FRIENDSHIP

Matthew and I exactly one year ago.
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A few weeks ago I was having a late breakfast with my best friend in Pattaya whilst watching the sunset. We were discussing our birthday parties as we have our birthdays on practically the same day in May. We are also very much alike and though we are best friends we tend to clash all the time. My friend was a bit nervous about turning 40, a number that he has been fearing for many years. Nevertheless he decided to throw a huge party on Saturday night, May 30th. I told him jokingly, I would write a 6 minute speech about our friendship. It took me 2 hours to write the speech. On Friday night, my friend told me within 2 seconds that he cancelled the party. He just couldn’t celebrate his 40th birthday.

So I am totally verklempt, as I spent all this time writing my speech. So dear Matthew, you can read it online right now.

Dear Matthew, your highness, friends, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and animals.

I promise I won’t take much of your time but I wanted to add a serious note to this special and festive occasion, despite the fact that I am known to be hilariously funny.
I want to say a few words about the friendship between Matthew and I. A friendship that might be as unusual and unique as a friendship between a cat who takes care of a squirrel, or a horse taking care of a dog, Simon Cowell being friends with Paula Abdul or Michael Jackson being best friends with an adult person.

Friendship is co-operative and supportive behaviour between two or more people.
Friendship connotes a relationship which involves mutual knowledge, esteem, and affection as well as respect along with a degree of rendering service to friends in times of need or crisis. Friends will welcome each other's company and exhibit loyalty towards each other, often to the point of altruism. Their tastes will usually be similar and may converge, and they will share enjoyable activities. They will also engage in mutually helping behaviour, such as exchange of advice and the sharing of hardship. A friend is someone who may often demonstrate reciprocating and reflective behaviours.

The value that is found in friendships is often the result of a friend demonstrating the following on a consistent basis: the tendency to desire what is best for the other, mutual understanding, sympathy, empathy, and honesty, perhaps in situations where it may be difficult for others to speak the truth, especially in terms of pointing out the perceived faults of one's counterpart.
A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.
The only reward of virtue is virtue; and the only way to have a friend is to be one.
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

I say: do not save your loving speeches for your friends till they are dead; do not write them on their tombstones, speak them rather now instead. When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves. Life without a friend is like death without a witness.

There are many types of ships. There are wooden ships, plastic ships, and metal ships, but the best and most precious types of ships are friendships. A friend is one who walks in when others walk out.
Matthew, I appreciate you, as you understand the importance of my finger nails and my love for Barbra Streisand, and I can never tire you by repeating myself over and over again about those two most important matters in my life.
Hence, my friend, I say with respect that you do understand one thing: that if you walk in front of me, I may not follow. That if you walk behind me, I may not lead. Instead we walk beside each other.

It is widely known to people that you refer to me as Mom, and I refer to you as Son. Sometimes I call you Matthew, and sometimes you call me stupid bitch. You even refer to me as the grandmother of that hairy little dog of yours. However, when you do call me bitch or grandmother it always has a ring of respect and majesty to it, and when you slap me in the face in public, you always do it so beautifully. Interestingly, when those referrals issue from our mouths or if we beat each other up in public, it never occurs to us as hurtful, untrue or strange. This proves to me that we are true friends.

I will end this speech with a poem:

You need someone, silent and sincere
Who, when it's necessary, will pray for you and fight for you
Only when you have someone who laughs with you and cries with you
Only then you can say, I have a friend.

Matthew, I congratulate you with your 29th birthday and hope there will be many more 29th birthdays to come. You’re not a dummy darling, and you’ve made it and everybody should be shmeichling you now. You look more than a bissel good for someone your advanced age. It’s hard to believe you can look that good without working out, but you don’t believe in exercise. It’s a shande, but I know your motto. If God had wanted you to bend over, He would have put diamonds on the floor. It might be an idea to shprinkle your floor with photographs of pretty boys. Now before I am getting you verklempt and giving you shpilkes in your geneckticgezoink, I will end this fahkakte affair with the words: Guzunt and mazzletov. I bless you and may all good things come your way. You’re like butter, a big stick of butter.

Thank you.

One must be very confident to put this photo online.

GODDESS OF DEMOCRACY

In the spring of 1989, China was in turmoil. What started as a peaceful pro-democracy demonstration on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, initiated by a number of student leaders, ended in a blood bath. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the nationwide, student-led democracy movement in China, and the subsequent June 4th military crackdown in Beijing. On May 30th, the students erected a statue in front of The gate to Heavenly Peace, The Goddess of Liberty and Democracy.
With this post I would like to commemorate the student movement and this memorable period in Chinese and world history. As I do not wish my website and weblog to be blocked again in Mainland China, I will keep it brief, this time...

REIKI - SENSE AND NONSENSE (part 4)

Not the most beautiful village in the world, but definitely enchanting.

The holy Khora that circumbulates around the Dalai Lama Temple and Residence

Drive slowly: on horse or mule back yah!

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Here is my fourth and previous to last post on Reiki. I was just thinking that all my writings about the PAST in India makes me feel homesick. So I need to either move back to India or start writing about the PRESENT in Thailand, or work on my book! Hmmm.

One day I decided to have a pizza at Pema Tang Guesthouse in McLeod with some friends. Pema Tang and Choner House are two of the most enchanting places (only a yak spit away from the Dalai Lama Temple and Residence) and these guesthouses tends to accommodate many celebrity fans of the Dalai Lama, such as Joanna Lumley, Goldie Hawn, Richard Gere, Pierce Brosnan and many others. It sometimes happened that I would sit next to such celebrity and waiters would tell them: Look, that’s Pantau. Would you like to have an autograph of her? (Just kidding!)
However, the day of the pizza-eating adventure I was sitting next to a woman with great fame who suffered from breast cancer. Traditional treatment failed and the woman had travelled to McLeod to get help from the Tibetan Medical and Astrology Centre Mentsekhang.
Tibetan pills may not be the best tasting, and Tibetan doctors may just feel your pulse or smell your breath and have a look at your urine to tell you what’s wrong with you, but they are great to a certain extend. The Dalai Lama has his private Tibetan physician but if he gets really ill he goes to a hospital in Mumbay (Bombay) or abroad.
This famous lady was put on Tibetan pills. She was also interested in Reiki.
“Can Reiki cure cancer, Pantau?” she asked me.
I was dumbstruck. “O please, no, really, don’t think I can help you. If American doctors say that they can no longer help you, then I am definitely not able to.”
“I have read about Reiki. Some practitioners say that they can feel in their hands if there is a tumor in certain body parts. Is that true?”
“Ma’am, it sometimes happens that my hands get very hot when there is something wrong with a particular body part. It tells me that a lot of energy is flowing through me in order to, kind of, help that sick area, but curing…. I don’t think so. If I sense that people have some sort of problem, I tell them carefully that they need to see a doctor and have a check up.”
“Have you had such experiences?”
“Yes. One time a young man came to me. He thought he was healthy but I had the feeling he had a problem with one of his testicles. I didn’t tell him but sent him to a doctor for a check up. He later wrote to me that he was diagnosed with early stage testicular cancer and was being treated for that.”
“Well, I know I am full of cancer and tumors, but now that I am here on Tibetan medication I would like to try everything. Would you treat me?”
“I cannot cure you, Ma’am.”
“I want the experience.”
“Okay.”
“How much do you charge and how long does a treatment last?”
“Between an hour and two hours. And I don’t charge money, but I would accept a donation for my Foundation to help Tibetan children.”
“Okay. Should I come to your house or do you prefer to come to my hotel room?”
“Well, I have my Reiki-cd’s at home and I always say a prayer in front of my Buddha altar before I start a treatment. So I feel most comfortable in my own room. So will you. Because it’s a home, not a hotel. It’s not a house, though. I live in a box, really, but it feels like a home. Hotel rooms don’t feel like home. Do you have bodyguards or an entourage, because I won’t be able to accommodate them. My room is 2/5, by 3/5 metres. I have a toilet and running water. It’s in a building above the bazaar so it’s a bit of a climb to get there, but there is a road on the other side that comes close to the house but it’s only possible to get up that steep road with a powerful four wheel drive jeep.”
“Are you available tomorrow? If you give me your address I will show up.”
The woman showed up on time. She had a jeep drive her up the mountain and she climbed the spiral staircase to my room. She loved my little room with bright yellow walls, Tibetan thanka paintings, my Buddha altar. She didn’t see a bed, so I told her I didn’t have a bed but that I slept on a futon. I had an extra comfortable futon for patients. I would use a thick Tibetan shawl to cover them up so they wouldn’t get cold.

