Karma is often used interchangeably with luck but they are not the same. Karma is best described as momentum. Luck is more of a happy coincidence.
In the not so distant past, while in a mongoose induced bliss in Hawaii, Charlie Banjo and I were talking about love and life as we often did. Charlie was talking about the classic pebble in a pond analogy. How something said to him years ago had ripples across the decades and had affected so many people. That's karma in a nutshell.
Yesterday I was lucky. I was driving in the country on a two lane road before dawn. It had been raining heavily all night. Our first rain in about 90 days.
A tree fell across the road as I was approaching. I managed to stop just before hitting it. That's lucky for me.
The fact that I was on that road at that moment was karma. I was on my way to meet a group of friends at Wat Tham See Nim. We were taking food and supplies to several much more isolated forest monestaries in the surrounding mountains
There were four SUVs used. They were all heavily loaded down with rice and other staples.
We were lucky that the rains had cleared the air of the smoky haze that builds every year around this time. As a result, the mountains were spectacular.
The morning started with a serene mist. The air was now clean and cool with that just after rain on the earth smell that's like nothing else I know of.
I am often confused in Thailand, which is kind of fun but can be problematic.
I knew with confidence that our abbot, Ajahn Wan invited me on this trip to meet and speak with an American monk. I understood, but with less confidence, that this monk was living alone in a cave on the top of a mountain for the past nine years.
Ajahn Wan said he thought it would be a good thing if the monk, Kru Rotsha and I could talk together. I agreed whole heartedly.
I barely slept the night before. This was incredible karma to be offered the cliche of climbing the mountain to ask the guru the meaning of life. One could cling to that quite easily.
However, one thing I've learned on this path is it doesn't work if you expect anything. It only works if you let all expectations go and just pay close attention to what actually does happen.
I knew any expectation would be subject to unexpected surprises anyway. "This is Thailand" or TiT is a phrase heard often among expats. It refers to the weird twists and turns that are part of life in Thailand. In a country and a culture where the word for the mind is not the brain, but the heart, logic does not always prevail.
Separate from that, the chance for language obscuring the truth in details was very likely. For example it turned out Kru Rotsha had been living in the cave for 9 months not 9 years. It's still a very long time but an order of magnitude less impressive.
I was surprised at the extent of the food we were taking to him. I asked how often do you resupply him? The answer was two times per year. Wow.
What I didn't understand was we were visiting five forest monestaries on the trip. Consequently, I didn't appreciate how long we would be off the grid.
That caused some concern for Barbara who was waiting for me at home. I had told her I wasn't spending the night but neither of us expected that it would be nearly 11pm by the time I returned home.
Our first stop was Wat San Pa Yang. It was the largest forest Wat I have seen. It is the size of a small village. I got the impression this Wat was pretty well off.
Ajahn Wan said we will come back to spend a day with these monks later.
The next stop was Wat Doi Udom Tham. It was under construction. The meeting hall looks like it will be something special. The Chedi is a copy of a famous pagoda in Bodhgaya, India where Buddha attained enlightenment under a sacred Bodhi Tree.
Each stop we were going farther into the mountains and the roads were getting more challenging. At this point we were nearly to Chang Dao. We made a stop at Wat Thailut just before noon.
There we ate a wonderful lunch and were given many plants which will be used in food, medicine and as the herbs used in massage balls.
This completed the first half of our mission. We continued on Chang Dao while enjoying the beauty of nature in the foothills of the himalayas.
We came back south into Mae Taeng but before we head west toward Pi we took time for a coffee break.
We were quite a ways up the famously winding road to Pi when we turned off at Wat Pa Pae and headed north again. This time we were headed to Do Wat Kee in the village of Klang Doi.
Here we carried our donations to the temple at the top of the mountain. Before that happened though, I was asked to come meet a monk that I should talk to.
I thought, that's a bit strange. I expected he would be in the cave at the top but, TiT.
