Dream & Meditative State + A(wake)ning = 'That Peace Comes'

Prior to last month I'd never meditated before in my life. I'd never even considered it, as I'm not a hippie, but when I found myself in the meditation capital of the world again (Chiang Mai, Thailand) with little to do for a week I said "Hey! Why not?" I'd heard the temples in Chiang Mai offer the best meditation courses, so I went to my favorite temple with caves, underground tunnels, massive stupas, and a stunning lake to see if they offered courses - and indeed they did! The eager monk told me to return the next day at 8am dressed in all white and with little attachments. I went clothes shopping and I had no vacuum cleaner, so figured I was all set.

I arrived the next morning and was trained in the discipline of Vipassana meditation (the Buddha's favorite) then was given the daily schedule which I was told to follow rigidly. The schedule looked something like this:

4am - Wake up

I stopped right there. Hold up, monk, you really expect me to wake up at 4am for the next 3 days? I'm not so sure this is for me, after all. He laughed and said that many foreigners had concerns about that portion of the schedule, but after the first day your body adjusts. What the heck, I'll give it a try.

OK, on with the rest of the schedule:

4:30am - Morning chanting

5am - Meditation

7am - Cleaning

Hold up, again. So you expect me to meditate for TWO HOURS right after I wake up at 4am?! And then clean the entire monastery? Again, this isn't for me, but fine, I'll give it a shot.

7:30am - Breakfast

8am - Relaxation

10am - Meditation

12pm - Lunch

12:30pm - Free time

2pm - Meditation

4pm - Relaxation

5pm - Dinner

5:30pm - Meditation

7pm - Evening chanting and monk chat

8pm - Lights out

For a person who typically goes to bed around 3am and wakes up around 10am I knew this was going to be a massive challenge, but I'm all about enlightening myself and whatnot, so here goes.

During the first meditation at 10am on the first day the monk approaches me midway through my session and asks if I'm having a problem meditating.

"No," I say, "Why do you ask?"

"Well, you appear to be sleeping," he responds.

"I wasn't sleeping, I was meditating," I reply.

"Well, meditation does not require snoring," he states.

"Oh, well isn't meditation just a form of sleeping upright?" I ask.

"Unfortunately not, sister." he replies.

Now understanding what meditation isn't, I set off to discover what meditation is.

I proceed through the remainder of the day with ease (and a bit of drowsiness), but manage to do everything else seemingly correct.

In the evening we arrive at the monk chat, the final agenda item before bed time, and have a revealing discussion with the lead monk teacher on issues such as transcendentalism, prophecies, asceticism, breathing, attachment, and the works. All the day's efforts and this Buddha talk had drained me of energy and I was ready for dinner. I ask the monk where we'll meet for dinner, and he explains that monks and novices practicing meditation only eat two meals per day. I feign acceptance, but in the back of my mind I just wanted this conversation to end so that I could start scheming my escape to the nearby fried rice buffet.

Just as monk chat ended and the pupils began exiting the temple, the skies opened as never before seen. There was no way that I could sneak out and grab a bite, so I just went back to my room, read a few lines from the book "What Your Poo Says About You" and was fast asleep by 8:15pm.

10 minutes later I hear a knock on my door, look down at my phone, and realize it's 4am already! I jump up, put my white suit on, and head to morning chant. Following the chant I go to the lake to meditate and watch the sunrise, but am interrupted by the same monk teacher asking me if I'm having problems meditating. Aw heck! I was asleep again. My bad, monk. I down some of his coffee and continue with my meditation.

In theory, when one meditates your mind should be clear of all thoughts, expectations, worries, obstructions, etc. But instead, my mind was full of to-do lists, as I was on a work trip that had been postponed and had much more work to do the following week in Vietnam. During this particular meditative moment as I was going through my Vietnam checklist I realized that I'd failed to do Step 1: Secure a visa. Holy shit!