I treated the lady for about 2 hours. My hands felt as if I’d been holding them above a stove. The woman was very sick.
After two hours she said. “I know you didn’t get rid of my cancer, but for two hours I didn’t think of my illness. Not one moment. I just enjoyed the experience, I felt very happy and relaxed. This is a wonderful experience. I’ll be here for two weeks before I travel back to the States. Can I come and see you every day until I leave? Your room is lovely and actually has a better view than the view I have from my room at Pema Tang Guesthouse. I wouldn't mind coming to you room. Is that alright with you?”
“Absolutely.”

I must say, Reiki has always made me feel very happy. It’s almost a selfish thing. Of all things I do to people, whether I entertain them with my books, my stories, my paintings, or my singing voice, I feel most grateful if I can help people by means of Reiki.

Soon I will post the last installment on Reiki. I will take you to my hut in Varkala in South India. For the next few days I will be too busy to get online.

Thank you everybody in the world who read my stories and keep returning to my weblog, all you people from the States, Canada, Brazil, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

Have a nice weekend.

REIKI - SENSE AND NONSENSE (part 3)

Though I have been practicing Reiki for nearly 8 years now, I always wondered whether there was some truth to it. Was it just a new age thing? People in California have their private yoga teachers for 300 dollars an hour or more, people listen to the sounds of Tibetan singing bowls and some New Yorkers are talking about their chakras. In my country of birth, the Netherlands, there are now 350,000 Dutch Buddhists and when I visited that country in March, I found two shops in Utrecht selling Tibetan prayer flags. Yet Islam appears to be the fastest growing religion, even in Holland. I wonder why. Have you ever heard controversial stories of Buddhists? As far as I am concerned, Buddhism may grow a little faster. But to come back to Reiki, I wondered if I could find a trace of the original Reiki somewhere in India, outside of a tourist area. After all, the power of healing hands travelled from India to Tibet, then to China and was rediscovered by the Japanese physician Usui Mikao in 1922.

One day I was travelling 2nd class in an Indian train from Pathankot at the foot of the Himalayas to Delhi. I was laying on the upper berth of a six person compartment that I shared with an Indian family of 12 with a bunch of children. The train left at 11 pm so I hoped to get a good night sleep before the train would arrive in Delhi between 10 and 15 hours later. However, there was this teenage boy suffering from an asthma attack. He was laying on the middle berth opposite me. He sounded as if he was blowing a whistle. I felt a little frustrated by the noisy sick boy and the constant horning of the train’s horn to warn people who might be sleeping on the track, together with the smell of urine and feces. I was expecting a rough night instead. I blamed myself for not bringing any ear plugs.
I was concerned about the boy. He appeared to have so much trouble breathing; I feared that he might choke and die. I wondered if I should go and look for a doctor on the train. The family was concerned as well. Mother and Grandmother took care of the boy. Grandmother took him on her lap and started rubbing his forehead where his hairline began with two fingers. She just made circular movements and she continued to do so for a few minutes. The boy was almost choking and the whistle was almost ear-deafening. I kept gazing at the Grandma and wondered what she was doing. She kept rubbing his forehead, just on one spot. After about 15 minutes, the whistle started to sound differently, less intense. Twenty minutes later the whistle was gone. The boy’s tears stopped flowing over his cheeks, the fear in his eyes disappeared. After half and hour of rubbing, the boy breathed normally and fell asleep. I turned over and stared at the ceiling. It was an emotional moment and I cried a little. No inhalers were needed, no medication, no chemicals, no doctor, just the loving care of a grandmother who knew that rubbing ones forehead opens up ones trachea.

When I returned to Dharamsala a week later, someone asked me for a Reiki treatment. She asked me how it worked. I told her the story of the boy in the train.
“Do you have children?” I asked.
“Yes. A girl. Six years old.”
“And what do you do when your little girl falls and hurts her knee?”
“I hold her in my arms and give a kiss on her knee and tell her that a kiss will take away the pain.”
“Exactly. If I hit my head or elbow against something hard, I put the palm of my hand against the painful body part. What do you do when you hit your little toe against something hard?”
“I wrap my hand around it and squeeze it.”
“That is Reiki. Reiki is giving love and attention to something that is painful. So when people come to me and I put my hands on their bodies, I take away whatever pain there is inside the body. I don’t think of shopping lists or my own worries when I do so. For 72 minutes, I give love, unconditional love to people, even though I may not know them. I don’t care, because everybody has a need to be loved. Somehow, people can feel the love. I think that is why many of my patients cry after a treatment. Many people aren’t being loved. When they do experience love, it makes them cry.”
The woman’s eyes grew moist. “Only my daughter loves me. My husband used to beat me and we divorced. I have no family. Sometimes I feel so unloved.”
“Okay. Please lay down, close your eyes and listen to the music, think of a beautiful garden or any place that makes you happy, or just empty your mind for a while. I will start with a prayer.”
Silently, I said my favourite prayer by Shantideva. I heard it first issued from the mouth of the Dalai Lama at the end of a teaching in Dharamsala.

REIKI - SENSE AND NONSENSE (part 2)

Rei Ki

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Since I became acquainted with Reiki in 2000, I was quite skeptical. I had been living in the Himalayas for a little while when I met a female Tibetan Reiki Master who taught me the basics of Reiki.
Simply explained, a Reiki practitioner puts his/her hands on particular positions on someone’s body to transfer energy. This is supposed to heal the patient.
First, she showed me how to put my hands on 7 different positions on the body which would help to open up the patients' 7 chakras or energy centres. She told me about Universal Life Force Energy. She explained that a Reiki practitioner was a channel to transfer that energy from the universe through the hands into a patient.
I nodded while I thought: Yep, sure, great. Next you’re going to tell me you’re the worldly manifestation of one aspect of the Buddha.
She would later teach me the 21 different places on the body and the appropriate hand positions. She believed it wasn’t even necessary to touch a person and that I could just hold my hands above the particular body parts. If I felt the need to touch a patient, I could do so, but never touch particular body parts; namely a persons’ private parts.
“O, damn!” I responded.

I didn’t take Reiki very seriously at first, though I started treating people on a regular basis. The people I treated were a lot less skeptical. Something happened to them! They would always tell me how relaxed they felt, sometimes emotional, relieved, better, whatever. They all responded in a positive manner. Only one in 100 patients would say: Well, I feel neutral. I feel the same as I did before you touched me with your healing Reiki hands, Madam!

Okay. If I just travelled from whatever stressfull country to the Himalayas and meet a person with a soothing voice who would put me comfortably in a horizontal position and spend an hour or longer giving me unconditional attention whilst hearing beautiful relaxing spiritual music and smelling wonderful incense, I would say: Yeah, that was a wonderful, relaxing experience. I feel much better now. Hello!!!
But can I call that a healing experience? Would it cure people from whatever disease? Because this is what many Reiki Masters/Teachers often claim.

I believe that stress can create illnesses. I think most traditional physicians would say the same. So Reiki is a way to relieve people from stress, thus preventing people from developing stress-related illnesses. But curing cancer and asthma with universal life force energy. Nah!

