4 Feb 2019

The Duality of Human Nature and The Search for Universality – Thailand, February 4, 2019

by | posted in: Love, Personal Growth, Relationship, Sabbatical, Spiritual, The Human Condition | 0

loveandforgivenessJust below our rational façade of humanity lies a turbulent darkness that is kept in check by the good that happens in life’s everyday existence and excitement. When examining the duality of human nature, it seems to fall under two different categories, good versus evil in the struggle of light and dark, or the thinking mind versus our animalistic biological impulses that are programmed beyond the mind’s thinking. When human’s animal nature is investigated, it is typically around how a person can decline into darkness. When someone is under extreme stress, under the grips of insanity, or throwing inhibitions aside, what was once a rational human being is left turned into a rageful psychopath unfit for normal society.

Before we came on this long journey through duality we came from a state of oneness spiritually and physically. This is what actually caused the world of duality to come into existence and why it is important to see the part we play in it to understand where we are ultimately trying to go. We came from a place of unity, physical oneness and connected through love and gratitude. After a time, we wanted to experience more on our own. This is where the separation happened both physically as we left the mother and spiritually when we separated from god.

EarthLoveUnityAs a result of experiencing the duality in this physical/spiritual separation, we eventually become longing for home and the state of unity that was once created by love. We realize that all of us are connected on the same journey of experiencing duality through the human condition and continually trying to remember and be reminded where it was we came from. Once we remember where it is we came from and who we are as divine creatures, we are then able to create something better than from where we came from. This is the birth of compassion.

We have created both love and hate and we have also discovered ways we can confront and welcome hatred with acceptance and kindness. This is the transformation of fear into love and gratefulness with compassion. We are currently in the process of being able to transform any situation into one which can hold higher levels of love and gratitude.

– – – – – –yinyang– – – – – – 

unity-of-loveAs my 60-day visa is about to expire and my time in Thailand comes to an and I get to experience the duality of human nature. The joyful feelings of being blessed to have made friends and having the depths of conversation and connection, to the feelings of sadness and grief of not wanting the beauty of these connections to all come to an end. I can feel the pull inside of my heart as we share another meal together and converse about other topics that bring us closer to unity and oneness inside of ourselves and to each other.

There is no doubt that the bonds of friendship that have been created with people I have met along my journey are unbreakable and some might even say eternal. At the same time, my mind wants to protect myself and my heart from the sadness, grief and heartbreak I am experiencing from the physical separation.  I can hear the voice inside of me telling me how I shouldn’t open myself up to receiving the generosity and goodness of people because the pain of separation and loss is too great. It’s sometimes hard to believe the truth that the friendships I have created are never ending through the pain in my heart. This is the duality I am describing above.

LoveUnityI am in the process of creating that bridge of loving the pain in my sadness and grief because it comes from a higher vibration of love that seems to be out of my reach at the moment. I ask myself, if I could choose to do things differently, would I? Would I trade in any of the special times I have spent with Reeta, Moo, Jilly, Thupten, Heather, Min, Kay, Lauri, Gupta, Moosa, Linda, Thomas, Nayab, Melissa, Pratima, Nirmala… and others I have shared deeper connections with? Absolutely not… the feelings of separation, loss and grief are worth experiencing as those feelings get transformed into the unity of god’s love right before my eyes as I sit with the duality of being human. It’s through experiencing everything being in this human body that I get to experience the unity of life and god’s love.

yinyang

Don’t love me until the sky doesn’t have to find sweet words. As you said Is still deep.

* I only love one word
Means this alone
I want to hear again that she loved me

** Do not love the sky, but I love the original, do not have more, but love does not diminish
Do not love until eternally as long as I’m still breathing, like. old Let’s keep the same

Don’t have to force yourself because of me
Don’t have to dream of being like anyone.
Before being like, it is like the old, the same love that has ever been given, how much love is not important, saying that still love each other Want this

   yinyang

4 Feb 2019

Gastro-battical 2018-2019 – Thailand – February 3, 2019

by | posted in: Adventure, Cooking Advice, Sabbatical | 0

chefshumorI know some of you are probably tired of listening to my rants of spirituality and love and Buddhist dharma. So I thought I’d take a break from that, if only temporarily, so I can send you some of my latest cooking fun.