I ran to the abbot's office and begged him to use his computer so that I could Google Map the nearest Vietnamese embassy, and explained to the abbot that I was going to Vietnam the following week and had forgotten to secure my visa. Luckily when I got online I realized that I was able to apply for a visa-on-arrival, which I did at that time and received the following day. But that part I didn't explain to the abbot. I told him that I was very sorry, but that I would have to leave the meditation retreat, as I had to get on the next flight to Bangkok where the nearest Vietnamese embassy was. In truth, I just wanted to sleep on something other than a concrete floor and straw mat, and eat something more than gourd floating in yellowish broth.

PEACE OUT, MONK!

Since then, I've spoken to several friends who practice meditation independently and have begun a solo journey which is working out for me much better than the retreat/course did. Occasionally I'll even catch myself in states where I'm not sure if I'm awake, asleep, dreaming or meditating, because they're all such integral parts of my life now.

Just this morning I was in bed and remembered that I didn't have a visa for my next trip this weekend, then I realized I was just having a bad dream. Or was I meditating, as visa issues cropping up during meditative states aren't unheard of for me, clearly. Regardless, I 'woke up' to realize that I do, actually, have my visa and it was just pre-departure paranoia creeping in.

I love meditation and how it's enhanced my Christian spiritual journey so much that I'm going to study Transpersonal Psychology in graduate school next year. TP is the integration of spirituality with psychology, and since I've been working with CPI I've been interested in focusing more on this as I work with many psychologically disturbed survivors of landmines and UXO in Southeast Asia, and also have grown more spiritually inclined. I feel comfortable with this life dream and plan, and know that somehow through it all:

'...that peace comes' - Devendra Banhardt (Watch the video!)

(dis)Organized Crime: Lao Style

Every expat who lives in Laos has difficulty expressing just how unique it is to live in this country. Weird, counter-intuitive, disjointed, baffling, confounding, unsettling, and mysterious are all descriptions that get close to illuminating the state of affairs here, but somehow words just don't do it justice. But I've found that, occasionally, anecdotes can shed light on the complexities of residing in this wonderful nation. Here are a couple from the past few days.

On Saturday after my birthday party I was riding home and realized the dimsum/noodle shop near my apartment was open, which was strange considering it was 4am and they usually close at 9pm. I walk in with some friends and am met by about 15 rowdy but gracious Lao men who offer us seats at their table on the sidewalk. The men happen to all be extremely well dressed, good looking and in possession of a gaggle of exorbitantly expensive cars - specifically an Audi, a Lamborghini, and a Hummer, which is extremely strange for Laos, as there are only like 3 paved roads in town on which you can go about 20mph. Whatever, to each their own.

So I start speaking to the men in Lao language and ask whose Lamborghini it is, and one of the men (the most handsome, in my opinion) raises his hand and claims ownership. In my head I confused the word for girlfriend and wife, so instead of then asking the man if he had a girlfriend, I asked him if he had a wife. He said no, then I asked him if he wanted one. A 4am intoxicated joke, clearly. The man proceeds to claim me as his wife and beckons me into the Lamborghini, which of course I decline, but without first letting him pay for our meals. We exchange numbers and he and his posse drive away leaving us all baffled about their quick departure. One of the owners of the dimsum shop then explains that the men are part of the Lao mafia and had woken up her family to demand that they open the Pho shop for them following their big night out. Ah ha, now the fancy cars in a nation where the average person makes $1/day makes sense. Since then I haven't heard from my husband (?), but I'm pretty sure that him asking me to be his wife and paying for my meal means that we'll be bound by common law forever. In Laos, at least. Feel free to send gifts from our registry at the local impound lot or wherever the mafia confiscates vehicles and belongings of the departed.

Fast forward to today. I've been apartment hunting for the past few weeks and this morning drove by an apartment that appeared to be exactly what I was looking for so stopped to take a closer look. A Lao man who was asleep in the garage asked me if I lived in the apartment building, and I explained that I didn't, but was interested in checking it out. I asked him if he worked at the apartment building (perhaps as a security guard?) and he said no, that he just sleeps on the floor of the garage because it's cooler than anywhere else on the block. Hmm, ok. Maybe this isn't the kind of place I'm looking for then. But before I can say or do anything, he explains that he will help me, then takes the spare helmet in the basket of my motorbike, puts it on, and hops on the back of my bike and starts screaming directions at me. "BAI SEU! LAEW LIAW KHWAH. SEU SUE NOI NEUNG...!!!" So naturally, I start following his directions.

