Farewell Party

Thanks for the going away party my friends!







Thanks to my cousin Danny and the Catch-22 Lounge for hosting the party.
www.catch22lounge.com

10 days of Vipassana Meditation

It was an experience of challenges.

The evening of the first night following an orientation I took a vow of noble silence, that is, no speaking, no eye contact and no gestures. The next morning I woke to the reverberation of a gong at 4 am. The first morning we took a vow to follow the five basic precepts: not killing, not stealing, not making sexual misconduct, not telling lies, and abstaining from intoxicants.

Imagine spending 10 days:
...not talking at all...
...living with roommates with which you were not allowed to speak, make gestures or eye contact...
...sitting on a cushion with your legs crossed for 10+ hours a day...
...eating strictly vegetarian only twice a day...
...without a cell phone, Internet connection or TV...

None of the challenges when taken individually are that difficult but when taken as a whole it presents quite a challenge to the body and the mind. All in all, I would say it was an amazing experience.

10 Words to describe the 10 days:
Torture. Bliss. Daydreaming. Sore back. Eating slowly. Sitting. Respiration. Attention.

MAY ALL BEINGS BE HAPPY.

meditation retreat

Leaving for a 10-day meditation retreat this afternoon.

Vipassana meditation.

Why?
I want to improve my ability to concentrate on a single thing.
I want to understand the life the novice monks of Laos lived everyday.
I want to experience first hand the methods of improving ones awareness.

Here's the website for the Vipassana course that I took:
www.rockies.us.dhamma.org

curious coincidence

Eleven years since Dad died. I can't believe it's been so long. I'm surprisingly peaceful today. Don't misunderstand, I miss him terribly. But there is a difference between fighting the reality of the world and accepting the reality of the world. I've made a lot of progress.

I moved a pillow down to the floor so I could practice sitting Indian-style while writing email and a funny thing happened...

My right eye lined up perfectly with the peephole in the door and the sun. I was blinded with blue light. It felt like I was getting zapped with brilliant laser. If I moved my head slightly to left or right I could see brilliant reds and purples. It felt like looking into a rainbow end-wise.

I felt an immediate need to write my sister and tell her about it but wasn't sure what to write when... She called on the phone.

It was one of those strange moments when everything felt related: anniversary of Dad's death, brilliant light in a beautiful, strange way, and my sister's voice just at the moment I wanted to talk with her.

Mom's Iris

Beautiful orchid-looking iris that only blooms for 24 hours. I was lucky to be at mom's house this morning to see it bloom.

Danny & Laikens Wedding

My cousin Danny got married to his girlfriend Laiken at the First Baptist Church in Golden. It was strange to be back in the old stomping grounds of my college years.

And weddings are funny things anyways. I'm situated in a room full of people and I don't recognize many of them. I'm not sure if I should Is that my second cousin, what's their name? The guilt at not recognizing your own family...

After seeing weddings from some Asian cultures, I try and see the festival through a foreigner's eyes. What would a Laos person think about all of this?

I get seated with the rest of the rowdy family members - in the corner. It was good to Corky and Carol and plan family camping trips for this summer. To see Betty, Susie, Norm and Brittany. How is it that I don't have a picture of her yellow pumps?!? Good to see Danette, Larry and Scooter. Ed and Karen and Joleen were all preoccupied with wedding stuff.



Somehow I don't have a single decent picture of Danny & Laiken. I'll post one when they send one to me.

Friday the 13th Tofu Burritos

Talked Yoxa and Brad into coming over to Sandie and Geir's place to celebrate Friday the 13th. I felt like I owed Y&B a dinner after they have taken such good care of me on so many occasions. I felt like S&G owed me a tofu burrito dinner since I've been craving one since I got back in the states and have yet to have them. Why not combine paying off your debts while someone else is cooking? Sounds brilliant to me.

Tasty tofu burritos followed by Mexican amaretto tequila and speed scrabble. Sounds like a wicked combination... Fortunately Brad feigned a cat allergy before I completely dominated in downing tequila and putting down scrabble pieces.

Good times everyone! We'll do it again.

Thanksgiving '08

Images of Thanksgiving 2008. That's what Thanksgiving is to me: family, raspberry pie and playing cards.




Before & after.

practicingasianlanguages

Since being back in the States I've tried to keep practicing Laos and Japanese language.

One of the reason Asian languages are difficult to learn is that they do not use spaces between words.

haveyouevertriedtoreadasentencewithoutspaces?

Not so easy is it? It makes looking up words in the dictionary a little bit challenging.

Laos language has the additional complication that sometimes vowels are written before the consonant even though the vowel is pronounced after the consonant. It takes a little getting used to looking for vowels before, above and below the consonant. If you have Laos fonts installed on your computer (probably not) you can see a sentence written in Laos:

ເຈົ້າມັກກີນເບຍລາວບໍ່?

Written Japanese is complicated by the fact that there are three "alphabets". Two are phonetic; hiragana is used for native Japanese words and katakana is used for foreign words. These are relatively easy to learn. Kanji, the pictograms related to Chinese characters, are the real challenge to all foreigners attempting to learn to read Japanese. The sheer number presents a major task - several thousand need to be learned to read the daily newspaper. But a single kanji character may have several pronunciations and meanings depending on the context. oiyoiyoi. If you have Japanese fonts installed on your computer (probably not) you can see a sentence written in Japanese:

あなたは、日本に行きたいですか?

One of the things I learned in Asia about myself was that I actually enjoy learning foreign languages. After spending four years in high school attempting to learn Spanish and a couple years in France attempting to speak French both with limited success, I thought I just wasn't good at learning languages. I realized I'm not an auditory learner, I'm a visual learner. By learning the foreign characters I was able to learn the basic language much quicker than in the past.

Prize for the first person that can answer my questions.

mallory cave

Jason and I took a quick hike up to Mallory Cave today in the beautiful weather. Photo of Jason doing his curious squirrel impersonation: