Before, I also didn’t dare to eat those things. Take it, whoever wants to. Whoever is more courageous, take it yourself. But when we go to those places, we also have to eat. (Yes.) When we’re hungry, everything is delicious to us. We can digest any bacteria, and deliver their souls. We’re not hungry right now, and so I’m afraid we don’t have enough power.
How did you wash your clothes? The white clothes nearby got stained. Some are stained, while others are not. Why? Don’t soak them. These vests don’t need soaking, and don’t need to be washed very often. They are for keeping warm and making you feel comfortable. The inside clothes are next to the skin. Sweat gets on them, and thus they become dirtier. The outer vests are dirty only because of dust. Therefore, they won’t get very dirty or smell that much. So you don’t have to wash them every day. When washing, don’t soak them in water too long. If you wash them every day, no need to soak them at all. (They need to be spun dry.) Spin-dry. They got stained during the spin dry? (If we don’t spin them dry, and just leave them under the sun, they will dry very slowly.) Yes, yes, yes. Then why don’t you spin them dry?
Tong, are you practicing asceticism? Others’ clothes are so beautiful, only yours are in this state. Why are you wearing another set inside? You wear two or three sets together. (It’s warmer this way.) Why is it warmer? Don’t you wear something inside already? Four sets altogether! Three, four, five in total. (Plus, the thermal underwear.) Then it’s six sets altogether. How many more? You wear them all. (Also the scarf.) That’s too much. I’m most afraid of the cold, yet I’m wearing only these, one, two, and three in total. Since it’s winter, I add one inner layer, fleece, a fleece thermal layer, or sportswear will be enough. One set on the outside is enough. Why do you have to wear that many? (Sometimes the wind is strong, I’d shiver.) Really? OK. Whatever, as long as you feel warm. You’re so fat and big, why do you still shiver? Strange. Why are you walking around? (Sometimes when it’s very cold, to the extent…) You’d shiver? (Yes, I’d shiver.) How pitiful. Go and warm up by the fire. (Yes. Sometimes. I don’t feel cold if I dress like this.) OK, OK, OK. Fine. Fine. Fine.
Do you females feel it’s too cold? (No.) I’m asking you seriously. Do you really want to stay in tents? (Yes.) Is it OK? (OK.) Why are you answering together? (We can still sleep.) Is there really no need to build wooden houses? (No need.) Because it’s also not expensive. Probably like the cage they built before. It cost ten thousand dollars. Your tents now also cost about ten thousand. Is that right? (No.) Altogether, including the wooden boards underneath, not including the equipment inside. (It’s even worse.) (It’s more than that.) What did he say? (Even more.) Ah? Is that more? (It’s even more.) Is it more than that? (Yes.) Some cost more. (For example, the outer tent.) Outer tent. Yeah. Outer tent costs two thousand dollars. Several layers of outer tents.
I thought as a doctor, he’d have had a better idea of hygiene. But no, he’d just sit anywhere and eat. Ah! It’s unbearable! Places like open markets and roadsides where people sold food were his favorite. As soon as he went over and smelled it, “Wow, this is delicious!” And he’d quickly grab it. I’d never eat that kind of stuff. How strange. I feel that… Yeah, people in this world have rather poor ideas of hygiene. When I went to the big market, I saw how they displayed food on the ground for sale. As people walked past, dirt flew into the food. And if it was raining or something, it was so dirty, so dirty. And as for fish(-people), they deliberately put live ones on the roadside like that, blocking people’s way so that passersby must take a look at his fish(-people) and would perhaps consider buying some. Yeah, he took the fish(-people) out and set them free. Those round, long fish(-people) just crawled around there. So wicked. And the fish(-people) would uncontrollably jump onto the vegetables. How could I eat? Whenever I went out and saw people selling vegetables, I’d associate it with that sight, and I’d just say, “Oh, no, thank you.” I couldn’t stand it. Wow! Wherever I went, I didn’t feel like eating. So dirty.