I have spent about the last 3 weeks immersed into Thailand culture, cooking and eating together with the family. It has been a rich and incredible experience that I could have never imagined nor planned ahead of time. It’s amazing what happens when you let go and not try to steer the ship all the time. Even though I fulfilled my sabbatical obligation to the college I work for by living in India for two months and learning about their cultural cuisine, I decided to take that intention into Thailand and onward into my further travel as well. This adventure has been so fulfilling for me, its hard to put into words sometimes.

As the date of expiration of my 60-day Thailand visa get s closer, I am observing the full range of emotions and feelings inside of me as it’s time to move along to Cambodia and Vietnam before I head to Indonesia in the spring. I have developed beautiful caring, loving friendships that it’s sad to leave them. It’s hard to believe I’ve been away from home since September 2018 and it just turned February. I am going to write about this and I just wanted to mention it here briefly.

In the meantime, I want to share a couple of my favorite dishes and their recipes for you, as I did when I was in India. One of my favorite Thai dishes in Pad-Thai. I can’t tell you how may times I ate those noodles from street vendors. Some were definitely better than others. And then I made them with Kay… and those were the best I ever had. I’m giving you the recipes. I hope you enjoy!

Pad Thai – Thai Fried Noodles

140 grams medium rice noodles – be aware if they are completely dry or have water in them.
If a little wet, do not soak.

¼ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup (40 grams) bean curd, diced
2 tablespoons pickled radish, chopped
2 teaspoons garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon shallot, chopped
4 (60 grams) fresh shrimps, shelled and de-veined – Can use dried shrimps instead.

2 eggs

Seasoning Mixture Ingredients
3T fish sauce
3T Palm Sugar
3T Tamarind juice

Garnish
2 tablespoons roasted peanuts, pound
2 teaspoons chilies powder
1 cup bean sprouts
¼ cup
(1) chives cut
Banana blossom, lime, green leaf or Asiatic penny wort, chives as needed

 

 

 

 

 

  

1. Soak medium rice noodles in the water. Lift onto a sieve until drain.

2. In a mixing bowl, mix seasoning mixture ingredients until dissolved.

3. Heat vegetable oil in a wok. Fry diced bean curd until golden. Add shallot, garlic, pickled radish and shrimp until cooked

4. Add medium rice noodles and fry until soften. Add seasoning mixture ingredients. Add egg until cooked. Put aside. Wrap noodles with flat egg sheet.

5. When served, spoon onto a serving plate. Serve with fresh bean sprout, chives, green leaf or Asiatic penny-wort, peanuts, chili powder and lime

 

 

 

 

The next dish I had was absolutely incredible. It has all the palate sensations that I talk about in my classes. Sweet, sour, salty, spicy, crunchy and chewy. I didn’t make this myself, but I watched it be put together at the end. Kay is an incredibly talented cook with a well-developed sense of taste and I hope everyone gets the chance to learn from her in the kitchen and listen to her spiritual wisdom.

Mee Krob Chao Wang – Royal Crispy Vermicelli

Ingredients:

garlic chopped
fermented black beans – ground
shallots finely chopped

eggs – for the nest

sugar cane or palm
lime juice
fish sauce

bitter orange zest or lime

prawns – cut into small cubes
pork and chicken ground
or fried tofu for vegetarian

raw bean sprouts
garlic chives
cayenne pepper

royalcrispyvirmacelli

https://youtu.be/cieDZT_t8t0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 For the sauce
On medium heat
Oil – garlic & shallots – brown until pungentAdd black beansAdd fish sauce, lime juice and sugar to taste
Stir and reduce to thick syrup

 

Rice Vermicelli – 1pack

Separate it a bit when dry
Quick soak for a few seconds and shake dry
Only 30 or so seconds before you fry it in HOT oil until little golden brown – HOT OIL is a crucial part of this technique

–

Fry the pork until its dehydrated and crispy – golden brown.
Fry the prawns separately – used as garnish so not dry.
Tofu would need to be crispy too… or else the noodles will get soggy

Everything needs to be dry if to be stored for a while

Whisk eggs – they need to be crispy strings
Using a sieve to get into the hot oil.