I have been a Master myself now for over 5 years and have treated about 800 people. I know, because I keep track of numbers and keep an administration of their voluntary financial donations. I never ask for money and I never solicit patients, but people are send to me by those who know I am a Reiki Master. People always ask me: how much? And though I never expect money for a Reiki-treatment, I tell them: a small donation for my Foundation to help Tibetan children would be highly appreciated. Some people give/gave me 10 rupees, others 1,000, and many people paid for my lunch or dinner, provided they could join me.

When you visit India, in particular Dharamsala, you see advertisements on posters on many walls of mostly western residents who claim to be Reiki teachers. They charge 500 USD or even 10,000 USD to tell you in a few hours or days what I wrote above in a few sentences. In addition they make all kinds of claims that I just can’t agree with for the simple reason that it just doesn’t ring true to me. If someone tells me something and my heart tells me: this is nonsense, then it is the Universe that tells me it is nonsense. I always remember Oprah saying: If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and look likes a duck, then it is a duck.

In 2004, my German Master who made me a Master/Teacher told me about the secret symbols used by Masters. And I thought: What? Symbols? Secret? To help people I need secret symbols? Are you mad, dear Master?
According to my Teacher, without knowing how to use those secret symbols I would never be a effective practitioner.
What?
Without being attuned, I wouldn’t have the power of a Reiki Master.
What?
Without paying 10.000 dollars to a teacher who teaches me secret symbols (that you can find via Google), I am not a real Reiki practitioner.
What?
Yeah but, no but, yeah but, no but, Mrs Tanaka, a student of a student of Usui Mikao herself said that you need to ask money because otherwise you’re unable to transfer the healing energy. She set her price at 10,000 USD.
What? Who the f**k is Mrs. Tanaka?

Well, scientists have tried to prove the effectiveness of Reiki but they can’t. They can only state that it may help relieve stress or have some sort of placebo effect, but nothing more.
I agree with the scientists.

Honestly, I think many Reiki Masters want to play doctor. They want to feel special. They want people to look up to them and say: wow, you’re helpful…in a spiritual way.
To me that is the opposite of a spiritual healer, as this feeling has everything to do with fluffing the ego. That is everything a practitioner should not do or be. A Master is free from ego.

However…I am embarrassed to say that when I put my hands on somebody for 72 minutes I do get the feeling of being a little bit of a doctor. I feel I am helping someone to feel better. Especially when those people respond in a way that makes me elevate from the floor about 10 centimetres. It takes a strong character not to become arrogant. Over the years, I have met a lot of arrogant Reiki Masters in Dharamsala who tried to survive in India by teaching people a bit of rubbish and asking them a lot of money.

I am a realistic and skeptical person. I can’t help it. I engage in matters that I am sure are actually NOT as helpful as my teachers or even patients claim to be, but for some reason have a positive effect on people. So how do I need to feel about my practicing Reiki? Have I ever felt that I actually cured someone? I must admit: I HAVE! I’ll tell you more about this in part III.

I never paid any money to any of my teachers. They spent many hours, even entire days explaining Reiki to me, giving me attunements, and fluffing my aura, but I never paid them for their services. In exchange for their services I offered them my friendship and I taught them a little about Buddhism and the way to happiness, especially by giving up on ego.

The secret symbol CHO KY REI or Power Symbol

The secret symbol SEI HE KI or Mental/Emotional symbol.

The very secret symbol HON SHA ZE SHO NEN or Distance Symbol

The very secret Raku symbol.This symbol is used in the Master level of Reiki in the attunement process. It is used to seal the attunement process by closing the chakras of the student and to ground the student. It also plays a part in seperating the energies of the student and that of the master after the attunement has been completed thus ending the attunement process.

The very, very, very secret symbol DAI KO MYO or Master Symbol

A modern version of the incredibly secret Master Symbol.

Above symbols are very helpful to treat sphilkes in patients' genecktic gezoink.

REIKI - SENSE AND NONSENSE (part 1)

Dr. Usui Mikao, the Japanese physician who developed Rei Ki

When I was still living in the Netherlands I got acquainted with the Dutch new age guru Jomanda who tended to attract much media attention, and she had been doing so since the early 1990s. She claimed to be able to cure people in a paranormal manner. Busloads of people would travel to Jomanda’s village to get a glimps of that woman, who would stand on a stage in a long blue dress and cure people en masse by the magic power of her healing hands.
She would sell little bottles of tap water that she had blessed and that was thought to have healing powers. Back then, I thought Jomanda was a lot of rubbish taking advantage of desperate sick people and making good money off them. I have never changed my mind on that.
A few days ago, I was watching Dutch World Television in Thailand. A news broadcaster spoke about the controversy around the death of the Dutch actress and comedian Sylvia Millecam, who suffered from breast cancer. Instead of choosing conventional therapy with proper physicians, she sought the help of Jomanda and two other alternative healers. It was believed that Jomanda and the other two healers had so much influence on Sylvia that they prevented her from seeking proper conventional treatment, even when Sylvia’s condition worsened. Jomanda wasn’t able to heal Sylvia Millecam, and the actress died. Jomanda and the two other natural healers were prosecuted.

Though Jomanda wasn’t a Reiki practitioner, I see some similarity with what I have been practicing over the past 8 years. A year after my arrival in the Himalayas, a Tibetan Reiki Master taught me the Usui Mikao Reiki healing method and made me a first degree Reiki therapist. From then on, I started treating people on a regular basis. A few years later, I met a German Reiki Master who taught me the second and third degree of Mikao’s Reiki healing method. As of 2004, I was allowed to call myself a Reiki Master and I am supposed to be able to heal and even teach, and attune people with the power of Reiki.

In my next posts, I am going to tell you about the sense and nonsense of Reiki, what Reiki can and can't accomplish. I will tell you what is true about Reiki and what is not. I will do so because I am upset with many of my fellow Reiki practitioners and I feel the need to prevent innocent people from making the biggest mistake of their lives and spending lots of money on quacks.

WELCOME CHINA TO THE WORLD OF PANTAU

I logged in to my Statcounter to discover that today Mainland China is able not only to visit my main website, but also my Blogger weblogs. Just seeing the world map with a little dot located in Beijing made my heart feel warmer. Finally, a Mainland Chinese has been checking out my writings. The only thing I hope is that it wasn’t one of those Chinese Internet Security Police trying to find out whether I write bad about their country.

Last year, when I visited Mainland China with my Chinese partner, I was shocked to realise that the Chinese authorities considered me a threat to their national security. My name appeared on their blacklist and they only allowed me to enter the country because I was being accompanied by my Chinese partner. However, soon things turned ugly for both of us when we were summoned to the main police station of Shenzhen to be fingerprinted and forced to make pro China statements. No surprise we left China shortly after being released and were happy to arrive back home in Bangkok.

In June the Dalai Lama is expected to visit the Netherlands. The Chinese Ambassador in The Hague put pressure on the Dutch government and threatened them with sanctions if they would issue a visa to His Holiness. I really don’t understand why the Chinese authorities consider threatening governments with sanctions as effective. The Dalai Lama doesn’t speak of politics, he just gives teachings on Buddhism. He’s not the head of the Tibetan Government in Exile. In his own words, he’s just a simple monk. A monk who has dedicated his life to help people around the world to find a way to happiness. He doesn’t hate China, he doesn’t even desire Tibet to be completely independent from China. He just desires human and equal rights for both Chinese and Tibetans.

Some governments have relented and decided to refuse the Dalai Lama entry to their countries. This is a very sad development. I pray that Beijing will change their policy and start working together with the Tibetan people as well as world leaders, rather than threatening them.

China is facing a major crisis. Tens of millions of Chinese migrant workers are being laid off and they face harsh times after returning to their villages. Even people who were factory directors now need to plow little plots of land and grow rice in the middle of nowhere, something they have never done before. People who were able to drive cars, now need to learn how to ride donkeys. Once thriving Chinese cities are now in a decline.

The financial crisis that hits practically every country in the world appears to hit twice as hard in China. So my prayers today are for my Chinese brothers and sisters.

