On Saturday, June 17 enroute05 (Frank) wrote: To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Zen] Intro
[Frank...]Hello, Bill, and thanks for the welcome. [Frank...]I stayed at Wat Ram Poeng while in Thailand, up near Chiang Mai...snip... [Frank...]Before that I'd spent several months on two different trips in Sri Lanka, at a meditation center in the tea highlands near Kandy....snip... [Frank...]I've stayed four times at Bodhi Zendo in the mountains of Tamil Nadu in south India...snip... [Frank...]Also, as I mentioned in the last post, I stayed for a while (in '92) at Sogen-Ji Zen Monastery in Okayama, Japan....snip... [Frank...]In 2001 I went up to Ladakh, in the western Himalayas, to find out what Tibetan Buddhism was about...snip... Wow! Thanks for chronicling your Buddhist background and the web links. Quite impressive! At different times in my life have fantasized about undertaking a pilgrimage such as yours to explore the diversity in Buddhism, but never did. The story of my zen journey is much more mundane. I was raised in a US Midwestern, moderate Christian environment but always had an interest in exploring other religions. Through reading I became especially interested in Buddhism in general and zen in particular. I finally took the step of visiting an actual zen center in California and soon became intimately involved with the training there. I was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to continue my association with that center over the period of many years under the tutelage two Japanese Roshis, the first a Soto master and the second Renzai (also with Soto lineage). The Soto master emphasized shikan-taza (no-mind) and the second employed koans (mostly from the Blue Cliff Record). At sometime during that period I lost my interest in Buddhism and have since focused my practice exclusively on zen. (I know suggesting a separation of zen and Buddhism is a controversial view and not accepted by many on this forum. I would be glad to discuss it further if anyone is interested.) [Frank...]I guess the moral to all this is that there's plenty of Dharma out there, and the different traditions are NEVER what thought they were - via prejudgment - before looking deeper and in fair-mindedness. Not that everyone needs to do this - but I did and my Zen practice was enriched by it. I hope you will actively participate in this forum and share with us some of the different Buddhist practices to which you have been exposed. [Frank...]Where are you in Thailand, and for how long? Please say more. I live in the mountains near a town called Petchabun. That's about a 5-hour drive north and east of Bangkok. It's just south of Phitsanoluk and a couple hours west of Ubon Ratchathani. I built a house there near a little mountain village called Ahngnam and live there with my wife. I've been in Thailand for a little almost 4 years and in Ahngnam for a almost 2 years. [Frank...]... and for how long? I intend to live there for the rest of my life, so I hope that will be for a long, long time! [Frank...]Is there Zen practice where you are? Yes, of course. I am here. But regrettably there is no zen sangha here. That is one reason I was very pleased to find the Yahoo! Zen Forum. It's my e-sangha! I'm not as consistently active as I like to be but my home in Thailand does not have a landline phone. My only access to the internet from my home is GRPS over my mobile phone. GRPS is rather slow at the best of times, but the area where I live does not get a good, strong signal so it's very, very s-l--o----w. I'm in Singapore working right now so I have access to a wonderful 100 Mbps line from my hotel room and am making the most of it. I've tried exploring the possibility of interacting with the local Buddhist monks at the many wats near me, but the Theravada Buddhism they practice just doesn't interest me. And to be frank they don't seem to knowledgeable about what they're doing, or at least can't explain it to me. I've also checked out the various Vipassana centers around Thailand, but they seem too commercially-oriented, almost franchise like. A good clue is virtually all of them conduct their programs only in English. It's obviously not an operation aimed at the local population. I think they're just meditation centers set up in an exotic location (Thailand?) to make them more attractive to prospective English-speaking customers. Maybe I'm being too cynical? If you or anyone else on the forum knows of any zen sanghas in Thailand please let me know. I've searched the web but have found none. All for now...Bill! ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Your favorite religious organization? 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