Blood, Sweat and Takeaways

[Robert McCarthy]

I have just watched a bbc programme- blood, sweat and takeaways. A group of fit, young English people are left to live as labourers in Thailand- paid Thai rates of pay and left to fend for themselves. This is very powerful stuff, to experience living in hardship through eyes that know the privilege that we take for granted. The work in rice fields and factories was more than they could deal with, the money barely paid for the most basic accommodation, lucky to have enough left over for a bowl of noodles.
This experience was for a week and left all really shocked. Compassion grew, to understand this is how it is for so many people while we take an abundance of food and comfortable living and feel entitled to it all. These people realised what it means to live close to the reality of starvation, no-one to help; a realisation that this is how whole lives are lived by so many people trying to support families.
Such a strong message to renounce our western palaces. Compassion is a reality only in living it.

[Robert McCarthy]

it is strange how our shared suffering is not uniting, so much in common, much more than any needs for divisions. I cause Buddha to have a not very good meal this morning. My daughter Ann gets up and feeds Buddha some mango, then gently reminds me not to put the mango in the fridge, they get a black skin. Well a good idea for me to take some cultural silliness into nei quan today.

[Modgala Duguid]

Dear Katrien, you are so right, there are other forms of starvation in this so called affluent west. and there are many in great need in all of our countries so for us all to do our bit where we are that can make a big difference and share the grace we receive - amida will guide us if we let him/her. It is delightful how we all meetin these blogs as we come to know Amida and go on our explorations. Dear rob, i hope you can get on internet when you are in thailand to carry on these discussions, i guess it will be pretty hard there. Dear Freya, oh how you help me remember africa - I remembwer when a cup of coffee there was a luxury and also how so much aid is misplaced....a thing I love about amida Trust and a reason I got so involved is the wonderful variety of people who do get involved in amida in many different ways. I was very lucky I was able to join them full time all those years ago, for some years before that I was a volunteer mostly linking people by telephone as i lived in the Scottish mountains and linking up with people helped me practice. It is lovely to seeyou all doing this via this and the other blogs. I wish I could join in more but have so much to do on ther web and here in this needy part of London and sometimes further afield. Namo amida bu

[Sahishnu Joy Marston]

The reason that the Europeons found it so hard to manage in Thailand is that they did not have the support net work that is available through family religious tribal and caste net works. In Asia one is seldom an individual who is self reliant it is a strange concept.Which is why I am so glad that I have been so glad to have been adopted by so many as the project in India could not function without my sisters daughters and many many grandsons.

[Katrien Sercu]

Dear Rob, i'm enthusiast about your sentence: "it is not a path of endurance to simplify, but joy in giving it up". Endurance gives new suffering; joy gives freedom and love, as i can experience by writing here and trying this.
I always feel paralyse, when i'm confrontated with polarities and extreme duality, as if one side is good and the other side is bad. How can we find a middle way, without falling in weak compromises?
When i look to your previous mail rob: how could the thais' governements idea of economic development can work together, on a organic way, with the contentment with what one has from the Sangha Authority? Both are needed, but not on an extreme fundamental way...
I cannot dissolve this mondial problem in my little mind, but i can look what i can do for the benefit of all, without hiding or relativating too much own addiction. This asks awareness, honesty and love, to give up selfisch thinking. This asks 'a big mind' as Dharmavidya says...to connect life in a great perspective and in long terms vision. It begins with giving up some instant material satisfaction...and this asks to bring a 'STOP' in body, speech and mind....and i can learn this only by daily practice in the grace of Amida and the Pureland. So joy, in giving it up, arises and endurance becomes a longing to natural freedom. Writing this is so simple...I hope that Amida stops me when a deep habit of addiction comes. The more i can be receptable to the sublime Love and Light of Amida, the more selfisch thinking melts....i can only trust in that and accept human imperfection, without getting lazy or inhonestly.

[Robert McCarthy]

I should add some details about the relationship between the thai government and the sangha, these from the book Dharma Rain. The thai government directly controls Sangha teaching and activity, ensuring monks support the governments idea of economic development. For instance the government banned the teaching of santutthi, which is contentment with what one has. The Sangha Authority, the official governing body of the monks, sancitoned this action.