The Tibetan flag

TWO GIRLS SCREAMING

I was all alone at home this morning when I walked into my bathroom. I went about my usual routine of having a shower and sticking my Braun Oral B toothbrush into my face. I was expecting a friend of mine to come over any moment to pick me up with his vintage Vespa Scooter with sidecar, as we had made plans to run some errands for his home. Driving a scooter in Bangkok is practical, but also dangerous, and worse of all: your skin gets exposed to the sun, which is not a good thing for a Caucasian resident in Thailand. Thai people prefer the looks of a white skin hence I do anything I can to stay as white as possible (yet I keep telling people that I don’t care what people think of me).

After my refreshing shower I smeared myself full of Nivea Waterproof Sun block Factor 60, which feels like a mix of KY and coconut oil.
I feel a strong dislike for Factor 60 sun block as it remains gluey and sticky and it makes you sweat like a pig, but it’s better to be sticky and sweaty than getting a tan in Thailand. However, creative as I am I realised that I can lessen the stickiness by powdering myself abundantly with Nivea Beautiful Baby Face Magic Whitening Powder (which often comes in the colour pink with strawberry scent, to make things worse).

When I reached for the bottle of this pearl pinkish/white talcum powder next to the sink, I noticed that there was a very large blob of “black” next to it. I had a closer look at the blob and realised that about a zillion ants were in the process of moving a giant dead Thai cockroach to their nest. I know I have an ant nest in the power socket on the right of the bathroom sink and I also realised that these ants weren’t able to take the cockroach inside their nest (stupid ants!). It’s impossible to park a Mercedes in a garage designed for a Smart Car, right? So how were they supposed to get the cockroach inside a power socket?

The thing is: I don’t mind ants as much as cockroaches, dead or alive. For some reason, it brings about all my female reflexes. So I started screaming. My friend with the Vespa scooter is a gay male, and the moment I started screaming he rang the doorbell. I let him in, informed him about the bathroom disaster, and all his female reflexes were set off. So now there were two people screaming and shivering like little girls. The dead cockroach was moving an inch per minute. Finally I determined that between me and my gay friend, I was the one with the most testosterone, so it was me who disposed of the dead body and a zillion ants. Taking food away from ants makes them angry thus I left the house as quickly as possible while using the Fuck-word more often than is expected from Miss Holy Person. I went with my gay friend straight to TESCO to fill our shopping cart with anything available to kill ants and other insects.

Currently I am meditating on the fact why I still feel so scared of cockroaches and how much bad karma I have created today. After living in India for 7 years, I expected to have built up enough mental power to overcome any fear of wildlife with six or more legs. Interestingly, I have no problems with giant scarab beetles the size of a hand. I just pick them up with my hands and put them outside. I am even okay with giant spiders, praying mantises, snakes, crocodiles and scorpions.

My gay friend told me he himself was in girl-screaming-mode the previous day when he tried to step into his running shoes that were parked outside (no good thing to bring shoes inside Thai houses). His right foot didn’t go all the way into the shoe. There was something inside the shoe the size of an amphibian. And indeed, there was a toad inside his shoe. Aaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!

This is definitely not the way to happiness.

THE ART OF HAPPINESS (Part 1 of ?)

Teenage Tibetan novices in the Himalayan refugee camp of Bir.
Tibetan monks debating in Bir.

Monks in Bir rehearsing a ceremonial dance.

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Firstly, some good news. My main website www.pantau.org has been unblocked by the Chinese authorities, however, the 35,000 Chinese Internet Police officers still don’t like my weblog which is still not accessible from mainland China. The bad news: statistics show that people prefer to read stories of my experiences in India, rather than Thailand.
What can I do? Move back to India and leave my family behind in Bangkok?

Today, I had a long discussion with a Tibetan monk who is in Thailand to give some teachings on Buddhism. On Friday night, I met him in his casual clothes in a Bangkok gay club (not illegal) as he wanted to experience what it is like to dance (which is also not illegal as monks are allowed to dance). As he considers himself gay, he felt more comfortable in a gay club, however, he had no intention to have a romantic encounter as he has vowed to be celibate.
It was in that club where we agreed to meet for dinner on Sunday night. Just seeing him in his maroon robe made me feel homesick. Between 2000 and 2007 I have been surrounded by men and women dressed in maroon robes atop a Himalayan mountain and my life was very different from the kind I live right now.
There are many things I like about living in Thailand, but there was something unique about living in the Himalayas, and I miss that uniqueness more and more.

My friend asked me whether I was happy in Thailand. A long silence ensued before I said, “I am blessed. I have a roof over my head, food in my stomach, and people who love me.” And then I burst out into tears. “Sorry, it’s hormonal,” I responded. “I am experiencing menopause and my hormones are screwed up.”

With the economic crisis affecting almost everyone in the world, I have nothing to complain about, apart from the fact that people don’t buy as many books as I want them to do.
I was also very happy in India because my life was as simple as a life could be. In addition, I was surrounded by people who were even so much worse off than me that I was always in a state of gratitude. Just walking through India I always realised how blessed I was that I wasn’t born in an Indian family that was so poor, they had to sell me to a Bombay pimp who would lock me up in a box and only let me out if I had to service a client. Blessed by the fact that my parents never made me into a clay-pot-child (more on the clay pot children in a future post). Blessed that I wasn’t like the begging spider boy who would be pushed around on a cart through the streets of Dharamsala by his parents (more on spider children in a future post). Blessed by the fact that my life could have been so much worse.

Yesterday I read an article about what it takes to be happy. It was written by an American for an American audience and the factors that lead to happiness he brought up surprised me. The way to happiness for the average American is so much different from the way to happiness for the average Tibetan.
Still, people tend to think that more money, bigger car, bigger house, better job, more success can lead to happiness (but they forget that even the richest Hollywood stars have their therapists and spend a lot of time in rehab).
They still think that external factors are the cause for happiness rather than a cultivated state of mind. Stories of poor people who get a break and make it big do way much better than stories of rich people who choose to give all up to live as a hermit. I think that is why my book Pantau in India isn’t doing very well in the USA. That book describes the opposite of The American Dream.
Last night, my Tibetan friend and I watched a film called The Secret. It’s about the formula of how to attract what you want. And again, the speakers (American spiritual authors) in that film were talking about attracting love, car, money, house, job et cetera. One of the participating speakers that I actually admire (an American author called Neale Donald Walsch) joined the club and spoke similar words. I was disappointed as his “Conversations with God-books” are so good and even appreciated by Tibetan monks.
I agree. Money is good in our current world, as without, your life stinks. In Thailand there are more prostitutes than streetlights because of poverty. I agree; if I had zero money in my pocket, I wouldn’t be smiling either.
Thai women and men attach themselves to foreigners with money, just to get a bit a financial security and to support their poor families. Though Thais are less poor than Indians, Thais are unhappier and more materialistic than Indians. Indians tend to be content with a lot less. No Indian (apart from the occassional beggar) has ever asked me for money, but in Thailand it is the opposite. Speaking to a Thai for 15 minutes will automatically lead to him or her asking me for money, even if he or she walks around with a fake Louis Vuitton bag.

A few weeks ago, I went to a top hospital in Bangkok after reading that Reiki-treatments on hospital patients tend to help them recover more quickly. I am a third degree Reiki therapist with plenty experience. So I asked the hospital management if they were interested in my services.
“We don’t believe in….what? Reiki? We give our patients pills and perform surgery.”
I was shocked.

Hence, over the next few weeks, I am going to post some stories about my experiences with Reiki, I will tell you about the clay-pot-children of India, the spider boy in Dharamsala and the Art of Happiness.

COMPARTIMENTALISING LIFE

Friday night I agreed to meet two Thai friends for dinner at the Telephone bar and restaurant on Silom Soi 4 in Bangkok. Every table (and toilet) has a telephone plus number and if you see someone nice, you can just call the other table (or toilet). No surprise that Silom is famous for its LGBTQH-image. The food was wonderful and the conversation made me laugh so much that I had to fix my make-up a few times in the toilet during which I didn’t receive any phone calls.