When we talked I learned he was from the UK and he'd only been there a month. He had some friends visiting him at the time. He told me there are more westerners at the temple at the top but no Americans he knew of.
This was the most beautiful temple we'd visited. It was spotless. Perhaps the karma of the German Abbot was being felt. The sangha there in addition to the abbot are a Pole, an Englishman and a Thai. That's quite unique in Thailand, perhaps in the world. I would love to spend more time here.
The abbot spoke fluent English. He recommended a book by Ajahn Jayasaro.
I had read it in fact. Ajahn Jayasaro came to Chiang Mai in 2019. He was the first monk I met of the Forest tradition.
I am drawn to this Sangha where the emphasis of teaching is very strongly centered on meditation.
Happy with the day, I expected we were nearly finished. We still had quite a few supplies on board though.
We turned down an even smaller road that took us to a Karin Hill Tribe village.
We went to a house there and the monks went in and sat with an old woman for a while.
We left supplies with her but had some trouble doing that.
The big bags of rice in the back if the truck had shifted and locked the cap from the inside. After a lot of other ideas failed, we had to remove a window to get in.
The old woman was the only Buddhist in the town, the rest were Christian.
A monk eats only what he's given on his morning alms round. In rural Thai villages enough food is collected to feed the monks and then feed the villagers with the rest.
This was not the culture of the Christian Karin people. They offered little more than a few clumps of rice. Not enough for the monk to survive.
We were giving the majority of our remaining donations to this Buddhist lady. She in turn will give enough food for the monk to eat each day on his alms round.
We left one of the four SUVs in this village. I soon saw why.
The road dropped steeply down to a river and back up to the ridge. We skirted a section of the road damaged by the previous nights rain.
The road became a single motorcycle path and we came to small valley with a farm. This is as rural as it gets.
I asked if we would spend the night here? It was in jest but inspired by the late hour. It was already after 5pm.
The farmer and his wife came out with baskets. We loaded the majority of the remaining supplies into the baskets and each of us took a small bag of to carry to the top.
My friend said "About 1 kilometer to top, OK mai? Ugghh OK, I didn't come this far to miss the last km.
It turned out most of it was stairs. I had just had a clean physical and we had nice cool air. I was feeling the burn in a good way that I haven't felt in a long time. Just keep going slow and steady.
Finally, we reached the top at dusk. After the monks had their talk, we lay people came over to talk.
My Thai friends handed me our offerings which I then ceremoniously presented to the man in robes before me.
There was a rather bright light behind him so I really couldn't see his face. His build, mannerisms and voice were so similar to our friend Jason that I couldn't shake the perception that Jason had taken up robes. That would be a very unlikely event.
Then with all eyes on me I asked Kru Rotsha if he felt that being alone on a mountain in a cave had accelerated his progress on the path?
He said, yes but not in the way you might think. Without anyone there for him to blame, he had to face the reality that it was himself that was creating a hinderence to meditation. Hyper self awareness is a primary objective in Buddha's training so he considered it helpful to his progress.
I said I can relate. As a retiree I thought I'd have a lot more time to pursue interests, including meditation but, there's never enough time.
We both chuckled and everybody looked pleased.
Of course, they didn't know what we were saying, they only saw that we looked thoughtful and then discussed something and laughed. It was pretty much a reversal of the normal way it is for me.
We finished after dark and with our phone lights and borrowed head lamps we walked back down the long line of hundreds of tires filled with earth that were the steps going back down to the cars.
I took off my crocs so my feet could firmly connect with the earth and leaves. I feel mother's embrace as I walked carefully step by step back off the mountain.
Coming down was an exercise in mindfulness. I did not want to fall at this point.
I really felt alive, awake and aware after this day. The insight I gained is nothing extraordinary.
It was simply confirmation that this is the right path for me. That in turn strengthens my resolve to continue my practice dilgently.
Finally, as I was leaving, Ajahn Wan asked me if I'd like to go stay with Kru Rotsha for a few days. This story is to be continued.