After about a 10 minute drive we turn up at a large beautiful house that's under construction. There are about 10 Lao men working on the house and he explains that they're his brothers and they are renovating this colonial house with the hopes that a foreigner will want to rent it. I ask him how much and he says $500, which is how much I'd previously told him I wanted to pay for a 1 bedroom apartment. He takes me on the tour of the house which is absolutely stunning - 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, hardwood floors, gorgeously manicured garden/lawn, 2 verandas, etc etc. He then puts me on the phone with a woman who speaks English - his mother - who explains that the house is mine for $500 plus she'd take me to any store in Laos or Thailand and buy me any furniture that I wanted to furnish the house with. I think I shit in my pants. I sealed the deal with her and will move in when the construction is finished in 2 weeks.

I drove Mr. Sah back to his cool resting spot in the garage and asked him if there was any way I could compensate him. He requested that after I move into the house I buy him a can of beer and bring it to him in the garage.

High on life, I'm driving back to my apartment and as I'm making the last left turn I realize that the straight ahead turn signal is green but the left turn signal is red. Apparently I noticed this too late because a police officer pulls me over and explains in Lao language that I was too far in the middle of the road prior to my turn, at least that's what I think he said. I explain to him that that's not actually an offense, I hadn't actually turned, that I was just preparing to, but he wouldn't budge from his position. He demanded I give him 50,000 kip (~$6) and he would let me go. I knew this money would go directly into his pocket, and being the crusader against corruption at the government level that I am, I refused to pay him, and insisted that he write me a ticket and that I would pay it directly at the police station. At that point he got another colleague involved (who also didn't speak English) presumably to convince/coerce me into paying them and, again, I refused even though I had no idea what I was refusing by that point. After debating the topic for 30 minutes in the blazing sun we finally reached a deal: 15,000 kip (~$2) and a can of beer (see a pattern forming?) to each of them. With a huge sense of accomplishment I hopped back onto my motorcycle and drove off, only later realizing that I was driving down a one-way street against traffic without my helmet on (huge offense!) in front of my same police friends. They just smiled and cheers'ed their newly acquired Beer Laos in the air to me.

One time for the Lao People's Democratic Republic!

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!

After the hectic truck ride through the mountains (see previous post), all I wanted to do was get back to the guest house and take a nice, long, relaxing shower. I remembered that I'd forgotten to pack soap, so I went to the local Burmese market to pick some up. All the soap was written in Thai, Burmese or Chinese, so I just went for the one that smelled the best - an herbal scented bar with Chinese writing.

I went home, hopped in the shower, lathered up, and was overwhelmed by the incredibly luxurious texture of the soap - it literally felt as if I was bathing in silk. When I got out of the shower, my skin was smoother and more conditioned than it had ever been in my life.

The next morning I showered again with the soap, but this time noticed that once I'd rinsed the suds off, there was still a bit of a grimy film left behind. Who cares, more skin conditioning. I left my guest house and as I was walking down the street a dog came up to me and started licking my shins like it was his business. That had never happened before, but I just figured the dogs in Mae Sot were hungrier than those in other small border towns.

A few more minutes down the street and I was sweating uncontrollably, more than I ever had in my life. And it wasn't that hot out. When I went to wipe the sweat from my brow, I realized that the droplets on my forehead were extremely oily. Hmm.

When I arrived back in the guest house later that afternoon I took off my clothes to cool down and noticed large grease stains on my shirt and pants. Now this is just bizarre! I looked at my body and realized that a few small spots had appeared that seemed to look like blackheads, which one typically gets from clogged pores.

I figured all of this was related to the soap, as I'd never had any of these reactions previously, so I took the bar of soap and the box it came in to the manager of the guest house who spoke Chinese and asked him to read me the ingredients on the box. He said there was one ingredient: unsalted butter. For two days I had been bathing in butter.

