you load the link, there is a picture of me sitting on the floor in front of the yoga studio i work for too. early last month some reporters from russian newsweek stopped by the studio, they had been told that an american ex-dot com programmer could be found teaching yoga in bangkok, and wanted to interview me for an article on “downshifters”, which is some new american word (i think) for people who did what i did. my step-siter joy speaks fluent russian and provided this commentary / translation in case the pdf doesn’t make any sense to you.

It’s all about “downshifters” (the word is simply transliterated from English) and makes the contrast between Western downshifting and that more typical of Russians. Why do people go from high-powered jobs, choosing to live in, for example, Thailand? The final section has the heading “Yoga or Suicide.” The earlier part of the article focused on Russians, and this section begins by making a contrast to downshifters from the West. First they interview a tv producer who talks about people coming to Thailand for the sex (“You can do things here that would land you in prison for 20 years in the States”); the next paragraph is about a young American seeking a new religion, who speaks about the boredom of life in the States and how happy he is to be surrounded by such a rich cultural life. Then here’s the final paragraph of the article:

“A variation on that theme is eastern practice. At the end of the 90’s, Luke Cassady lived and worked 12-hour days as a programmer in Silicon Valley, and now he teaches yoga in Thailand. He’s a typical victim of western civilization who’s been saved by the East. ‘In America you’re always supposed to be calculating how much you can get on credit that month. Here I can take a nap in the middle of the day between appointments, and I live in a one-room apartment. It’s beyond me how I lived alone in a huge house in San Francisco,’ smiles the yoga teacher happily. Researchers on downshifting—and there are many in the West—say Luke has chosen the best variant of the phenomenon. The worst is famous in psychology as the Martin Eden syndrome. Simply put, suicide.” [Martin Eden is a Jack London character who struggles to find success, only to discover how it reveals the hypocrisy of society; at the peak of his worldly fame he commits suicide.]

so i feel like i’ve been getting a bit of a karmic beat-down lately, which i guess means it is all very well deserved. i’m not sure if i’m just getting more sensitive (which is possible with the lack of sunshine lately) and easily annoyed in class or if more and more students are doing things to annoy me, but lately i’ve found myself getting annoyed quite frequently.

i think it all started last week when a student answered a phone in class, i guess she didn’t see the zillion posters written in english and thai telling people to not bring phones into the yoga room. a few days later another girl had a phone go off in class. i’ve been here almost two years now and this is the first time i’ve ever had problems with a phone in class. there seems to be a decent increase in people talking in class, and just ignoring my teaching instructions too. part of me thinks all of my yogic practice should keep me from getting annoyed, but i think the practice never really changes our emotions it just changes how we respond to them. my first instinct when that girl answered the phone call was to tell her to leave (in much harsher words), people in this country are very concerned with losing face and if i embarrassed her in front of the room it wouldn’t be the most appropriate thing. plus i would look really bad for losing my temper in public and speaking loudly. i took a moment and let the first bit of anger level out and then i finally quietly told her not to use the phone in the room.

as you may be able to guess from the pics below, i wasn’t the best behaved student in middle and high school, i was banned from field trips, warned about when substitute teachers came and was generally a pain-in-the-ass. i think that the school was a bit confused and unsure what to do with me as i generally got good grades (as long as i wasn’t bored) and was often in honors and advanced placement classes. i guess it’s all coming back to me now tho … no chance that i’ll get to wait until my next lifetime to pay this off.

more stuff from nepal soon, i promise ….

the thai government is pushing for stricter censorship laws. the new law (which is expected to pass) would do as follows

A bill to give the information and communications technology (ICT) minister unrestricted power to shut down pornographic and anti-monarchy websites is expected to be tabled in the military appointed National Legislative Assembly (NLA) next month.

it is different from the current situation in that there is now some level of checks-and-balances in place before things can be shut down.

this country seems to have a love with saying one thing to keep face, but really letting other things happen. prostitution is technically illegal, but there are tons of multi-million dollar brothels that are run like high-end spas, porn and sex toys are illegal but you can buy them on the street. actually in bangkok it is easier to find a place where you can watch sex live on the stage (which is illegal) than it is to find a high-quality porn movie.

the thing with the censorship is that it doesn’t really do anything about the problem. youtube is still banned and that probably means that most average people can’t get it, but most average people probably didn’t want to see the images of the king that caused the uproar. people who really want to access youtube can do it through anonymous relays. of course still images from the youtube video (screen shots) have been floating around email lately.

i guess in a country where saving-face is so important, things like censorship help the government to save-face. it doesn’t do anything to stop things from being out there, they are pushed underground (but even then not too far underground) but it gets moved to somebody else’s problem.