Paying respects Thai style on mother's day

The raksang of Singsatsid

Recently, through books, websites and visiting teachers, it's like I've fallen down the rabbit hole of contextualising for Buddhism and like Alice, have no idea where it will end. One contextual church planter shared some of his experiences in contextualising (if you read this, forgive me, I'm writing from memory).
"I used to go to villages and pray for people. I would put my hand on their shoulder and just began to say "Oh Lord would you please..." but they would turn to speak to the person next to them! Or keep sweeping their floors or yelling at their kids! It was annoying! Next time, I watched what they did when they prayed, and they would end by saying 'Saatu'. So I tried that, and the person carried on whatever they were doing until I said 'Saatu' and then they turned to me like 'Hey, you were praying?!' Finally I went into a temple to watch what the monks did. They put their hands palms together in front of their chests and chanted prayers in a monotone. I tried this next time in the village and the whole family stopped what they were doing and knelt down with me in prayer!"
"One day I went into a village and prayed for healing for some people. Right then and there they decided that made me a 'raksang' - a medium or spirit guide. So I said 'Yes, I have the Spirit of Singsatsid (the God of the universe)'. So then they took me to meet their village raksang. She was in the middle of a trance, channelling the spirit of the local mountain. I eavesdropped on the woman making her appeal to the spirit in front of me.
The petitioner said 'I've lost my mobile phone.'
The raksang said 'When was the last time you saw it?'
'When we went to eat at this restaurant.'
'Well, have you gone back to that restaurant to look for it?'
'No.'
'Well maybe you should go back there and ask the owners if they've seen it.'
And for this amazing advice from the mountain spirit, the raksang was paid. When it came to my turn to meet the raksang, she said 'put some money in and I'll channel the spirit.' Instead, I looked at her and said 'No, I want to talk to you.' The look in her eyes was the same as when someone speaks to a prostitute properly, instead of for her body. No one had wanted to talk to her, just to the spirit. We became friends."
"One time I asked her 'Why don't you want my spirit - Singsatsid, the God of the universe, instead of the local mountain spirit?'
She looked at me back and said 'He is too big. I would explode!'"

Interesting Buddhist Scripture

“When Buddha was traveling and living in this world, there was an old Brahman priest who wore white robes who asked the Buddha, “How will all men and all Brahman continue in their merit-making so as to escape the results of sin?” The Buddha answered, “Even though all of you give alms according to the 5 precepts, the 8 precepts, the 10 precepts or the 227 precepts for 9 trillion years and you raise your hands and offer yourselves as a burnt offering, or you pray 5 times a day, you will still not escape the results of your sins. If you do this every day, your merit gained will only be equal to the smallest strand of hair of an unborn infant extremely small. You shall not enter heaven’s doors.”
The old Brahman priest asked further, “What are we going to do to be saved?” The Buddha answered the old Brahman priest, “The results of sins and Karma are very great, heavier than the sky, thicker than the earth; and so high that it would be like an angel dusting the corner-posts at the temple compound with a cloth-post that are worn down, that’s how long it would take to end your sins.” The Buddha said further, “I have given up my high position and entered the priesthood. I considered that even though I am good, I would have only a very small amount of merit at the end of the year. If I was given this same amount of merit for 100,000 epochs and live 10 more lifetimes, I would not be saved from sin’s results even once.”
The old Brahman priest asked further. “So what should we all do?” The Buddha answered, “Keep on making merit and looking for another Holy One who will come and help the world and all of you in the future.”
Then the old Brahman priest asked. “What will the characteristics of the Holy One be like?” The Buddha answered him, “The Holy One who will keep the world in the future will be like this: in the palm of his hands and in the flat of his feet will be the design of a disk, in his side will be a stab wound; and his forehead will have many marks like scars. This Holy One will be the golden boat who will carry you over the cycle of rebirths all the way to the highest heaven (Nirvana). Do not look for salvation in the old way; there is no salvation in it for sure. Quit the old way. And there will be a new spirit like the light of a lightning bug which will come down from the sky above to live in all of your hearts and you will be victorious over all your enemies. Nobody will be able to destroy you. If you die, you will not come back to be born in this world again. You will go to the highest heaven (Nirvana).” *

* Permission was granted to copy these Buddhist Scriptures from Wat Phra Sing in Chiang Mai Province. The person who gave permission was Phra Sriwisutthiwong in Bangkok. It is guaranteed that this copy is accurate according to the original, that there is no error in transmission, which is in the book of the district headman, the religious encyclopedia volume 23, book #29. This inquiry was made on October 13, 1954 A.D. (Buddhist era 2497).

http://goldenboat.webs.com

Village Movie Premiere

So tonight, underneath a blue tarpaulin on the dirt outside the village headman's house, we premiered the Shan evangelistic movie to an audience that included actors and extras in the film. They began by telling their testimonies and then we played the movie in a projector screen. It was so great to see their reactions. We shot this film in october last year with the SFM students and it has been in production till now.
The film has some fairly serious themes around violence, forgiveness and the displacement of Shan people into Burma. Still, the Shan guys started off laughing at themselves onscreen.

Whoops I spoke too soon

Well, it seems like the protest may be disbanding but on the way out the protesters seem to be setting everything they can on fire. In Chiang Mai apparently the protest is hotting up as protesters return and so I have been called and told not to go to Nawarot Bridge, the City Hall, and apparently some govt building has been set on fire.

Relief

It is with huge relief that we have just heard in our office that the Red shirt leaders have surrendered themselves to police and the protest in Bangkok is being encouraged to disperse. For calm Chaingmai, tension has been mounting but quietly, although I did drive past a barricade outside Wat Phra Singh yesterday. Still, nothing like Bangkok here.
After watching this morning scenes of army tanks going into barricades, I was getting nervous about seeing a repeat of Tianneman square. Although I do believe that the Thai people are generally more humane than that, I also know that people involved in these politics really, really believe in their cause, to the point of laying down their lives for it.
So I am thankful that the Red leaders gave themselves up to avoid loss of life. In some ways, protesting shows that at least people believe they have a voice, and it's almost a step towards democracy. I pray that the road is peaceful in the future.

News article

Excerpt from a short interview with Rick Warren

The article below was pretty inspirational to me so I thought I'd pass it on.
In an interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren said:
People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond, In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven. One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body - but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillion of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act, the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one or you're getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life: The goal is to grow in character, In Christ-likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you got to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believ'e that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on.

And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for. You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems. If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, "which is my problem, my issues, my pain."
But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her. It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people...You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.

Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instanfly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before.

I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for you to own ego or for you to live a life of ease. So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.

First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases. Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church. Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan - to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation. Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.

We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better...God didn't put me on earth just to fulfil a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do. That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.