Beautiful Sunday: sunset in Bangkok and reflections on changes in life.

The pier at Yannawa temple in Bangkok has been very popular with visitors and those people who wanted to make merits by feeding those big fish in the river. The temple has installed a machine which dispensed buckets of fish food to visitors. Some people liked to make big merits so they bought the whole sack of fish food weighing over twenty kilos! No wonder those fish were as long as my legs. They were used to getting free food that they refused to swim away from the pier.

On the other hand, there’s a big sign telling people ‘do not feed pigeons’ in Thai and Vietnamese languages. It seemed the tour company has been taking bus loads of Vietnamese tourists to board the long boat at the pier. These tourists then had a boat trip along the river and visited a few temples along the river. They also paid respect to all the shrine rooms in Yannawa temple. It’s quite puzzling to me why Vietnamese people liked to join special guided to ours for visiting temples in Bangkok. I wondered whether the period of communist dictatorship in their country they had been deprived of any spiritual dimension in their lives. These tourists reminded me of very superstitious Chinese who were very eager to follow rituals in temples. It was as if they were thirsty for any religious rituals to fulfill their desire to fill the empty gap of spirituality.

Sometimes I arrived at the temple early so that I could have some time to enjoy the sunset by the river. Though the temple didn’t want people to feed pigeons at the pier, some visitors still came to feed these pigeons with leftover rice and bread crumbs. Sometimes people spilled fish food on the ground so these pigeons could have a nice treat. These pigeons also refused to go anywhere as they knew they could find some food at the pier. They continued to make a mess on the floor and roof of the pier. The monks were at their wit’s end. They had to accept that pigeons would continue to mess the new tiles of the pier.

Yesterday I dropped by to see my old friend at her work which was a stone throw away from the temple. I haven’t met her for almost a year, so I was quite surprised to see her put on a lot of weight. She was surprised to see me looking fit and healthy. I told her about my exercise program and weight lifting every other day. I only managed to gain more muscles which improved my posture and stamina for long walks. I did encourage her to have dumbbells at home and start doing weight lifting ten minutes everyday. But she had indulged in the good life too much; two bottles of red wine a day and very rich food! I wished I could afford to have red wine once or twice a week. So, my friend suffered from the rich syndrome of nonstop gratifications.

She knew I was somewhat psychic as I did help her on important issues in the past. But I had stopped offering ‘psychic’ help a long time ago as people became superstitious and stopped making any effort along the spiritual path. I understood why Jesus stopped healing people physically. People would demand more help to their physical problems without the mindfulness of improving their own ‘souls or spirits’. That’s why fake psychic and healers could make so much money. My friend suddenly asked me to see the Feng Shui and energy of the building.

I had to explain to her the danger of being obsessed with this good energy of the building for success and wealth. I reminded her of the Buddhist teaching on the law of karma and that she had to invest in practicing the teaching. But most rich people took short cuts i.e. donating money to temples and charities (with the expectations of gaining good results in return for their investments). But the results of these intentional ‘charitable’ acts were not ‘pure’ according to Buddhism. So, the returns on investments would be very little comparing with a charitable act arisen from the feeling of compassion and the desire to see others being healed from their sufferings.

Out of the blue, in the middle of our discussion on walking meditation, very strong flow of energy hit me. I had to be still and close my eyes to receive this wonderful energy. After two minutes, I opened my eyes and asked if she had been doing a lot of ‘dana’ or offerings at temples lately. My friend told me she and her husband have started to go to make offerings at temples every weekend. I told her to share the results of these good karma by performing the pouring of water during a chanting. We called this ritual ‘Krood Nam’ which symbolised the sharing of good merits with deceased relatives, friends and other wandering spirits. My friend also told me she often dreamed of seeing dead acquaintances. I told her they came to ask for some ‘merit vibes’ so that they could move on to other dimensions for further reincarnation.

Slowly, she began to tell me about some particular problems in her family which confirmed my sense of uneasiness during the last two years. That ‘mysterious’ uneasiness had made me staying away from her family for a long time. I was glad that I was made to walk to her place to return some old food boxes. It was meant to happen even though I was quite reluctant to go there. Eventually, I could put the puzzles together and understood why I had to stay away and my premonitions were correct. As they had started to do offerings at temples, did I finally dropped by at her place.

So, I could see the cycle and effects of karmic consequences. Being psychic, I knew what triggered off the train of bad experiences her husband has been encountering. But their ‘redressing’ actions of making merits at temples could help alleviate the situation. I couldn’t possibly tell them what I knew as that wouldn’t be acceptable and the guilty feeling would be too much to handle. People often made bad decisions because they weren’t mindful of the terrible impact of their actions. Self preservation and survival instincts could be too overwhelming to be countered with the sense of kindness and compassion.

This has taught me a good lesson of karmic law and made me more mindful of my own thinking process and impulsive feelings for self- preservation. I would have to encourage my friends to stay away from those fake psychics and holy people who indulged in superstitions and expensive rituals. Peace of mind has become so precious to me and enlightenment has become my goal. So, I would have to strive to do good karma and avoid doing any harm to other sentient beings.

Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.

Stay strong and cheerful.

#beautifulsunday created by @ace108.