Excuse me, can you please be Mindful?

So this blog post will be dedicated to my journey from humble Eagan, Minnesota to the city of temples: Chiang Mai, Thailand. The trip is a whole three weeks journey; however this post will recite my adventure from December 28^th to January 4^th. This post will also incorporate Addiction, Power, and Buddhism into the theme. I’m not sure how, but I’ll make it work somehow. These themes are the backbone of everything we see and experience in Thailand. Hope it won’t be too boring.

To begin this word expedition, I want to first mention the two days of flying that me and some really cool friends endured. The flight was horrendous; it probably will be the worst experience I’ve had since arriving in Chiang Mai. Honestly, the only thing that could beat it would probably be the flight back. I bring this up because I wanted to relate this to anxiety and meditation. As mentioned in Buddha’s Brain by Rick Hanson and Richard Mendius, suffering is a human experience connecting us to the world. “I am this body apart from the world, the body’s frailties become your own.” That is, once I recognized how I physically and mentally felt flying those two days, I began to suffer. My wellbeing was threatened: I was unable to satiate many of what Maslow would call the dependent needs. I was hungry, I couldn't sleep, my excretory system was halted except for urination, and I kept ingesting packaged food. I couldn’t exercise either, all I was able to do was sit in the tiny square area with intangible walls and wait – wait for relief that can only be attributed to peeing after holding it in for half the day.

However, because it was two days of flying, I did manage to do other activities. I read our assigned books when I could and watched movies when my willpower was depleted (which unfortunately was very quick). Sleep wasn’t even an option. To quote Opium Fiend, when Steve Martin described the last sleep before his self-directed Rehab, I felt like the withdrawal effects that Martin experienced can be comparable to my own, except for the massive bowel movement of course. I craved sleep that wouldn't come, and when it did, it never was enough. Sleeping is a natural necessity and is a natural process; therefore it’s arbitrary to the definition of Addiction. However I felt addicted to a sleep that I couldn’t get – at least not on the airplane, nor would I be able to sleep properly for the following days until Chiang Mai. However, in the midst of this suffering, I began to ponder about meditation. Would meditation be helpful in this situation? I was already sitting still - so it might have been. Needless to say though, a moment where I can relax and concentrate is a definite blessing. Unfortunately, I was unable to meditate on the plane. However, I did find a peace of mind walking through Frankfurt, Germany. This makes me wonder then, can you be in a state of meditation while in locomotion? Can you be mindful of yourself, the place you are in, and the noise you hear when not standing still. I argue that I was, and that I did. I found a serenity in the German sunlight in which all I thought about was each step as well as every breath I took.

I'm unsure how off-topic my rant above is, so I'm going to fast forward this expedition to my time in Thailand. Bangkok was a hustle and bustle city. I swear you can find almost anything to do in it: from shopping in daylight to the infamous red light district sunset. But let's focus here. I came to Thailand to study the aspects of Addiction, Power, and Buddhism, and this is what the blog should incorporate. Therefore, for this first blog post, I'm focusing on POWER (Move onto the next post).