However, I finally found a restaurant. The owner was practicing a little bit of Zen, meditation and things like that. It’s quite famous and popular there. They meditate in a fairly different way. Sometimes they’d sit there with their faces covered for fear of mosquitoes. There was one time, I went and took a peek at where they were meditating. Why are you laughing? Because I peeked. Their master sat on a very high bed. Just a bed, not covered with anything. It was a wooden bed like that. He sat there. It didn’t matter if he crossed his legs or not. Sometimes he sat like this, chewing betel nut as he “pah-pah,” and “pah-pah” spat it out. Wow! I was shocked to see that.
Even so, the students were very conscientious. The teacher there was basically… The teacher looked like a monk, wearing yellow clothes. And he was somewhat old. The place I peeped at was like that. It was a pretty famous temple. They taught students meditation. It was probably afternoon then. Wow, so hot! Their faces were all covered with a kind of gauze fabric. Quan Yin Bodhisattva also dresses like that, with a piece of gauze in front attached to a hat like yours to cover a little. It kept mosquitoes and flies away. And they meditated there, diligently, while their teacher was there chewing betel nuts and making the “pah-pah” sounds, spitting into a bottle. Wow, sometimes he missed and spat outside the bottle. Ah! I was bewildered by what I saw. He spat so loudly, but the students were not awakened. They still meditated there, conscientiously. I admired them quite a bit.
They meditated in many ways. Some chanted mantras, some practiced breathing, and some did contemplation on the solar plexus. There were still some others… Sometimes they’d hold some kind of retreat. It’s fun. We can also try it. Everyone gets a barrel. No, a box. Maybe a wooden box. We can work with Tong on it. A box like this, square-shaped, which allows one person to sit cross-legged inside. Not more than one person. One carton for each person, a box like this. The boxes are put there as rooms or places for people to meditate. Everyone sits inside, neat and tidy. You can’t move whenever you feel numb because there’s no space to move. Just a square box like this, made according to your body figure. If sitting there numbs your legs, and you complain, the teacher would tell you, “Now you recite ‘numb, numb, numb, numb.’” Till you don’t feel numb anymore. And that’s it. If you’re tired, he’d say, “OK. Now recite ‘tired, tired, tired, tired.’” If you feel pain, OK, just recite, and recite, “pain, pain, pain,” until the pain is gone. That was what he did. Oh, it’s so cute. I don’t know what they’ll accomplish, but… There are quite a few spiritual practitioners.
There were more monks than ordinary people there. Wow, as soon as you go out, you’d see the streets full of monks. Yellow clothes are everywhere. Some were… Many of them are children. Why? Seemingly, at the age of seven, the boys go to the temples right away to become monks for a period of time. They can continue to be monks if they want, or they can also become monks after they grow up. If they don’t want to, they can leave anytime. When some people encounter family or business difficulties, they’d go and become monks for three months. Some would vow to do it for a month, some for a week. There are all sorts. That’s why monks are everywhere. It looks pretty nice, quite pleasant to the eyes.
Their people are really quite benevolent. I felt comfortable. Every tourist could go there for only one week. And only two or three places were open for visits, not the other places. The capital city was open. You can visit two to three places, not the others. But I tell you, one week was enough. You had to wait for a long time to apply for… a visa for a certain place. I waited for a long time, spending the whole week busy applying for visas. Really. You had to wait several days. Every day you just went and waited there. A lot of people were waiting. I was busy the whole week only for that. I waited and waited and waited, and the days went by. It was time to go home. We had to apply to go home and wait for plane tickets to go back.
Sometimes we needed to take the car; we wanted to do some sightseeing. You’ve never seen that kind of vehicle. I don’t know if it was an ox(-person) cart or a horse(-person) cart. It’s true that there were wheels beneath, but the top part, I really don’t know what you’re supposed to call it. It feels like something from the 17th or 16th century horse(-person) cart. You see? There were wooden boards in the back. Wow, after sitting on that, a lump of some sort grew on my behind as big as an egg. Really, I’m not lying to you. I don’t lie, nor do I exaggerate. No exaggeration, wow, it really hurt a lot because the roads over there weren’t exactly roads.
Photo Caption: Enjoy the Presence of a Different Season
