"and Arex, what did you do today?" -Pichit, a monk we made friends with yesterday at the monkchat!
So yesterday and today Emily Cameron and I have had time to go to the monk chats at Wat Chedi Luang. I'm going because of my independent study and she just finds it fun, so we have been working well together talking with the monks. Last week, we talked to two monks from Laos and came up with a system. We walk in, and get beckoned over by a monk or two, then there is polite chatter about where we're from etc. I then explain that I'm researching Buddhism and how monks relate and work with HIV positive people, and begin the questions :) I write furiously as we ask the questions, and Emily is getting used to what kind of questions I ask, and is super helpful. Towards the end, we try and ask a weird question to lighten the mood :) Examples:
1. So hypothetically speaking, pretend you were meditating and were approached by a poisonous snake, would you kill it before it hurt you? Or would you let it bite you? If you let it bite you, would you go to the hospital?
the monk from Laos who answered this one said that if the monk was meditating on loving kindness he wouldn't be bitten by the snake anyway, because he would be radiating loving kindness. So we said, well what if he wasn't meditating that way? He said that if the snake bit him anyway, he wouldn't kill it but he would go to the hospital because he needs to take care of his body.
2. What if there is a rabid dog roaming the monastery (there are many dogs EVERYWHERE here) and you see it bite another dog and know they are rabid, would you kill the dogs to save other dogs and humans? Or would you kill them to put them out of their misery?
Unfortunately, Songkran and Pichit didn't understand this question yesterday, so we're going to keep trying for an answer. "rabid" was lost in translation
Anyway, so we are having fun talking to the monks, and yesterday, we met two monks: Songkran and Pichit. They were really nice, but their English made it hard to ask my independent study questions, so we ended up just chatting with them for awhile about other stuff. Today we med Chaa-mpa (sp?) and his English was phenomenal, and he said that he is from Laos too. We asked about Songkran and he said that in Laos, monks can touch girls and break the rules for the three days (of Songkran). So he's going home for the festival and he told us he could wear normal clothes and play with his siblings and everything, but in Chiang Mai, the monks cannot break the rules. BUT, Chaa-mpa also uses whitening cream and carries an umbrella to keep his skin from getting too dark. It was really interesting because he seemed to be able to explain the Buddhist teachings and talked about how bad materialism was, but he secretly wears perfume!
While we were talking to Chaa-mpa, Pichit and Songkran came over and said hi, and talked to us for awhile. I think Emily and I are becoming quite the regulars at the Wat Chedi Luang monk chat :) Hopefully, tomorrow I can get a picture with our new monk friends :)
So yesterday and today Emily Cameron and I have had time to go to the monk chats at Wat Chedi Luang. I'm going because of my independent study and she just finds it fun, so we have been working well together talking with the monks. Last week, we talked to two monks from Laos and came up with a system. We walk in, and get beckoned over by a monk or two, then there is polite chatter about where we're from etc. I then explain that I'm researching Buddhism and how monks relate and work with HIV positive people, and begin the questions :) I write furiously as we ask the questions, and Emily is getting used to what kind of questions I ask, and is super helpful. Towards the end, we try and ask a weird question to lighten the mood :) Examples:
1. So hypothetically speaking, pretend you were meditating and were approached by a poisonous snake, would you kill it before it hurt you? Or would you let it bite you? If you let it bite you, would you go to the hospital?
the monk from Laos who answered this one said that if the monk was meditating on loving kindness he wouldn't be bitten by the snake anyway, because he would be radiating loving kindness. So we said, well what if he wasn't meditating that way? He said that if the snake bit him anyway, he wouldn't kill it but he would go to the hospital because he needs to take care of his body.
2. What if there is a rabid dog roaming the monastery (there are many dogs EVERYWHERE here) and you see it bite another dog and know they are rabid, would you kill the dogs to save other dogs and humans? Or would you kill them to put them out of their misery?
Unfortunately, Songkran and Pichit didn't understand this question yesterday, so we're going to keep trying for an answer. "rabid" was lost in translation
Anyway, so we are having fun talking to the monks, and yesterday, we met two monks: Songkran and Pichit. They were really nice, but their English made it hard to ask my independent study questions, so we ended up just chatting with them for awhile about other stuff. Today we med Chaa-mpa (sp?) and his English was phenomenal, and he said that he is from Laos too. We asked about Songkran and he said that in Laos, monks can touch girls and break the rules for the three days (of Songkran). So he's going home for the festival and he told us he could wear normal clothes and play with his siblings and everything, but in Chiang Mai, the monks cannot break the rules. BUT, Chaa-mpa also uses whitening cream and carries an umbrella to keep his skin from getting too dark. It was really interesting because he seemed to be able to explain the Buddhist teachings and talked about how bad materialism was, but he secretly wears perfume!
While we were talking to Chaa-mpa, Pichit and Songkran came over and said hi, and talked to us for awhile. I think Emily and I are becoming quite the regulars at the Wat Chedi Luang monk chat :) Hopefully, tomorrow I can get a picture with our new monk friends :)
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