tc101

What the government should do is to give everyone in the floodhit areas a free ticket with bus to relatives in areas with no flooding, up to the North or Esaan.

Are there enough buses and open roads to do that?

Is it true that in 1960 Buddhist monks were banned from teaching about contentment? I just read this:

The liberation goal in this context might be defined as santutthi, or contentment. This involves freedom from desire and attachment - the opposite of dukkha, or suffering. One is content with what one has and is. Thai scholar Pibob Udomittipong describes how deeply this concept challenges modern consumerism. Soon after the first Thai National Economic Development Plan was drafted in the 1960s, the government banned Buddhist monks from teaching about contentment. The official governing body of the monks, the Sangha Authority, sanctioned this decree, apparently accepting the reasoning that santutthi was a barrier to the ideals of economic growth. The late Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, a very revered and socially engaged Thai teacher, argued against the ban, pointing out that contentment leads to the development of wisdom and is therefore essential for real human progress.

From here:

http://www.amalthys.com/greenpath/012unlearningconsumerism.html

I have been involved with alcoholism treatment for over 20 years. It is very rare to talk someone into quitting or going into treatment. The alcoholic/addict has to hit bottom and decide to seek help on their own. More often they die before this happens.

Intervention sometimes works. Read this

http://alcoholism.about.com/cs/info2/a/aa100897.htm

Then do a google on: intervention alcoholism

Good luck.

I don't know that they can hit rock bottom as their families always enable their addiction. Be it gambling (my bro-in-law) or drugs or alcoholism.

I had a cousin-in-law who drank himself to death, ended up bloating up (kidney failure maybe, cirrhosis of the liver? no idea) and dying shortly after that. He couldn't have been more than 50. But then I also had a cousin in law who was on the same sad slippery slope and managed to get himself off of it. Sadly, he died in a motorbike accident a couple of years later.

I am sorry I don't know that you can help, given Thai attitudes towards addiction, best you can do is try, really.

Last night I went to Laughter Yoga. I had read about this but never done it. It was very silly and very fun. We laughed together for an hour. At the end I was exhausted, but also strangely energized. I slept great and woke up feeling great. Do a google on laughter yoga to learn more.

Until I found the radical self-inquiry from Non-duality, but that's my thing.

What is that? How does it work?

Do you have any clou why you get stressed?

I get stressed out over all kinds of silly things. Part of it may be genetic. I don't know.

Maybe it is helpfull to see what happens every time before you get stressed and so probably does make you stress?

I am working on that now. I am doing a partial retreat, although I am still here on the computer for a short time every day.

I would say the technique you describe in the opening of this topic in my eyes is no meditation but a practice of concentration in a techniques that could make you feel relax and could make it possible someday to meditate.

I guess it depends on how you define "Meditation". These are the techniques that thousands of people have used in the Goenka meditation retreats, and they call it meditation, but it is really just a matter of definition. When you say it is not meditation, how does it vary from your definition of meditation?

You have been practicing for over 20 years???

Can you tell what practice you have done in this 20 years?

It is not unusual to have psychological problems after years of practice. If you have any doubts about this, read "After the Ecstasy the Laundry" by Jack Kornfield.

Can you tell what practice you have done in this 20 years?

Most of my practice has been Vipassana techniques as taught by several teachers from the Insight Meditation Center in Barre Mass in the USA, and as taught by Goenka at his 10 day retreats.

Thanks everyone. Special thanks to Rocky for taking the time to write out all those directions. I spent about 4 hours today doing alternate sitting and walking meditation and now feel better. The embarrassing thing is that I have been practicing pretty regularly for over 20 years and I can still get extremely stressed out over nothing.

What is the best meditation technique for stress and anxiety? I am using some techniques I learned at a Goenka retreat many years ago. I sense the breath at the nostrils, and I slowly scan through the body, detecting body sensations. Are there any better techniques? I am having problems with stress, anxiety and insomnia. There is no big external cause for this. It seems to just be coming up.

I like Thai Visa. Are there other good online discussion forums similar to this? What are your favorites?

Thai Visa is a very strict forum IMO compared to 4 others I also frequent.

What are those 4 others?

Thanks for your thoughts. A few questions:

You said you didn't drink. I don't either. When you go into a bar or club, what are you expected to buy?

How long have you been in Thailand? How long do you plan to say?

What does it cost?

when the religious freaks brainwash you into thinking you are so helpless and weak that you cannot influence your own actions and life - so turn yourself over to their foolish, intolerant imaginary God - then it is not in their best interest for you to ever start thinking or acting of your own accord.

