How I Spent My First Day In Thailand

After a quick breakfast in a cafe near my guesthouse, I headed to Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University. Luckily I didn't have to ask for directions to find it. They offer free meditation classes, and free anything is good. Especially inner peace. It was just me and a girl from Chicago named Amy in the class, and we practiced some basic sitting and walking meditation. I certainly learned some things I hadn't known before, like when you are meditating (in this particular school, at least) you don't IGNORE all the distractions, you have to be aware of them, think about them, and then cut them off. But you have to be aware of them. So most of the time you're thinking about your breathing (not controlling your breathing, just breathing naturally and being aware of how your body moves with the breath), thinking to yourself "Rising, knowing, falling, knowing, rising, knowing, falling, knowing..." as your abdomen rises and falls. The "knowing" is the moment between inhaling and exhaling. So when something else comes in, like an errant thought, you go "Rising, knowing, falling, knowing, rising, thinking, thinking, thinking, rising, knowing, falling..." Much of the time my inner voice was saying "Rising, knowing, falling, knowing, foot's asleep, foot's asleep, foot's asleep, foot's asleep..." I found walking meditation much more enjoyable, for comfort reasons as well as the hilarity of looking like a pacing mental patient.

The quick primer on Buddhism the teacher gave made me not very interested in Buddhism. The way it is taught here, you must detach yourself from all earthly things. Attachment=bad. So you feel anger--detach yourself from it. Sadness--detach yourself from it. Happiness--detach yourself from it. But I fight every day to ATTACH myself to happiness. Detachment is what comes naturally for me, it wouldn't be a struggle for me to get there (I am the Buddha), but I'm not very interested in cutting my emotional connections to the things and people I love in this world after working so hard to build them in the first place. Granted, I know jack about Buddhism and this woman might be spouting some splinter doctrine, but this is explicitly what she said is the goal. So no one has to worry that I'll come back to the States as one of those Nuveau Buddhist assholes. Though I had previously wanted to do so just to exasperate some folks.

Anyway, Amy and I trekked to Wat Pho together. It's a temple, see?

I think Amy did quite well with this pose.

This I believe is the largest reclining Buddha in the world. It looks like a monster movie. Wat Pho also happens to house the most famous Thai massage school in all of Thailand, so Amy and I naturally got massages as well. One hour for about $12 (which is expensive compared to most of the places around town.) I've never had a Thai massage before, and had a good time with it. There are a lot of things they do that feel like wrestling moves. Leg locks, head locks, that kind of thing. Some of it really hurt. Especially when the guy tried to pull my head straight off. He tried awfully hard.

Watched the sunset behind Wat Arun (Wat means temple), and then raced home to tell you all about it!

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