Daily Archives: December 29, 2005

Buddha in the Horizon

There are two outstanding monuments near Bangkok; one is the Standing Buddha and the other is the Phra Phathom Chedi.

The Standing Buddha dominates the vast open fields and the sky. It is an easy reminder to us about Buddha’s teachings; that life is full of sorrow, that desires cause sorrow, that sorrow is liquidated when we overcome desires and the eightfold path leads us towards achieving nirvana or deliverance. In order to remember the eightfold path in my childhood for exams, I had formed a shortened abbreviation-VASCLEMM: right view,right action,right speech,right conduct,right learning,right effort,right mindfulness and right meditation. These paths have remained in my memory.

The Phra Phathom Chedi is also monumental. Its yellow colour is very pleasing to the eyes. All around the chedi there is a lot of life. We are reminded of the Japanese Daibutsus of Kamakura Buddha and Todaji Buddha of Nara. The following words of Einstein seem very appropriate:

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend a personal God and avoid dogmas and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. If there is any religion that would cope with modern scientific needs, it would be Buddhism.

This much for today.

Old Patong:The Early 80’s:The Great Wall Of Patong

The slowly smoldering feud between Big Dave[Thai Garden Restaurant] & Canadian Bruce[Paradise Bungalows/Bar]finally came to a head this week.

Earlier in the day Bruce had mentioned how noisy Thai Gardens had become. Naturally there are two sides of every story. Bruce had 8 bungalows to choose from, but somehow his wisdom was to live in Mr Singhs old office near the streetfront and RIGHT next to Daves restaurant!

Well, it seems that Bruce finally had enough and decided to build a concrete wall, 6feet high between the two, once friendly businesses.

Meanwhile, the 3 BIG Polish tourists had returned to sunny Patong for yet another holiday and these guys CAN party!

They would spend ALL their time having a good time at Thai Gardens and they NEVER slept the entire month each year when they were there[well, maybe an hour or two per day, but really, they were wild boys].

As the Mekhong took over their thinking, along with Big Daves prodding that the new cement wall was really infact little more than another Fascist BERLIN WALL, about 3AM, the 3 BIG bruisers[but otherwise really NICE guys]suddenly leaped on the wall, taring it COMPLETELY down! Brick by brick, it was soon a pile of rubble!!

Naturally Canadian Bruce called Patongs finest to enforce the law, they arrested the 3 inebriated Polish gents, carting them off to Baan Ling over the hill in nearby Katu for the remainer of the night, with the judge giving Canadian Bruce MORE than enough Baht to not only rebuild the wall, but to build it about 10feet high this time!

It seemed funny to Patong Patty & myself, cause we’d moved out of Paradise because Bill would crank the stereo up each night for a few hrs towards quit’n time to rouse the drinkers into quickly buying more hootch,,,go figure,,,what comes around goes around!

ps: about ready to install NEW scanner, so those long waited for pix of OLD PATONG may soon be viewed!

Sawdee PeeMai y’all