My plan for the rest of the evening/night was a visit to my favourite dance clubs. I hadn’t been out dancing for a while and I was really looking forward to that. I was joined by my best Thai “paint-the-town-red”-friend Santi. Our first stop was at DJ Station on Silom Soi 2, a place where management and visitors tend to know me. At 11.30 sharp they have a drag-queen show on stage with excellent performances of half a dozen transsexuals and cross-dressers as well as a fine set of male dancers.
It’s always fun for me to go to those places as there are practically no females inside, so I tend to get much attention. After the show the stage is open for visitors, mostly fine brave boys who like to show off their shirtless bodies. These days it's also expected from me to join them.

A little before 1 a.m. I visited Espresso opposite DJ Station, a more conservative club, as all the guests keep their clothes on. For me it always feels like coming home, as most people know me there. At around 2 I moved with my growing entourage to a club called GOD, at Silom Soi 2/5. It’s really my favourite club and most visitors are a mix of Thais, Taiwanese, Singaporeans, Malaysians, Chinese, Japanese and a few westerners as well. GOD has professional dancers on stage in skimpy clothes and visitors are allowed to take their shirts off as well and join the dancers on stage. It’s strictly forbidden to touch the dancers, but everybody else is allowed to touch each other. After 3 a.m. and enough beer and other stuff they also tend to touch me. The 3 story club is my favourite. I love the music, I love to dance, I know most of the visitors and they make me feel like Madonna on a good day.

I was dancing on the stage when one person came up to me and said:
“Are you Pantau?”
“Yes.”
“The Pantau?”
“Yes.”
“I know you. I am a Tibetan monk from the Himalayas. I am having a holiday right now. And you used to be some sort of nun in Dharamsala, weren’t you? You were studying Buddhism with the Dalai Lama.”
My face froze. What a small world! "Yes. I am still a Buddhist, still very serious about my vows, even here in Bangkok."
“I can’t believe to see you here, dressed like this….or better: undressed like this,” he said. “I always thought you to be some sort of holy person. I cannot believe you’re dancing on a stage in a gay club in Bangkok, dressed like this.”
“Well, I am doing research for a new book as my protagonist is a gay Chinese man who travels to Bangkok with his companion. So I am researching gay life. During research I found out that it is actually a lot of fun to hang out with queer people and I was surprised they adopted me as their mascot. I get applause when I show up in this area. It feels good and feeling good makes me happy. Isn't that what Buddhism is all about?”
“But you’re not gay, right?”

“No. I am heterosexual. I am the H in LGBTQH. But I am also a bit T and Q and dress a bit like a BL and when I was a teenager I was a bit G as well. But I compartmentalise my life. I am a different person during the day, believe me. It’s still the same me, but just a different aspect of me. In Bangkok I have come to understand that the way we move through the world is expressed in both body and in spirit and both must be honoured and obeyed in order to live fully and completely, to live a life that transcends just one or the other. Tomorrow I will be dressed in my habit again, just like you, I suppose. Having said that, I have just been invited to an after party, so I need to put my other life on hold just a little bit longer.”

One of the dancers at GOD.

Above photos: me and my friend Santi before hitting the clubs of Silom. Photos by Dale van Dussen, Cameron Wolf and others.

BANGKOK TWIN TOWER INFERNO

It took a few years to finish the construction of a high-rise twin tower office building on Ratchadapisek Road in Bangkok. The inferno didn’t happen last night, but last year, however, I haven’t shared my experience with anyone yet, apart from a few Bangkokian friends.
One night around 3.30 am, I was getting ready for my nightly nap, when I suddenly heard sirens wailing in our area. It sounded as if every rescue team in Bangkok had been summoned to advance on Ratchadapisek Road. I looked outside and to my surprise both towers of the entire 55-something floor office building were on fire, one day before their official opening.
Within half an hour, the towers just burned down from ground floors to the roofs but didn’t collapse. I was able to watch everything on live television as well, as my view of the lower part of the twin towers was blocked by a 20-story hotel, so I could only see the top of the twin towers on fire.
Some people said that it was foul play, as the owner of the building wasn’t able to find enough tenants. Burning down his building might have provided him with some good insurance money. However, this is just speculation.

At least, my view is never boring in the city that never sleeps. I love Bangkok.

TO JUMP OR NOT TO JUMP

Skyline of Bangkok seen from my building in 2008.

(Above photo is subject to copyright -Pantau Foundation.)

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Today I was watching television while writing a scene for my new novel. I zapped through a few dozen non-European channels and landed at a Thai channel. I only pretend to speak Thai, thus the reporter sounded like: Rak loei leeuw loy loy kap chai leeuw ha sip….” Blablabla. And then a logo appeared with Breaking News and some live pictures of a girl sitting on the balustrade of a very high high-rise building. The reporter kept mentioning the words Krung Thep Mahanakorn and Ratchadapisek and Huay Kwang, and I know those words. Krung Thep Mahanakorn is what we Bangkokians call Bangkok in Thai. Bangkok is a foreign word for the Thai capital, only used by foreigners, never by Thais. Krung Thep means: The City of Angels. Ratchadapisek is the name of a long Avenue. Along the Avenue one can find a dozen international 5-star hotels, 15-story high mega-brothels, Carrefour, Tesco Lotus, the Thailand Cultural Centre, L’Espanade, Fortune Town, Club Hollywood and the Chinese Embassy. Huay Kwang sounded familiar to me too. I live in Huay Kwang district, a yak spit away from the Chinese Embassy, just a short walk from Ratchadapisek Avenue.
The girl sitting on the balustrade was filmed by a news crew standing on the street below. From the angle of the footage, I could tell that this girl was on a very high floor of her building. And she didn’t look happy.
I heard wailing sirens approaching. I kept watching television. Would the girl jump or not? I am not stupid. I knew this was another live-suicide-on-Thai-television-item. And then I thought: that balustrade looks just like the one we have in our building.
When the news crew made a total shot of the building, I realised that they were filming my building. I guessed that one of the hiso concubines that live in our building wanted to make a point to the older gentleman she served. The concubine probably thought he spent too much time with his wife and children. She may have had one of 300 other reasons to be unhappy about as a concubine. I wondered whether it was one of those very beautiful former Tiffany-showgirl-transsexual-turned-concubines. Perhaps her western boyfriend told her he would NOT pay for her operation.
I got up from my bed and walked onto our balcony. I looked down and saw a large plastic mattress being pumped up right below me at 9 o’clock. The girl was sitting on the balustrade of the 20-something floor.
I love media coverage. A little demon inside me said: Pantau, go and sit on your balustrade with your book in your hand. Great promotion. Just shout in Thai: “Buy my book! Visit my website!”
The girl didn’t jump. I watched the rest on television. An hour later we were bombarded by a heavy monsoon shower.

I love the monsoon in Thailand. It's way past midnight when I write this. I didn’t finish writing the scene. Suddenly I feel bored. I think I am going to empty an astray.

THE HAPPIEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD

I was going over a poll the other day. They came up with a list of happy nations. The top three included Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland. I was surprised that the United States of America wasn’t even in the top 10. So I thought: well, as a Dutch person I must have made a very stupid mistake by moving to a country that isn’t even in the top 100. Thailand, the Land of Smiles is obviously not happy. And the weather is always nice. I wonder what makes those Low Landers and Scandinavians so happy then. Is it the amount of alcohol they drink in Helsinki? Is it the amount of grass they smoke in Holland? When I was in Holland in March, I didn’t see that many smiles, instead, I read that out of 14 million ethnic Dutch residents, each year 200,000 of them immigrate to unhappier countries. Does that make any sense to you? In 2000, I was one of those immigrants. I immigrated to India and found my happiness there for 7 years. There wasn’t one single day that I felt lonely or alone. Interestingly, every Indian I spoke to said to me: “Madam, why do you want to live in our country? Every Indian dreams about living in Europe.”
And so do the Thais. At least most of them. I guess that explains the long queues of western men and their Thai girlfriends at foreign embassies, trying to get some papers for those money-girls to travel abroad.