I Can't Believe It IS Butter!

How am I still alive?: A self-practice guide on dying in Southeast Asia.

I took a survey a while back about expat living in Southeast Asia and one of the questions was, "What is the best and worst part about your life abroad?" I had the same answer to both of these questions: my proximity to death. There's nothing like being surrounded by death to make you feel, well, alive. And in Asia there's no shortage of encounters and reminders of death. Whether it's passing a passed-on elderly person lying on their front porch for the neighbors to come pay respects to, or a dead body in the middle of the road post-motorcycle accident, the 'other side' is ever-present.

But until recently I hadn't had to contemplate my own death. Yea I have life insurance, but I'd always thought that was more for my family's/company's peace of mind than anything else. Lately, though, I've had a few encounters that I feel like have brought me closer to the edge of death than ever before, at least in my mind.

Doing work in landmine/UXO action, you constantly hear about casualties involving explosions, and they're often harrowing stories that impact you to the core, but rarely actually manifest in your reality. Even when I go on site visits those realities seem distant. But lately I've been challenged in that respect. I've picked up display bombs out of curiosity only later to realize that they hadn't been diffused. I've walked through rice paddies and corn fields where only days prior there had been an explosion that left someone maimed or dead. Don't get me wrong, the people I travel and work with only have my safety at heart and the chance of me actually being involved in an accident is nearly non-existent (knock on wood), but it's the closeness that alarms.

And then there was today. When I first moved to Thailand 3 years ago and began to learn how to drive a motorcycle I felt like I was going to kill myself and everyone on the road with every step on the pedal, but soon that too passed as I began to navigate the streets with more ease. Generally my fear of road death had subsided, until today.

On my way back from a site visit on the Thailand/Burma border I opted to hop into a pick-up truck, as I didn't want to inconvenience my friendly hosts who were driving me 3 hours out of the way of their home. The drive started out peacefully enough, with sweeping views of rice paddies.

Then I realized that the truck was driving a bit out of control, and looked through the window to see the driver pounding a bottle of what appeared to be liquor. Alright, so I'm driving through the plains in a slightly rambunctious truck being driven by a drunk man - no big deal. Think again. The landscape quickly changes from farmland to steep mountains and we're being hurled around cliffs at ungodly speeds.

OK, no big deal again, there are guard rails. Nope. The guard rails all seem to end at the most crucial points (hairpin curves, foggy sections, areas where there's a 300 ft drop, etc etc).

We whip around one of these hairpin curves going about 70 mph in a foggy section that clears just in time to see that there's one of these 300 ft drops that we're headed straight into. I try to stay calm, but all the Burmese people that I'm in the truck with start screaming at the top of their lungs in Burmese what I can only imagine translates into "HELP! WE'RE ABOUT TO DIE! BUDDHA WHERE ARE YOU WHEN WE NEED YOU?" and the like. I only know 3 words in Burmese - "lay peh thoke," which means "tea leaf salad." So I start screaming that in an attempt at solidarity. But at least I wasn't the one who was throwing up:

Miraculously we came out of that curve - and hundreds more - unscathed, and praise be to Jesus that I'm back home safely and here to write about it. Moral of the story, next time you're feeling a bit lifeless, trying skipping through a minefield* or hopping into a mountain-bound pick-up truck with a drunk driver* to give you some spunk and make you appreciate what you have.

xo

Cresa

*Please don't do this!

tackling burma pt. 2 (steady goes it)

view of shwedagon pagoda from the exterior

monks and money

"foot wearing prohibited"!

a kid in a bowtie (!) posing with the generator, burma's only source of legal power

street view of men in longyis (skirt-type garments)

tackling burma

i've had a great deal of anxiety thinking about how to present my story of burma while properly maintaining the complexity, integrity, and beauty of the country. she is so dynamic that words just don't suffice. so with that said, since a word is indeed worth a thousand pictures, i present to you The Word: Burma...and approximately a thousand pictures (56 to be exact).