Pour the sauce over the crispy noodles in wok
The pan needs to be low-med heat and mix to coat the noodles

Fold gently or else the noodles will be mushy
Mix until evenly coated

Add Orange zest

Put in bowl, turn upside down on a dish
Put eggs on top of noodles

Garnish with fresh mung bean sprouts
Garlic chives
Prawns
Coriander leaf

 

 

There are so many egg dishes here in Thailand using chicken, duck and quail eggs. And I’m not talking omelets, though the Thai style omelet is pretty incredible. Since Kay is of Chinese descent, I wanted to share this one with you.

Moo Palo Recipe, Eggs and Pork Fragrant Stew –

สูตรทำไข่พะโล้หมูสามชั้นเห็ดหอม ; khai phalo muu saam chan het haawm- Serves: 8

An all-time classic and a favorite Thai stew, this easy-to-prepare, tasty and fragrant dish was introduced into Thai cuisine by Chinese immigrants.

moopaloIngredients:
400gr pork belly (sliced bacon), cut into 3cm (1.5″) cubes
300gr pork shoulder or tenderloin, cut into 3cm (1.5″) cubes
7 large eggs
300gr firm bean curd, cut into 2cm (1″) cubes
Neutral taste cooking oil for deep frying
10-20 (25gr) dry shiitake mushrooms
1/3 cup (125gr) palm sugar
3 star anise fruits
3 pieces of cassia tree bark, 5cm (2″) each
1 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder (phalo powder)
1/4 cup fish sauce
8 cups water
2 tablespoons dark sweet sauce
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon oyster sauce

Garlic coriander paste:
3 medium coriander roots (about 10gr), scraped, washed and finely chopped
5 large cloves garlic (about 20gr), finely chopped
2 teaspoons black peppercorns (about 5gr)
1 teaspoon salt

Method:

  1. Soak the shiitake mushrooms in 1 cup of boiling water for about 15 minutes.
  2. When re-hydrated, strain. Save both the water and the mushrooms and set aside. Remove and discard the hard stalks.
  3. Gently place the eggs in a pot and cover with cold water. Add 1 tablespoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of white vinegar to prevent the eggs from cracking. Bring to boil, and let it boil for one minute on medium heat. Then turn off the heat and cover the pot. Let rest for 15 minutes. Transfer the eggs to a cold water bath, and let them cool down. Peel and dry. Set aside.
  4. Cut the bean curd into 2cm (1″) cubes
  5. Deep fry the bean curd on medium-low heat until the cubes are golden.
  6. Remove the bean curd from the oil. Soak the cubes in 1 cup of boiling water for about 15 minutes, then strain and set aside.
  7. Thoroughly clean the skin side of the pork belly, and cut into 3cm (1.5″) cubes. Cut the pork tenderloin into cubes of the same size.
  8. In a hot wok, without oil, roast the pork belly pieces. The heat will render out the fat.
  9. When the pork starts to brown, and there is liquid fat in the wok, then add the pork tenderloin cubes. Sear together until the meat is browned from all sides.
  10. Set aside.
  11. In a mortar and pestle, pound the coriander roots, the garlic and the peppercorns with a teaspoon of salt as an abrasive. The paste does not need to be very fine. Set aside.
  12. In a wok on a low heat, melt the palm sugar. Slowly caramelize it to a deep amber color, being careful not to burn it! You may add a tablespoon of water here and there, to control the rate of caramelization. Now the sugar is nice and brown.
  13. Add the garlic-coriander paste, the cinnamon sticks, star anise and the Chinese five-spice powder. Mix well
  14. Add the garlic-coriander paste, the cinnamon sticks, star anise and the Chinese five-spice powder. Mix well
  15. Add the pork and eggs to the sugar sauce. Mix well.
  16. Transfer the pork and eggs to a pot, and cover with a lid.
  17. Add the re-hydrated mushrooms and their water.
  18. Add fried bean curd.
  19. Fill the pot with 4 cups of water.
  20. Add the sweet black soy sauce, the fish sauce, the light soy sauce and the oyster sauce
  21. Cover, and simmer on low heat for about 1 hour until the pork is soft and the eggs are a nice deep brown color. Skim any oil that floats to the top.
  22. Serve hot, garnished with fresh coriander leaves.
2 Feb 2019