[Robert McCarthy]

thank your Freya, Modgala and Katrien, so much heart comes into this talk. wow, the peace pilgrim, so love to see others find Amida in another way, only in different words. I am travelling back to Thailand with my stepchildren in a few weeks and I have felt in many ways I would rather we stayed here in Melbourne. After two years back in Australia, well I learn to hide a little from the face of the suffering from lack of food and health that we enjoy. That tv programme, another reminder, I can and should live more simply, the pain comes in holding the patterns of greed, it is not a path of endurance to simplify, but joy in giving it up. so these taps on the shoulder are very welcome when they sometimes unexpectedly pop up into my day.

[Katrien Sercu]

But Freya...how does this all work on you? How do you feel in that? What do you do in daily life with this injustice? I don't know if i may ask this, but i'm interested in that? I may ask; you must not answer of course!

[Freya M]

The mention of Zambia reminded me of my own trip to Ethiopia in 2005. I stayed with a friend and helped him teaching English. One day he took me to visit a friend of his, a widow called Tsega who had lost a leg in a road accident and was trying to bring up her two children. I think it was the first time I had been in an Ethiopian home, rather than the relatively comfortable compound where I was staying. It was one room with a dirt floor, two beds and a small cupboard containing a few cooking pots. I have a picture of her that I will put on here if I can work out how to do it. My friend, who spoke the local language, got chatting to her, and I just sat on a bed and waited. I was soon engulfed by feelings of anger, compassion and guilt - how could I have so much, when she had so little? I think that this experience put the final nail in my God coffin. Even now I still feel outraged. I started to cry, but luckily managed to hide that, and eventually we left. I asked my friend what they had been talking about, and a bit like the "plaid skirt" episode above, I was expecting something quite deep and profound. His answer? "Oh, she was talking about the rise in coffee prices and how it's her only real pleasure"!! She didn't need my western sensibilities at all, she was reasonably happy with her life, except for the price of coffee (coffee is central to Ethiopian life and culture).

The only other thing in her house which I forgot to mention was a brand spanking new black and chrome wheelchair, given by some well meaning charity. The problem is that there are very few roads in Ethiopia, just dirt tracks, deeply rutted from the rains and impassable by wheelchair!! This was not the only time we came across examples of misplaced Aid, which is deeply troubling, especially with the present crisis in the country.

[Katrien Sercu]

Thank you modgala for your words ' we can not all live the communal life, many of us have family and commitments'. I don't know why, but i was really upset this afternoon by the feeling that i have to give all up, that i hide myself after commitments, family and social work here in the West. I was angry and scared..and...i know myself... when something touches me hard, then i have to look why...because it tells me something that i don't like to feel.
I feel - and it is hard what i mean - that starvation exist everywhere on a different level. While non-affluent countries can have a physical and psychological starvation, affluent countries have social, spiritual and psychological starvation...and all are very hard to survive: hunger, social rejection, loneliness, meaninglessness, isolation, violance, marginality and more. I'm afraid that Amidafriends will get angry that i say that, but i mean it. So in all countries there is a lot of suffering and everywhere the call and loving help of Amida is needed. So it is not needed for everybody who loves Amida to give all up here to go to non-affluent countries.
But...and here comes the reason why i get angry (because i don't like to mention this): here in my western life i could and can life a life with more voluntary simplicity. This is possible and asks more honesty and humbleness, less desire and the need to be someone who 'looks good, by being someone'. Oh goodness...what do i write here...my reality, that does not fit well as Amida Buddhist...Namo Amida Bu.
I just go my way and i can not go quicker as i can. But this awareness here brings me a step further...i hope.

[Modgala Duguid]

Yes - Peace Pilgrim was amazing and reading about her helped me in this life with Amida which is relatively simple. Especially in amida France in the middle of winter.
It was so hard for me coming back from Zambia after sharing their hunger (and weight loss). Even now when I see waste it really troubles me.
However returning to rob's question - we cannot all live the extremely simple communal life, many of us have family and commitments. however we can all do what we can where we can and try to live a life that is not wasteful and buy things that contribute to suffering elsewhere in the world. The buddha had richer followers who helped support the sangha and anathapindika bought the wonderful Jetta grove for him. On a local, practical level we in the amida communities live on a shoestring however my amida london Sangha donate a bit extra each month so thatI and visitors eat as far as possible fairtrade and organic food that helps the producers and harms the environment less. Not all can afford to do this but we can all do something creative in our lives to help this planet, the animals and the poor and opressed too. Thank you for starting and continuing this discussion Namo amida Bu modgala