2026 writing January 2 3 4

This reminds me of writing in the temple because that is the place I wrote and mostly in the morning, especially when I wanted to record my dream.  I don’t dream as much out of the temple as in the temple.  And every year in the temple they are clear dreams of Mom and Dad that I have written about in my writings at Wat Rampoeng. When I spoke at Dad’s celebration of life, I expressed that one reason I go to the temple in Thailand annually is that I always have visitors from close relatives who have passed on, mostly from my Dad.  The significant dream this year was a very similar dream to the one I had in February with the setting being in the home I had grown up in.  I found this so significant in many layers.  

I did not write as much this year in my ten days of meditation at Wat Ram Poeng and did not write at all at the second temple.  So I write now about my four day experience in the forest temple.  The second temple was in the middle of a forest outside of Korat Thailand.  I flew back to Bangkok the day after I left Wat Ram Poeng after spending one night in the hotel, a nice hotel I had found when I was there in February.  I returned to the Bangkok Patio where I have stayed since returning to Thailand over the last ten years annually with the exception of one year due to lack of travel from Covid. Bangkok Patio feels like a home because familiar faces greet me along with a familiar space.  The rooms are small apartments.  I spent one night there and had arranged for my regular driver, Hung Oui, to take me and my two friends, Courtney and Gi Gi up to the forest temple for our five day retreat.  

Courtney has facilitated mediation retreats, and weekly zoom dharma talks wherein I have been active for at least ten years.  Our group is one of my sangha groups, a group of people who discuss the dharma, the teachings of Buddha.  A few years ago he organized our sangha group for a pilgrimage visiting several prominent temples in Thailand.  This year he organized this retreat to Korat.  Only two of us from our group, Gi Gi and my self, accepted the invitation.  

After a six hour drive, more than it should have been with traffic getting out of Bangkok, we arrived at the temple.  The head monk, Phra Ajahn Prechet, greeted us and took us to our Kutis where we would be staying four nights.  A Kuti is a small hut where monks and nuns stay.  This temple had never had a retreat, it was a favor the monk had arranged for Courtney.  My kuti was a small room with windows on three sides and a separate shower and toilet with a separate door joined by a patio looking over a small pond.  Courtney said there was a mattress they used for when monks got sick so the monk offered this mattress to me since I was older.  It was only an inch thick on top of what everyone else slept on, a wooden bed frame.  My sleep was restful sleeping on my back.  This time unlike Wat Rampoeng, we did not give up our phones.  I was pleased with my lack of use of my phone, with a realization that continuing to limit its use outside of the temple would be a healthy practice. 

So our retreat began.  We met with the monk that evening as we faced him sitting on the platform where monks sat higher than us.  He told us what he projected our days would be like and asked for our feedback.  We would begin with a four o’clock dharma
talk in the temple followed by joining the monks for their morning alms around the neighboring community.  Normally, women did not follow the monks but he made an exception for Gi Gi and my self.  He explained that one meal a day was what he, the five resident monks and one nun practiced.  After a ceremony from the community presenting food they had prepared along with what the monks had gathered during their alms, we went to the kitchen area for our meals around nine am.  Ajahn Prechat had asked Courtney if we would like a second small meal delivered to our kutis before noon since we were not in the practice of eating so infrequently.  We all agreed that this was a good idea.  Our practice was what and where we chose, alternating between conscious walking and sitting as like at Wat Rampoeng.  It was easy for me to fall into this routine after spending my previous ten days at Wat Rampoeng.  

January 3 2026 a few more reflections

After breakfast the second day at the Forest Temple, I spent my time walking, sitting on my porch looking out over the pond and moving in and out of sitting meditation.  As my routine out of the temple, I lie down on my mattress, do my 26 breathing points I learned from my practice at Wat Rampoeng, followed by falling asleep for my hour afternoon nap.  Afterwards, I spent an hour walking one of the three paths surrounded by a wood frame, then back to my porch.  The monks invited us to the veranda looking out over another lake at the other side of the temple.  Here they met daily to have their afternoon tea or coffee.   There were five of us now.  Joy who is a school principal in the Philippines and is a member of our Sangha group and her boyfriend. They joined us this morning to spend two nights with us.  Joy joined me this afternoon at the walking paths, requesting to teach her the six walking steps I had learned at Wat Rampoeng.  