The Only Way is Through The Darkness – Yasothon, Thailand – February 2, 2019

by | posted in: Love, Personal Growth, Relationship, Sabbatical, Spiritual | 0

buddha-quotes-3I sit here on Kay and Jilly’s farm in Yasothon, Thailand after a week on the farm. A week of slowing down, getting back in touch with the land and allowing the body to adjust to the heartbeat of nature. The plants get watered, the chickens and geese get fed, the chicks are hatching from the eggs, watching the papayas and bananas ripening and making roselle hibiscus tea and aloe vera juice. Making trips into town for food for the humans and for the animals. It’s a pace of life I’ve always been able to easily settle into and one I prefer over the city life.

When I have been given the chance to spend some significant time with people during my travels I always ask a lot of questions about their lives. I want to know about people’s joys and struggles and how they are able to overcome life’s obstacles to put the joy back in their lives. Suffering, pain, and misery exist in life is the first truth in a doctrine called the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism. Nobody can escape from dealing with life’s struggles no matter where you are in the world. We are all the same human beings.

quote-we-believe-in-self-creationEvery morning at the farm I sit at the table with Kay after eating breakfast “solving the world’s problems” while Jilly waters the plants. When I tell him we are solving the world’s problems, he smiles at us and asks when he will be seeing the results. Kay and I converse about the depths of life’s trials and tribulations… from the struggles of growing up as children in the families that we did, to our relationships, to children, to societal norms and structure, and most importantly… we offer each other’s wisdom on how we can become more accepting and how we have been able to become accepting… of whatever life brings to us.

While sharing some of our life experiences with each other, I realized how real we think all of our struggles are, and it’s only the stories around them that are different. Our struggles are all the same as each other… not getting the love we think we deserve, stories from the past that we cannot let go of, family of origin, judgment, betrayal, loneliness, addiction, oppression, and all the others that you can think of. Our ego wants to think that we are the only ones that suffer like we do.

darknessOne thing we need to ask ourselves when sitting with our perceived suffering is… are we living the most productive, passionate and loving lives we can possibly live, given the resources and knowledge that we currently have. You might be surprised at the answers you get. And most importantly, accepting ourselves right where we are in that moment, being curious, allowing life to unfold and be revealed to us.

Of course, the mind or the ego, will have something to say when outcomes don’t go the way we think they should have turned out or when unplanned change happens unexpectedly. There’s nothing like traveling to unfamiliar cultures and countries that has provided me the opportunity to go with the flow. At times I have gotten upset thinking things should be different and in a short amount of time, I’ve realized how pointless that is and I would only be making myself miserable should I choose to continue to be upset.

suryadasIt really doesn’t matter the country which we originate from or the political system that we are in. It doesn’t even matter the faith or religion that we were brought up with or converted to. Being human and dealing with the trials and tribulations of the human condition does not care what race, color, culture or creed we are from.

The solutions to our struggles are universal. The answer is being able to weather all the storms, individually and together, that will help us grow to get through times of darkness. Because the light is always on the other side. It’s easy to lose focus during the moments of suffering and not be able to see the bigger picture and remember to have faith that there is light on the other side.

