Chinese giftpaper wrapped narrow boxes stretch and float on the black ink pool.
Squid fishing boats in the distance shine like the flashlights in the tangle of the jungle.
The absence of whirring speedboats echoes in the tender kiss of sea with shore.
I walk home along the beach. It's nearly 11:30 p.m. on December 26th.
My mind falls back to this exact time last year. I am in the Phuket hospital. The doctor has suctured and stitched my split-open knee. I look at the ceiling straight above me on a green vinyl bed sandwiched between a young Swedish girl and an elderly Swedish lady.
The past is like a fish hook. I carefully lift it free from my flesh and I continue my walk above the coral rocks and enter the jungle path.
This morning, I stumble upon a book laying inside a large shell by the reception area as I wait for Yao to return the torch (I've adjusted to British English) he borrowed last night:
Some people come to meditate and yet chat about the past. It is full of suffering. I would like to ask you that of you: Cut off all problems. This is like a high level donation without paying anything. - The Law of Karma, Dhamma Practice by Phra Debsinghapuracariya (Jarun Thitadhammo)
Instinctually it feels important to feel all if feeling arises. Without getting caught, then letting it pass.
I finally went to Loh Moodee Beach - the scene of my own tsunami experience - on December 28th. Leaving nothing unturned, unfelt, unmet.
Why do we come back? For me, it's not as if the past had been cremated on the funeral pyre but rather was a rotting corpse in the closet.
The class 4 Rubber Rapids was named after the way that it'll bounce your boat like a rubber ball if given half a chance. Funny image, but no joke. . . - Gorp.com
I relived and revived every ounce of fear from whitewater mishaps in the rushing river hurtling me past coconut palms last year. It hadn't completely dissipated, dissolved, been digested, or transmuted.
Years ago I'd stopped kayaking and rafting after I shattered my ankle in three places on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. I believed that was putting it behind me.
We have to endure the arising problem. Do not run away from it. You can attain the 'not running away' state by contemplation. Face it. Do not run away.
The Buddha explained to Ananda, his royal cousin. "Look, Ananda. Where would you run away from scolding? Is there any place where no body scolds us? People scold us in this town. If we go to another town, they will scold us again. Where would we go?"
"What do we do then?" Venerable Ananda asked.
"We have to solve the problem. Eliminate the problem at its root cause." - The Law of Karma, Dhamma Practice
There is no full moon this year. The glittering red Christmas lights enshrine the tree at the Hippies Bar which booms the macarena.
I see stars I did not see this time last year. And remember:
"I taught my son when he was a boy," says Guy, the owner of Maprao, "that we come from the stars. And one day we return to the stars."
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