GIVE IT 2 ME.. NOW!

Chinese Thai man writing my name in Mandarin on Yaowarat Road in Chinatown, Bangkok.

A friend asked me whether I ever felt like going back to the Netherlands.
“You mean, whether I would want to live there again? The answer is no.”
I explained to him that I am no longer a westerner who can live in the West. Nor have I become an Asian, but I do call Asia my home. When I think of home, I first think of Bangkok. Every night, when I am in Bangkok, I stand on my balcony high up in the air, about 5 miles away from the skyscrapers of downtown Bangkok, and look at the skyline. “I have Bangkok at my feet,” I often hear my inner voice tell me.
I live atop of a concrete mountain. And when I think of mountains, I think of the Himalayas, because for seven years I called a tiny room with a tiny balcony atop one of those mountains my home. When I think of home, I think of Varkala Beach. Especially that little palm leave rooftop hut atop the cliff that stood behind the home-annex-shop of my best Tibetan friends; a couple and their children. For months now I feel homesick. But do I feel homesick to the Himalayas, the way I lived my life among the Tibetans; people I hold so close to my heart? Or do I even think of Varkala in the south of India? I am homesick to India and yet I am in high spirits as I am working on a book and whenever I am working on a book, I feel content. My stories are my home. I never think of the Netherlands as home. I wonder why.

“You want to go out with us tonight?”
“Like, for a beer and maybe a show or something?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, get in the car then.”
While driving to the city centre, I told my friend about my gadget. I have a gadget thing attached to this weblog so I can see how many people are actually interested in reading my stuff. 50 percent of my dear readers are Americans, 49 percent are people from Thailand, probably expats, and 1 percent is made up of people from 39 other countries, including India. Only 1 person from the Netherlands visited this site once and never returned. I think they don’t read English in Holland!
I appreciate the people from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore who keep coming back. Zero people from Mainland China, as everything with my name attached to it gets banned in China.
So later tonight, I was drinking beer with some friends. We visited a club and one friend asked me: “Did the Tibetans get upset when you moved to Thailand and started hanging out with Chinese men and even started writing a book about a Chinese love story?”
“No, Tibetans are okay with everything I do.” I answered. “My western readers were more confused, some upset. They think I need to live in the backyard of the Dalai Lama to be a good Free Tibet activist and they don’t like it when I make out with the Chinese. I inspired many people to become Tibet-activists. And those people don’t understand that I don’t hate Chinese. I can be pro-Free Tibet without being anti-China. I have mentioned that last sentence so many times, it has become my logo.”
I put my beer down and observed the line-up of 15 young men in their underwear and number tags getting off the stage. “I think the show is going to start soon. Do you guys have any questions about Buddhism? Celibacy, abstinence, something?” I turned my face back to the stage that was right in front of me. Five guys started their life-sex-gay-orgy performance.
“You know, I finished writing the first chapter of my new book,” I said, while observing the show. “It is very difficult to write a first chapter. That is why I started with chapter 9. But last night I wrote chapter 1 and I hope it’s good. I need to send it to a few people. That one guy on the left has a nice butt. Jesus fucking Christ hanging on the cross, but if I had a penis right now, I would stick it in that butt big time. What was I saying? O my book. O actually I have something new to tell. In two weeks I am flying to Phuket Island to visit my friend Sanguan who's a surgeon. He is about to return from a spiritual retreat. He’s been a monk these past six weeks and he’s anxious to talk to me about his experiences in the monastery. He likes to talk to me about monastic life. I think because I was a nun and yogi in India and still dress as a yogini during the day. So I am going to spend a week with him in his operating room, the only place where we can really talk for 8 hours straight. He’s quite a busy man and he has a family.”
There was no response from my friends.
“I am going to ask him if he can re-create a penis for me.”
Now everybody was looking at me.

“Just kidding. As long as I have this pussy, I can have plenty of penises.”

I continued watching the show. “I am not into male whores. After 15 or 20 or so I didn’t enjoy it any more. Do you guys think they are actually going to come on stage this time? I mean, they all seem horny. I cannot believe that some of those guys actually have their penises injected with silicon to make them look thicker. Look at that one on the right. Doesn’t look natural. Bad silicon job really. Poor boys. Can you imagine that when they’re fifty their penises have all rotten away by silicon. How would they explain that to their lovers?”
“They won’t have lovers at that age. They go and live with their mothers and cry at night alone in bed.”
I nodded. “You know, I don’t think I have anything to complain about. How many housewives my age get to drink beer with a bunch of queer people like you guys in a Thai gay-gogo-club and actually see a group of handsome young men having sex with each other right in front of my face for the price of a beer.”
“Can you please shut the fuck up, bitch! They’re about to come,” one friend said to me.
“How do you know?”
“The DJ changed the music to Give It 2 Me, by Madonna.”
“O, so that is the signal that the boys need to come?” I lifted my beer glass. “Cheers.”

And then the boys came.

Two hours later I am laying on my bed with a cigarette, feeling a little tipsy, and typing this story. Will it spice up the number of returning visitors?

AN OBJECT OF BEAUTY

The following post will be very different from what I have been writing so far on this web log.

Last night, I had a conversation with an American friend about Beauty. We discussed the beauty of certain buildings, paintings, streets, cities, flowers, countries, behaviour, and finally…men.
I told my friend about a Japanese boy I used to be friends with in India. When I saw that boy the first time, I felt the need to ask him if I could take 1000 photos of him. He was the most beautiful boy I had ever seen. He was perfect.

I met the boy first near my home in South India in 2005 but he would later stay with me at my home in the Himalayas. We started a friendship that would last for about 8 months. I managed to take about 1000 photos. I even wrote about our friendship in my book Pholomolo. I hope he doesn’t mind me showing his beauty to the world, this time not in words, but in pictures.

KARMA

Nothing is what it appears to be. This beautiful royal building is made of polystyrene and is part of a Thai film set near Kanchanaburi, the place best known for its bridge and the River Kwai.

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First I would like to thank the hundreds of people who spend more than half an hour reading my posts each day. I can recommend some stories I have posted in January and February.

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Someone asked me what question I would ask the Dalai Lama if I was granted a personal audience with him. I said: “I would ask the Dalai Lama if he had a question which he would like to find an answer to. After that I would ask him a lot of questions about karma, especially regarding killing living beings.”

1.2 million of 6 million Tibetans perished after the Chinese invaded their country, during the initial war, during the Great Leap Forward, the Great Famine and Cultural Revolution, and in addition 20 to 30 million Chinese died. There were only few people who were responsible for this devastation, only few people who ordered the soldiers to kill and torture, and let people starve. Would a person create bad karma for himself if he were to kill someone who is responsible for so much misery? If I had lived and killed Adolf Hilter in 1940, would I have created bad karma for myself?

I agree, these issues are difficult to answer.

I love Thailand but even when you live in an urban area, whether it be a shack or a high-rise condominium, everybody has to deal with ant armies. It is impossible to eat inside your home and leave out a plate with some leftovers for more than a minute, as the ant army will march in to take anything away. Even a sugar-coated birth control pill will be taken away by the army. I had one of those pills taken out of its packing and left it next to the sink for a few moments in order to fill up a glass with water. To my surprise, the pill turned black and started moving away towards the power socket.

