last of the mountain

The retreat center is pretty straightforward.  There is a chapel that looks much like several small chapels and then two large sitting and walking areas.  On the wall behind the monk was this print.  Since the Thai monk gave his talks in "English" and I don't always get what he is saying = word for word.  I can listen to the "drift" and look at the picture.

As the monk said, for someone who had trouble walking on the terrain, I sure picked a hilly location.  Even the "flat" was not flat.

The area around the buildings is a dense forest.  At first, you don't hear or see much other than the green leaves.  However, when you sit for awhile, there are many butterflies, birds, squirrels etc.

You don't really think of ChiangMai as a "big" city but at dusk from this perspective, it is quite large and sprawling.

It was rather unusual that we all left the meditation center to go up to Doi Suthep to do the evening chant.   Looking at my fellow walk -lift - steppers, you would not guess anything about them.   None of them are living in Thailand and almost all, got on a plane and came to ChiangMai to meditate and will go back to wherever when they leave the Center.
The woman on the ground with the temple dog is from Lichtenstein and is a political journalist.  She was in the room next to me.
Starting from the left of the picture - the gentleman with the turban is from France with an Italian mother father from Sudan.  He did something to his foot and was wearing on sock on the foot since there was an abscess developing.  He saved some of his breakfast rice for the dogs who were not fed by the anyone.
Next to him with the brown bag is a 31 yr old real estate person who works on rental property in Amsterdam.  He has been in and out of relationships and as he was sitting he could feel that a woman he has known as a friend for four years was "the one."  He got his iPhone charged and told her so, changed his flight to go home sooner and is one happy man.   His name is Thomas, and he adopted me to make sure I got up and down the hill safely and carried my camera in his bag.
Next to him is a woman with a scarf on her neck.   She came the same day as me. She has lived in and around Canada (Toronto, Edmonton, etc.)- her mother is a Mennonite and her Syrian father in business.  She is an attorney with the UN working in Cambodia on the Khmer Rouge war crimes. They are hopeful of a conviction before they die.
The man next to her I believe was from Kazakhstan.  Also offered to tend to carry my tea cup etc. He left the same day and I and blended in with his brown shirt and jeans.
In front of him was another dutch woman who carried and very large bag to her room.She is going to the beach when she leaves this area.  I think she was in accounting.
The "older" man, Michael, is a surgical nurse from Germany who works and lives in Switzerland.  he was trying to fix the foot but all we had was salt.
In front of him was a Chinese woman, who does have a sister,  She and her family operate a large advertising agency that focuses on small business and non-profits.
The two man on the far right were from South America - Peru (without beard) and Argentina.   The man from Peru was coming here only for the meditation.  The man from Argentina had lived in China and now lives in Switzerland.
You never know.

 




This was my sitting spot.  I carried the chair up and down and down and up.  The monk was very nervous when the chair was not in the Dharma Hall. I told him I would have to have a chair and promised not to take it to my room.

This was the last picture I took and it is a good reminder to pay attention.

 I walked up and down these stairs about 10 - 15 times a day.   On the last day I noted that thousands of ants were going someplace in a row.  There was a mark on the stone indicating that this was the superhighway of ant traffic.

Pay attention... there is much more to life if we only keep our eyes open.