Bangkok air-con room — no sloth and torpor

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• The Singaporean monk, the snake book, and the witch doctor

  In brief: Singaporean monk in NE Thailand asks for the snake book — to identify the snake that just bit him. Fang marks swell; village has thrown…

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  Singaporean monk who came to stay in Northeast Thailand. And one day apparently he came into our library in what? banana chart and just said, "Oh, can I please have a look at the snake book? It has all the different species of snake in that part of Thailand and also describes how venomous they are." And as he was given a snake book, the librarian was just not really paying too much attention. And a Singaporean monk was looking through the books and then oh my goodness. That's the one which just bit me. That's what a single point was looking at the book of snakes to try and identify the one which had just bitten him to see whether it's dangerous or not. And it was really dangerous. So the other monk looked to the poor uh Singaporean monk's leg, saw the bite marks, the two fang marks and so already starting to swell. And that's one time if you're a monk, you're allowed to run. You're supposed to run. You know, if any one of you got bitten by a snake and I was me, I would have to run. Even though that might kill me, nevertheless, you know, just to save another person's life. That's so important. So, this monk just ran into the village to get a doctor. Now, these snakes exist in Thailand, so you have to keep some antivenenom. But this village had no antivenenom. They thrown it away years ago. Cuz when this monk came back with one of the villagers on a little motorbike, he didn't come back with a doctor. Well, it was a kind of a doctor. What you usually call like a witch doctor. a poor villager who didn't have any injections. He had this special medicine, a herbal medicine which was supposed to be really really powerful. And the herbal med herbal medicine man started doing some chanting. And he put this medicine in his mouth, started chewing it, mixing it with saliva, and then spitting it on this poor Singaporean man's wound, which was getting really big by now. And this Singaporean, imagine that was you. How would you feel? This Singaporean who was highly educated looked to the other monks and said, "Can I please have a proper doctor?" But then looking at this Singaporean, now this Singaporean and this witch doctor doing chanting and spitting over the wound, you could see apparently what the other monks told me. the the two fang marks started to get smaller and smaller and smaller and the inflammation got less and less and less until the inflammation totally vanished. The two fang marks disappeared and that Singaporean mark was totally healed

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• Tiger's Nest climb — then a hot bath

  In brief: Bhutan: climbs Tiger's Nest in thin air panting; hotel has a bath — usually too much indulgence for a monk, but after the climb he soaks.

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  bhutan and went climbing up the the tiger's nest and then it's a it's not that far up but it's like very low oxygen in the air so you're always panting just getting up there that's what you know what really makes it very arduous physically we're getting up there and coming back down again where they were letting me stay the night was in a hotel which had a bath i had a hot bath now usually as a monk that's too much indulgence

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• Club Med versus Club Meditation

  In brief: Someone shows him a Club Med holiday schedule packed with yoga, scuba, activities and a nightclub — exhausting. He contrasts it with 'Club…

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  This is not a concentration camp, this is a stillness, it's the happy camp. It is much more like Club Med than a concentration camp It is Club Med. And what do I mean by that? Club Meditation Serpentine

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• Bangkok walking meditation — my name from miles away

  In brief: On walking meditation in Bangkok years ago, Brahm hears his ordination name Brahmavamso as if from miles away. Paying attention, he finds…

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  walking meditation uh this was in Bangkok many years ago that I heard this sound like it was a long distance away like miles away and it was it was my name no I don't promise another the name I'm known as now but the real name is Brahma wongsa and I heard this sound like from a really long distance brahmawang so Obama Wong so and I thought this was really weird because it felt so distant for me but then I just paid attention to it instead of my feet walking and I found out it was another mug was shouting in my ear hole

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