Perhaps that is why most Thai houses are spotless. You just can’t afford to leave anything around that appeals to the tiny Thai ants that are even interested in birth control pills. Our domestic ants live in a nest behind a power socket in the master bathroom. We leave the ant nest untouched. I could ask our staff to clear the house of ants, but would I create extra bad karma by asking other people to kill living beings, no matter whether they are ants or not? Don’t ants deserve a good life and no suffering?
I was able to get rid of a nest that had found shelter inside my laptop computer. I decided to get them all out by putting some sweet strawberry flavoured chewing gum on top of the computer. Within minutes all the little ants had come out of the interior and had gotten stuck to the chewing gum. I was able to dispose of the entire nest.
The computer ants made up just a small platoon, but I still haven’t taken any measure to get rid of the large regiment in the bathroom’s power socket, nor the battalion that is creating a highway from a lamp on the wall towards the aircon-unit a few metres to the left. I have considered spraying the area with anti-ant poison, but I am not bothered enough by them to start taking such drastic measures. They may nest in the aircon unit and screw it up, but…what about karma.
I don’t mind flushing a few ants through the sink when I am washing my hands or cleaning my teeth with my fancy electric Braun Oral B- toothbrush. I consider that those ants were just unlucky, they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. I do feel bad about them because would you want to be flushed away through a sink…in Bangkok? I said 108 prayers to counterbalance my bad merit of killing small sentient beings every day.
The first vow I took as a Bodhisattva was not to kill any sentient being. Killing hundreds or even thousands of ants would give me bad karma, wouldn’t it?
But what to do with the living parasites in our intestines? This is Asia and a few times a year it happens to all of us that our arses start to itch and then everybody knows that their intestines are infested by worms. They take a few pills that can be bought at any pharmacy for only 30 baht to kill those little wormy creatures.
So how does this work? As a Buddhist I am not allowed to kill living beings, but how kicks karma in when I am killing creatures that may harm me and my loved ones? If I can avert danger to humans by killing parasitic creatures, malaria mosquitoes, or even another human being, will that create bad karma for me?

The Tibetans are very practical people and we often spoke about this. They consider the life of a human being more precious than the life of an intestinal worm, thus killing the worms would save the life of the human. The same thing applies to malaria mosquitoes. I vaguely remember a story told to me by a lama. There was a ship with 500 men aboard. One of them was the captain who received news that one of the crew was a crazy lunatic who had plans to kill everybody on board the next day. The captain couldn’t change the crazy man’s plan to kill the entire crew and passengers. The captain decided to kill the crazy man, saving the lives of 499 people, and preventing the crazy man from creating bad merit, as he would not be able to kill 499 people, thus be reborn with better karmic conditions. (Long sentence: read it again!) Did the captain create bad merit? I don’t think so. He saved the lives of many men.

In Tibet it is very difficult to grow fruit and vegetables and their diets are poor. They have their yaks and sheep and barley flower but that is about it. So they need to eat meat. In order to eat meat, one must slaughter an animal. The Tibetans rather have one large animal killed than many small animals, as they consider taking the life of one large animal adding less bad merit to their account than killing many small living beings. In the old Tibet there were Chinese Muslim butchers who would slaughter yaks for the Tibetans, as no Tibetan would want to create bad merit by slaughtering a yak themselve.
I used to have long debates about this solution. “If the Tibetans would refuse to eat yak meat in the first place, the Muslims wouldn't need to kill yaks...for them. Don’t you think this way of avoiding bad karma is flawed?”
Even the Tibetan lamas would shake their heads, smiling and often rely on silence. They didn’t have a clear cut answer to this matter. Their reasoning was: “Well, when the butcher slaughters a yak, the animal is already dead. So when you buy that meat and eat it, it doesn’t give you bad merit. It’s a waste to throw the meat away.”
And with such answers I had to retreat to my room and meditate on what I would allow myself to think, say, or do. I do believe in karma, I do believe in the law of cause and effect.

THE MAGIC BOWLER HAT (continued)

Speaking to my friend with the scratched Bentley, I continued to tell him about the special bond I have with my English bowler hat. I started off by telling him about Pan Tau, a character created for a children's television series in the 1960s. 33 episodes were made in Czechoslovakia in cooperation with German TV network WDR from 1967 on. The project ended with a feature film in 1988. Pan Tau was played by Otto Šimánek (1925 – 1992 in Prague).
Pan Tau was a friend of children. He was famous for his magic bowler hat. By tapping on his hat, Pan Tau was able to change his appearance into a puppet, to conjure up miscellaneous objects or to do other magic. His most characteristical behaviour was that he would help children who were experiencing some sort of difficulty. Together with his unusual dress and his magic bowler, Pan Tau possessed a further distinguishing feature - he didn’t speak.

In the spring of 2000, I was the only survivor of a plane crash in the Himalayas. I was found by a Tibetan man. After I was released from hospital, he took care of me in his home in Dharamsala. Over the next few weeks, amazing things started happening to me.
Some people in Dharamsala started to believe that I was the reincarnation of a Tibetan freedom fighter who was arrested by the People’s Liberation Army and died in 1962 in a Chinese Hard Labour Camp. His name was Pantau.
In April 2000, I met the Dalai Lama at his home in Dharamsala and shortly after it was decided that I would change my name, which was done during a special ritual at the Dalai Lama temple on my birthday in May 2000. A new name was bestowed on me: Pantau Lhamo. That day I also founded the Pantau Foundation to help children in need.
Pantau means ‘to be helpful’ and Lhamo ‘Deity’. Many Tibetan girls’ second first name is Lhamo. Tibetans do not have last names. From that day on, I was proud to carry this new name, however, I soon dropped the Lhamo, and every Tibetan and Indian would call me Pantau. In Thailand people simplified my name and everybody here calls me Tau or Tao. Tao is actually a Thai name, meaning ‘Yin-Yang’, and also a Chinese name, meaning ‘peach’.

When I was in my late teens, I went to an auction house. I was interesting in acquiring a Tiffany lamp. There were also some old costumes and hats for sale, including an early 20th-century top hat, worn by some famous man who had travelled on the Titanic. Next to it was an English bowler hat, size 57. It was believed the hat had been worn by an English lady as its size was rather small. It fit my head perfectly. I was informed that the lady was rather controversial, as she enjoyed dressing as a man. That day I didn’t return home with a Tiffany lamp, but with an English bowler hat that, curiously, had stuck inside a card depicting The Joker. The last time I wore my hat was in the Netherlands in March. When I wear my hat, I wear it with the card visible on the outside.

Today my friend with the damaged Bentley gave me a call.
“Well, I read your last post and the comments today. So now you are calling me a typical male gay bitch in public?”
I smiled. “Yes, I think I did. But I wrote that sentence with a lot of love and respect for you. You criticized me for not being complete about my possessions, and in return, I called you a bitch. That’s called karma; the law of action and reaction. You say something bad about me, and something bad will fly back to you and hit you straight in your gay face. Karma is one of my favourite topics.”
“I always wondered about Karma. Can you tell me more about it?”
“Sure. Let’s have dinner tonight and discuss the law of action and reaction….”

Pan Tau talking to his small puppet-character that is in fact himself.