Forget logic, forget balance, forget responsibility.

Just humiliate and berate yourself daily, admit that you are a buffoon to as many people as you can meet, then get a glazed stare, and start off in monotone about how Jesus saved you.

AA, 12 steps, and religious opportunists make me sick to the gut.

Almost as evil as missionaries and their ilk.

I am either an agnostic or an atheist, depending on how you define the words. I am certainly not a believer. AA worked for me. There are all kinds of AA groups. If you find one full of religious fanatics who make you uncomfortable, just look for another group.

Can an alcoholic ever drink normally again? I'd be interested to hear if there are any here who have.

I was just talking about this with a friend. I had my last drink 21 years ago. If I hadn't quit I would probably be dead or insane by now. I have no idea if I could drink safely again. Maybe yes, maybe no. I am a different person than I was 21 years ago. Maybe something has changed. Maybe I could just have a few beers and quit.

However, why would I want to make the experiment? Why would I want to take the risk? Maybe I would not have a problem, maybe I would drink myself to death. It would be like playing Russian Roulette.

From the New York Times

April 13, 2009

Thai Protesters Clash With Police

By SETH MYDANS and THOMAS FULLER

BANGKOK — Thousands of antigovernment protesters defied a state of emergency on Sunday, gathering in large crowds here a day after they forced the cancellation of a 16-nation Asian summit meeting.

Protesters attacked the motorcade of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva of Thailand as he left the Interior Ministry, injuring several people in the cars, but Mr. Abhisit reportedly escaped through a back door of the building. “I believe the people have seen what happened to me,” Mr. Abhisit said on television shortly afterward. “They have seen that the protesters were trying to hurt me and smash the car.”

Early Monday morning the police clashed with a group of demonstrators, firing automatic weapons as people in the crowd threw rocks and gasoline bombs, witnesses said. Officials reported that 49 people were injured.

Speaking to protesters by a telephone link, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a coup in 2006, called for a revolution and said he was prepared to return to join them.

The emergency decree bans gatherings of more than five people, but bands of protesters roamed the city, defying deployments of soldiers and armored vehicles. The largest crowd gathered at the prime minister’s office, where demonstrations have continued for days, calling for the dissolution of the government.

Protesters erected barricades, including parked vehicles, in case the military moved against them, and some were seen filling bottles with gasoline as makeshift bombs.

The demonstrators, known as “red shirts,” support Mr. Thaksin, who is now abroad facing an arrest warrant for corruption if he returns to Thailand.

“Now that they have tanks on the streets, it is time for the people to come out in revolution," he said in the telephone message to his followers on Sunday evening. “And when it is necessary, I will come back to the country.”

Mr. Thaksin has been making nightly broadcasts to supporters in recent days, apparently from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Speaking to the crowd at Government House, the prime minister’s office, a protest leader, Jakrapob Penkair, said a state of emergency was “a declaration of war against the people of Thailand.”

He added: “They will try to disperse the crowds, but we will remain at Government House. We will start a people’s war.”

In a televised speech to the nation, Mr. Abhisit said that arrest warrants were being prepared for leaders of the demonstrations.

“In the current situation, what I have to do is bring peace to the country, bring back governance and have a process of political reform,” Mr. Abhisit said. “The government will try every way to prevent further damage.”

Mr. Abhisit’s emergency decree reversed a nonconfrontational approach that critics said had contributed to the cancellation of the summit meeting on Saturday. At the meeting, in the beach resort of Pattaya, hundreds of protesters broke through a thin line of security officers to enter the hotel complex where the leaders were gathered. Several leaders were evacuated by helicopter.

The meeting was to have included the heads of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as well as the leaders of China, Japan and India, the United Nations secretary general and the president of the World Bank. The officials had planned to discuss the global financial crisis.

“Yesterday was a truly shameful day for our country, which had its international reputation destroyed,” The Bangkok Post said in a front-page editorial on Sunday. “It is one thing to refuse to use force; it is another to allow protesters to run riot into the summit venue, blocking access to the hotel and putting foreign leaders at risk.”

Although the protests have slowed traffic in parts of Bangkok, they have not affected daily business or posed a difficulty to tourists. Bangkok’s airports, which were shut by huge protests in November, remained open and were functioning normally. Hotels were open, and foreigners said they did not feel threatened.

“We feel very safe,” said Thibault Quetel, 20, from France, who is studying economics here. “This is a problem between Thais. There hasn’t been any animosity toward foreigners.”

Mr. Thaksin’s supporters, who mostly come from his base in the countryside, represent one side of a deep social and political divide that pits them against the “yellow shirts,” who demonstrated last year against a pro-Thaksin government.