It was decided that on the third day, we would take a tour around Korat.  The five of us plus two others from the community rode in the temple van.  One monk rode up front with us with the driver, the other four monks rode in Ajahn Prechat’s car.  We went to see a ruin that had been used as a resting stop for thousands of years on treks from Thailand into Cambodia in the times when elephants were used for transit.  The history and the energy of the walls of clay brick brought me to tears.  

What have I learned that I bring into my life outside of the temple?  There is a sign I always notice in the foreign meditation office at Wat Rampoeng,

“The work is not in the temple it is after you leave”

This time of forced solitude teaches me to appreciate this quiet and doing nothing outside the temple.  This morning I awoke not wanting to write but I just began and it feels this writing is an acceptance of doing nothing developing into something.  This year more than most, I left with a gratitude of acceptance and appreciation of all the good things I have in my life.  I feel this practice of not being in a place where it is easy to find distractions, teaches me to avoid the distractions more in the outside world.  They are still there and a joy in my life but I take more time to also enjoy the quiet moments of meditation rather they be watching the sun come up and beginning to notice the joy and view of the mountain as I am now sitting at my small antique window facing the view of the mountain, stopping to do my breathing points, and giving my self time for meditations throughout my day.  I no longer make a set time for these mediations, they come in and out of my life naturally, even as part of my daily activities of cooking, cleaning, sorting my imported inventory, or creating my jewelry.  

Tomorrow I will write about Ajahn Prechat’s Dharma message, 

“Have you seen him?”

January 4

I said I would write every day even if it’s a few words.  Today I am reflecting on what Ajahn Prechat said in one of his first dhama talk, “Have you seen him?”  Him” is that alter Ego that gets in our way, “him” is what takes us away from the loving kindness that we should be sharing every day.  In some ways, “him” is like an ego of which we need to “let go”.  Let go of our attachments, let go of our distractions, let go of our control and more so what controls us.  

 It is the morning of a new year.  I awoke with a New Year’s resolution of writing everyday, even if it is just a few words, either on this blog, on my notes or hand written.  

I sit now at my little antique desk looking out at the sun coming up over the mountains.  I am in my new home, Tom’s father Marvin’s home in Candler North Carolina.  When ever walk through his door after my travels, Marvin greets with a “Welcome home”. I am so grateful to have Tom and Marvin in my life, creating a home where I feel welcome.  It is my reason for my happiness to be in a relationship with a man who does not wish to change me.  I can continue with my joy I love so much, “travel” and touch base with a home where I am totally accepted.  And many times Tom has and will continue to join me in my travels. 

Wat Rampoeng November 2025

I am totally convinced that there is energy in this place, spiritual energy.  I just had my visitor, my mother, coming to me in a dream as I awoke this early morning.  She was teaching me a recipe telling me how to cut the cheese for a specific kind of cheese pasta similar to a macaroni and cheese which was one of her common dishes. Originally we were going to have what is my favorite that she would prepare, fried pork chops but in very typical mom fashion she had only two pork chops so not enough for guests.  The guests were two of my fellow meditators. So we added the pork chops to the macaroni dish as mom suggested to have enough to feed us all.  She was teaching me how to cut cheese and I was cutting it too fast and too thick so she was gently teaching me how to cut it slower and thinner.  I had already breaded the chops with flour so that they could be fried and added to the macaroni dish.  My sister Alice was also in the kitchen with the two meditators helping us prepare dinner.

My mother showed her love through feeding me.  So it is appropriate that she came to me centered around food, her favorite dishes that I still prepare in her memory.  I do not know that I ever dream of her outside of the temple and definitely not in such as vivid way as I do in the temple.  She is close to me, touching me, guiding me in this symbolism of teaching me how to prepare food.  If for not any other reason, this brief encounter through such a vivid dream is worth my journey to come to these ten days at Wat Rampoeng.  It seems that I dream either of my father or mother or both every year I attend my vipassana. At my father’s funeral, I spoke of one reason I come to these vipasanas is because I have visitors from those close to me who have passed on. 

I am writing just as I awoke even before my coffee to remember this special early morning encounter. Now I will prepare my self for four am chanting to begin my fourth day.  