 

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

 

One of my favorite artists, perfect for this topic… Alexi Murdoch… check him out…

 

 

31 Jan 2019

A Chinese, Jew, Arabian, Thai, Australian, Hindu, Tibetan all go camping together … January 31, 2019

by | posted in: Sabbatical, Spiritual, The Human Condition | 0

Did that get your attention?

 

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

 

 

WeAreAllInThisTogetherA Chinese, Jew, Arabian, Thai, Australian, Hindu, Tibetan all go camping together. They all bring with them their religious teachings, country of origin, family upbringing, traditions, beliefs and personal value systems. Everyone wears their traditional dress and carries the books of their religious teachings… The Qur’an, The Old Testament, The New Testament,The Bhagavad Gita, The Buddhavacana and The Kangyur.

Everyone is reminded, as they sit around the campsite and introduce themselves to each other, that they all have been victims of suppression and fighting for their rights. Everyone’s ancestors had been exposed to discrimination in the past due to people thinking they were better than the other or the land they were on was thought to belong to them. Separation, hierarchy and protection between the people was a normal way of being.

There was a shared intention for everyone to put aside the challenges of the past and find the commonalities in each other’s existence.

As dinner is getting ready to be served, everyone takes their turn going through their own unique rituals of saying “grace”. Blessing the food and each other, the abundance of life and love, and being grateful for this opportunity to be together. They sit around the table sharing their prayers and blessings with everyone listening attentively and respectfully, learning and appreciating as everyone takes their turn.

Following dinner, as the sun was setting it was prayer/meditation/pooja time. There were different faiths and religions represented and everyone had a different way to pray or to meditate or to ask for thanks. Some people also took a shower, some people went for a walk, some people had extended their meditated and prayed time. And yet, everyone’s theme was the same. Praying for a peaceful life, for their children and family members to be healthy and happy and be prosperous in their lives.

As people were bringing their individual prayer/meditation sessions to a close, everyone worked side by side to help each other set up camp, pitch their tents and put their things away before they gathered as a group for the evening. The sun was continuing to set and more prayers to end the day were being said.

Everyone gathered around the campfire to share something about their tradition they thought were similar teachings for all the traditions they were surrounded by. People shared messages of loving kindness, listening to your heart, doing gods work, being at peace, extending love, discipline and practice, meditation and prayer, ritual, acknowledging the seasons, giving back to the world and many more. There was no discussion or talking about how one tradition was better than another or how god may have chosen one people over another.

thersisababyThat evening, there was a conversation going on where everyone was realizing how we all want the same things. Food, shelter, love and understanding. This was a time for everyone to put aside the challenges of the past and find the commonalities in each other’s existence. That all people want safety and security for our futures and how impossible that is because of the law of nature. Everyone there knew how we needed to become at peace with the unpredictability and impermanence of life to appreciate the present moment and what each other has to give.

It was clear in a short amount of time that something else was evolving out of their time together. They recognized there was suffering and pain from the past that they did not want to hold on to anymore, and to release any blame and victimization. The mistakes made from previous generations were passed down as learning opportunities that were being applied to current times to be used for good and not for separation.

OneLoveThere is an opportunity for all of us today to evolve love.  We are getting the chance to progress. To progress past our ego and culture center into a more world consciousness by bringing all the great traditions together. Let’s take all of the best teachings from the great traditions that have been passed down to each of us and bring them together to rewrite them into a new code of morals, ethics and love.

What the heck are we waiting for?

 

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I am getting to personally experience the full range of culture and religion here in Asia as I have been given the opportunity to stay with kind, generous and beautiful people and their families for extended periods of time. From Hinduism and Catholicism in India and Nepal, and from Buddhism and Muslim in Thailand. I’ve also gotten to see how foreign countries and their people have affected the native cultures in the countries I am visiting.

There is another narrative at play that I wanted to bring attention to by writing this story.

 

 

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