The yellow shirts generally represent the country’s established power centers, including the royalists, the elite and middle class, and the military, who feel threatened by Mr. Thaksin’s attempts to change the country’s balance of power.

Political turmoil has continued since the leaders of the coup returned the country to democracy last year and Mr. Thaksin’s supporters were voted back into office.

As demonstrations by the Thaksin foes continued, court rulings forced the dissolution of two governments. Mr. Abhisit took office four months ago in a parliamentary vote that his opponents say was undemocratic.

All sides pledge allegiance to King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 82, viewed as Thailand’s moral soul, who has been in ill health. Although the king holds no direct political power, uncertainty over the royal succession casts a shadow over Thailand’s politics.

As several hundred red shirts marched past the palace on Sunday, they stopped to sing the national anthem and the royal anthem as a guard unit with rifles stood behind barbed wire.

Several commentators said Sunday that they were discouraged that the confrontation had taken an unpredictable turn.

“We need reconciliation, and I don’t see any sign that it is coming,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University. “Signs are pointing in the opposite direction, which is that things are going to get worse.”

It is a situation that Mr. Thaksin may be hoping to exploit, Mr. Thitinan said, in which he could return as the only person to bring the red shirts under control.

“Right now the red shirts are on the resurgence, and we don’t know where they are going with it,” Mr. Thitinan said. “But the pendulum is likely to swing to very suppressive tactics and brutal and harsh reactions from the right, the establishment.”

Janesara Fugal contributed reporting.

I am in the USA. Maybe I will eventually move to Thailand.

There is a sense of panic among lots of my friends after todays market crash. I notice that right now, while it is midnight in the USA, the Japanese and other Asian markets are way down. How are people in Thailand being effected by this? Retiree's who had too much of their money in the stock market are probably pretty upset at this point. How are the Thai's feeling about it? What is the general mood and atmosphere? How will it effect life there?

Here is an article about the shortcomings of Thai healthcare, focused on the concerns of medical tourists. How accurate do you think this is?

http://www.thaiwebsites.com/shortcomings-Thai-healthcare.asp

I have also been thinking about Everbank CDs and would like to learn more.

I really think the sub-prime debacle is way overblown. The non performing loans on mortgaged property are still secured by the properties.

I don't think so. Those properties were over valued. There will be lots of them on the market. They will sell for less than the loans on them. There also will be the expense of selling them.

I am in the USA now. Smart people are saving money now to buy cheap houses in a year or two. Housing futures and the best estimates I have seen show housing prices declining for the next 4 years.

Every major scientific organization that I know of says global warming is happening and it is largely caused by man. There are some very vocal scientists funded by big oil companies that say there is doubt about this. There are also a few legitimate scientists who doubt it, but they are a small minority.

Lots of my friends who haven't had any science past freshman year in college 30 years ago are sure they know better. They have done no research and little reading but they are very confident.

I read most of the new atheism books and found them helpful. They had no negative effect on my Buddhist practice. For me, meditation and Buddhism are about the 4 noble truths. When I actually experience freedom from the bondage of the illusion of self and am awake in the present moment it is totally wonderful beyond my ability to describe. It has nothing to do with any belief about anything. It just is. Freedom. Happiness. Right here and right now. So good. No beliefs needed. Life is good.

The Dalai Lama said:

I believe there is an important distinction to be made between religion and spirituality. Religion I take to be concerned with belief in the claims to salvation of one faith tradition or another--an aspect of which is acceptance of some form of meta-physical or philosophical reality, including perhaps an idea of heaven or hel_l. Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, ritual, prayers and so on. Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit--such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony, which bring happiness to both self and others.

The accident was likely to raise new questions about the safety of budget airlines in Southeast Asia, which have experienced rapid growth in recent years. None of Thailand's budget airlines had previously suffered a major accident, but there have been several deadly crashes in Indonesia.

An Adam Air flight plunged into off the Indonesian coast on New Year's Day, killing 102 people. In 2004, a MD-82 operated by Indonesian budget carrier Lion Air skidded off the runaway in heavy rain at Solo airport in Central Java and crashed, killing 26 people.

Many budget airlines use older planes that have been leased or purchased after years of use by other airlines. According to Thai and U.S. aviation registration data, the plane that crashed in Phuket was manufactured and put into use in 1983, and began flying in Thailand in March this year.

One-Two-Go Airlines began operations in December 2003 and is the domestic subsidiary of Orient-Thai Airlines, a regional charter carrier based in Thailand.