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reading my favorite paper (IHT) in my favorite pub (50th st)

having posek with cousin fred in a typical burmese tea shop

intercepting vibes from katie ad and cousin fred

after running the hash as a newbie

fabulous comeuppance pt. 2

i'm not ready to tackle the story of my time in burma yet, so i'll skip to the pseudo present:

*i left, or rather escaped, from burma in september of this year. i returned home to visit with my mother, family, friends and fergi the pomeranian in nashville, tn and reconnect to the home that once was. after the first week of being there i was officially offered the job with clear path international (www.cpi.org), so knew that my time in the states was dated. so i spent lots of time talking, laughing and watching dancing with the stars with mom, visiting my aunts and cousins in atlanta playing table tennis and playstation, catching up on my nearly two years without microbrews, and fighting jetlag. it was a phenomenal.

*then i was back to asia. i stopped through bangkok to visit my boyfriend peter for a few days, getting reacquainted with the thai lifestyle. after a couple of days, i jetsetted to vientiane, laos, my new home. i'd never been to laos before, but was told by many friends i knew from thailand who'd gone there before that the only reason to go was to get a new visa for thailand. i can't speak for the rest of laos, but vientiane (the capital, where i now call home base) has brought me to levels of boredom and near depression previously thought unfathomable. for those of you who know me well, you know that i'm fairly adaptable. i rarely complain about my condition and am usually able to make the best out of any situation, no matter how grave. but laos has/is doing me in. granted, i've only been there for a month, but in that month i've had little work (starting an NGO in a new place is slow tedious work in the beginning); no family; no internet; and most importantly/shockingly, no friends. and if you don't have work, family, internet and friends - what's the purpose of living? there is none. so the answer to alleviating my sorrows in vientiane is, simply, to not be in vientiane. travel. travel as much as i can. travel so much that i'm so tired of traveling that i welcome the work-family-internet-friend blackhole that is vientiane. with that said, i know that other parts of laos are far more intriguing than vientiane, so i do plan to spend a fair amount of time doing other regions justice. so with that, here's my plan for the next couple of months:

Dec 4-16: Cambodia (Phnom Penh, Kep, Kampot, Sihanoukville, Battambang, Kamrieng)
Dec 16-22: Vientiane
Dec 22-25: Chiang Mai
Dec 25-Jan 2: Cambodia
Jan 2-12: Vientiane
Jan 12-Feb 5: Thailand and Burma
Feb 5-14: Traipsing with a friend throughout Who-Knows-Where-Land, SE Asia

*but in during my last month of solitary confinement, there has been an oyster. a mighty, pearly one at that. i've had time to reflect on where my path has lead and realize that, now that i'm now officially working in the field of international development, i've found my calling. and i've also realized that my self-deprecating tendencies of second guessing my own abilities needs to stop. so with that, i've enrolled in a harvard economics distance program with the hopes of passing this level and enrolling full time into the kennedy school or london school of economics (or school of oriental and asian studies) masters in public policy/administration in international development program within the next two years.

*i'm currently on my first leg of my work site visit/anti-death boredom trip - in phnom penh, cambodia. this, i've decided, is my favorite city in the world. there's literally no other place where i'm constantly having my heart broken (4 year old prostitutes; remnants of contemporary genocide at every corner), nor my heart ignited (random street people wanting to shake your hand because of you believe in the prosperity of their country; 80 year old blind blues singers who survived the war by making music that even the killing forces couldn't resist). i've never had such amazing food in my life. and i've never been so sick after eating food that had apparently been contaminated with insects (i only found this out because when i ran to the bathroom after the initial onset of symptoms what came out in the toilet was chocked full of small bugs). my heart rests here. and here: Cambodia Living Arts

yes, that's a picture of tree roots that looks like a person's bare ass

yes, that's a picture of the most beautiful child in cambodia standing in front of angkor wat

yes, that's a picture of skulls exhumed from mass graves following the khmer rouge genocide

and yes, that's a picture of a plate of rice shaped like a teddy bear