This year I have attended specifically during this time because I knew that a monk who was not here when I attended my first year gave daily Dhamma talks to the new meditators.  I asked this monk Ajahn Sukito when I came in February that even though I was known as an “old meditator” and did not have to attend the training week of the new students if I could attend this week to listen to his dharma talks. He responded that I could and this week was scheduled for that reason.

Ajahn Sukito has expressed in his Dhamma talk this morning the energy of this temple and the feelings we can receive from the spiritual world.  He spoke of this happening especially of this day “The Buddha Day” celebrated once a week scheduled around the new, half and full moons.  It is the day we first give our prayers to our parents living or not.  So not a coincidence that this dream came to me this early morning of Buddha Day.  

A beautiful meditation happened today, my fifth day, where thoughts of the most happy I could possibly be was in that moment of meditating.  I was meditating to many song birds in the trees above me.  I felt they sang louder and prettier than I have ever heard in the temple and were singing to me.  I found my lips turning into a smile as I was deep into meditation with only the thoughts of pure happiness.  It always happens that I am more comfortable and happy midway through my ten days.  I stop counting the days and am more able to find joy in the present moment.  

I have not taken time to write much this time at the temple.  The ten days have passed faster than they have in the past.  I feel this is true because I feel I have lived more in the present.  I have not done as much formal walking and sitting meditation.  I have spent more time in the room in series of short sitting meditations.  I have been more relaxed and not thinking I need to follow the quests for a certain amount of time meditating.  In reportings with my monk, she asks me how many hours I have done and I respond honestly six to eight hours.  I think it is that I have come so many times, the monks do not put the pressure on me and trust me to do what I feel is comfortable for me.  In every reporting she has expressed that I do what is comfortable for me so this has given me a more relaxed ten days. I have been going to sleep at seven and waking at two and taking an hour nap after lunch.  I like this routine and have learned that I love the early morning quiet times.  I have especially enjoyed the group chanting times at 4am led by Prah Ajahn Sukito.  Following the chanting, he has taught us an extremely slow technique of prostrations that I found is very relaxing for the body.  And with the exception of two days he has given his Dhamma talks following our 6:30 breakfast.  Daily at meal time, I am gifted a bag of special treats, bananas, avocados and today it was a delicious fried piece of fish.  I see no one else that is given this gift.  It must be that this particular cook feels I have come so many times and he recognizes and wants to reward all my visits.  I am reminded as I write these words of my dream of my mother caring for me by preparing food for me.  

I am so happy this morning awakening to a long dream about my mother and my father.  Many times they are not together in a dream.  This one really showed me how much they loved and adored each other.  Mom had an accident and needed some work on her chin.  At first Dad asked me to give her part of my chin but I told him I liked my chin the way it was so he and I went in search of a doctor to do the chin surgery.  Our discussion took place in our home in Davidson which has been in my dreams many times, but only in dreams during my ten years of visits to this temple. I wondered this morning if I stayed longer here if these dreams would be more frequent.  As like a dream from last year, our home was bigger with many fire places in each room inside and outside, all of them burning safely and warmly.  I know that I am a fire sign and adore a fire.  Our special screen porch that Mom loved so much and the large back yard with her clothes line was very visible in this dream so it was obvious that this was our Davidson home where I spent six years of my youth in third, fourth, fifth, ninth, tenth and eleventh grades and in Pakistan in sixth, seventh, eighth and twelfth grades.  Dad and I found a very caring doctor, he even invited Dad to lunch so they could discuss the surgery but dad did not accept because he wanted to make sure the surgery was completed as soon as possible.  They stood for an extended time outside talking not only about surgery but Dad was sharing about his own life, telling the doctor that he almost became a medical doctor instead of PhD in Economics.  I will have to find out from my siblings if this is true. The personality of my father was very personable and social.  There are times to this day that my siblings and I laugh about how we would have to wait as children for Dad to finish his social conversations when we were out running errands with him.  It was one of his many charming characteristics that I loved, respected and from which I learned to model.  To me, it is an example of sharing loving kindness which Buddhism encourages.   In the dream, I went to get the car, happening to be my present beloved green cooper, which I feel was a gift from Dad purchased with his inheritance money.  I named her Patty with the memory of my father being of English descent and passing on March 17th, Saint Patty’s Day.  I found my self waiting in the car for him to finish his conversation with the doctor before we retuned home.  The dream ended as I waited.