THE MAGIC BOWLER HAT

A friend who read my last post popped over today to have a chat.
“You’re not very complete,” he said to me. “You have more possessions than you summed up in your post. Yes, you don’t have many clothes, I agree, but I know for a fact that you have an electric toothbrush and lots of other stuff in your bathroom that you didn’t mention in your post. You have a handbag, and if I remember correctly, there is a Louis Vuitton cigarette case in your bag. You also have your cardboard altar with pictures of the Dalai Lama and other lamas and you also have an expensive umbrella with a wooden handle. I always see you walking around with your umbrella. You didn’t mention the fact that you have a passport that is nicely covered by a Louis Vuitton Passport cover. You have a very expensive pig-hair hairbrush. No mention of that in your post. And then you say you….”
“Okay, stop it! Did you come all the way over to my home to tell me that I actually have a few more things that wouldn’t even fill up a shoe box?”
“No, I wanted to return your 16GB Flash drive. I downloaded a few films for you to watch. Oh, by the way, you neither mentioned that you own five 16GB flash drives, each costing 600 baht. You didn’t mention your Sanyo digital camera either. You didn’t mention all that painting stuff you have; bamboo brushes, gouache paint, paper.”
I stared at him.
“Okay, you’re right. I wasn’t complete. I also own a bowler hat that I didn’t mention either. This is such a stupid conversation. Okay, I own a few things more than I came up with yesterday. I also didn’t mention my collection of vibrators! I am so sorry. But I still think I don’t own more than 25 kg. Did you know that when I owned a river-front duplex penthouse condominium in the Netherlands, I owned more than 100 cubic metres of possessions; designer furniture, walk-in closet with 3 metres of clothes, two cars, one of which was an exclusive red sports car, a waterbed and lots more. I have come a long way since then, don’t you think? By the way, are you still enjoying your new Bentley?”
“No, somebody scratched the door with a scooter.”
“That’s what I mean. I never have to worry about scratches on vehicles that I don’t own. By the way, I received this strange request two days ago. The editor-in-chief of a major magazine in the Netherlands contacted me. They wanted to do an article on transsexuals. They wanted to make a photodocumentary of five Dutch transsexuals and interview them about their fashion sense, what they like to wear et cetera. I answered them that fashion didn’t apply to someone like me, a yogini, and that my life is all about absence of fashion. I told them I wear a habit during the day. I also wonder why people think that transsexuals are only interested in their looks? I think those people still confuse us with transvestites or drag queens.”
“Ignorance, I guess, Pantau. By the way, why do you think people feel the need to buy stuff that they don’t need?”
“Like your Bentley? Are you able to pick up more lovers with you Bentley? Why do people like you buy a new pair of shoes every week, or why do they buy new clothes while there are still new items with labels hanging in their closet? I think they buy stuff because when you treat yourself to something new you feel a little happier, less lonely, less sad, less dissatisfied. Every time a lover leaves you, you go out shopping and spend more money than I do in a year. Maybe people like you also buy stuff to impress other people. Or both. It can feel good to go out shopping, buy something new, come home and play with it for a while, but the joy doesn’t last very long, does it? You always worry about your car. In India I came to understand that material things don’t make me happy. My electric toothbrush is very practical, so are my other rechargeable vibrating devices.”
“Okay. I get you. So tell me about your bowler hat. Somebody told me it was a magic hat.”
“Yes, it is. My hat means a lot to me. It has a lot of history. I will tell you all about it. It’s quite a story….”

To be continued.

IMPLEMENTING BUDDHISM IN DAILY LIFE

A view of the Dauladhar from a spot close to my home.
Me standing on a flat piece of rock where I would meditate on emptiness.

Someone asked me how I implement Buddhism in my daily life. In short, I could say: I try to be a good person in order to find enlightenment, but that is a little easy, right? During my 7 years in India, I would often listen to the teachings of various lamas. They would teach me meditation techniques and give me an understanding of the true nature of things. Living in the Himalayas I would often find a quiet place somewhere on a mountain, close my eyes and calm the mind by focusing on my breathing. In addition, I would always bear in mind the 168 Buddhist vows I took in 2001. Therefore, there are many things that I need to do or refrain from. Not always easy, as I sometimes like to drink an ice-cold beer and enjoy smoking a cigarette.

If there is one thing that has changed me through Buddhism is my mind. It has become a calm mind. I don’t get upset anymore (unless someone talks bad about Barbra Streisand in my presence), I don’t get angry if people wrong me. I accept things the way they are and practice tolerance if people make a mickey out of me. Negative things don’t bother me anymore.

I never raise my voice, even if I have every reason to do so. I sometimes cry when people hurt me, but I no longer feel the need to fight. In addition, my overall happiness is high and the need for materialistic stuff has only decreased. I moved from India to Thailand with 20kg of personal possessions. Now I own even less. Everything I have fits in one suitcase. I do not accept gifts from people. They may treat me to a nice meal or other things to enjoy, but I don’t want to add to my personal possessions. If the world would be full of people like me, there wouldn’t be any economy I guess.
People often don’t understand why I live like this. Many Thais are materialistic. In Bangkok, I am surrounded by people who have some money to spend, especially the people closest to me. They always see me in the same clothes.
In October 2006 I bought three pairs of jeans, one pair of shorts, one yellow and one black polo shirt.

I have three 50bt black tops and one bra that I only wear when I go dancing in a gay club in Bangkok (most of the time my top tends to get off after some time in order not to stand out to much among those fine scantly clad men, thus I need to wear at least a bra which I normally don’t have to). I have three pairs of socks. I have one pair of sandals, one pair of trainers, and one pair of leather shoes. I have one yogini habit. I have one old laptop computer, a small electronic Chinese/Thai/English dictionary, and a simple mobile phone that I hardly ever use. I have one bikini and a small cardboard box with some makeup stuff. I have five pairs of underwear. I have one tailor-made black blazer (in case I need to appear somewhere dressed up casually but nice).
In India, I have a tin box parked at a friend’s house with my traditional Tibetan costume and a Buddha statue. That is about everything I have. Correction: A few things I accepted as gifts; a wedding ring with a flawless 1-carat diamond, and a Rolex watch.

I must admit that having next to nothing has been very helpful to feel content and free from most daily worries.

In addition, I would attend yoga-classes in India a few times a week. Yoga is more than being able to hold your body in intricate positions. Yoga is a way of life, a way of thinking, acting, eating and so on. I still do one hour of yoga every day and I swim about 1 mile in the pool as fast as I can. I often use the time in the pool to think up new scenes for my new novel. After swimming, I do my yoga without any thinking.
I don’t eat processed food. I always smile, even when walking alone. I have also been told I sleep with a smile on my face....

REMEMBERING THE DEAD

The National War Monument in Amsterdam

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In May 1945, the Canadians, British and Americans liberated my country from the Nazis and since then, on the forth of May, the Queen and my people commemorate the dead, all those souls who lost their lives during the war and occupation. And every year, on that day, before the clock strikes eight in the evening, the Queen appears from her palace and bows to the Dutch flag flying at half-mast at the National War Monument. She addresses her government and nation and speaks beautiful words about growing towards a loving, compassionate and tolerant world without war, where people can live in peace and freedom; words of solidarity with troubled nations.
At eight o’clock sharp, the entire Dutch nation comes to a complete standstill. No car, clogs, bicycle, bus, boat, wheel barrel, truck, tram, train, plane or people will move. For the next two minutes, the entire country is silent. Reflecting, crying, and praying for the well-being of other nations. Then the Dutch flag is hoisted to the masthead while the nation sings their national anthem.
One day later, on the fifth of May, the Dutch celebrate Liberation Day. All happy people; young and old, thin and fat, tall and even taller, smart and stupid, black and white, gay and straight, males and females and anything in between, yes, they all celebrate freedom; freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of religion, freedom of politics and freedom of way of life, yes, they celebrate total freedom and self-determination. They are proud to live in the most liberated and liberal country in the world.

To me freedom and freedom of speech are the most important things that matter to me. Though I haven't lived in the Netherlands for over 9 years now and abandoned most western and Dutch traditions including Christmas, I still celebrate the fact that I was born in a free country. I now live in Thailand (Prathet Thai, as the Thais call their country) which literally means: The Land of the Free.

DRAMA ON QUEEN'S DAY

The 30th of April is a special day in the Netherlands. It’s called Queen’s Day
Every year on that day the Dutch become one family engaging in the grandest and most joyful celebrations of the year. The Queen and her family connect to the public, walking through the crowds, shaking hands, playing games, singing songs, hugging and kissing people, riding bicycles and so on. The Dutch love the royal family. They go about in public with unarmed security guards; they don’t ride in bullet-proof cars… because no one wants to harm them. Until now.

Yesterday, a premeditated act to hurt the royal family occurred when a man in a speeding car crashed through barriers, mowed down dozens of onlookers with the intention to crash into the open vehicle that carried the entire royal family. Only metres away from the royals, the terrorist crashed the car against a monument in front of the royal palace. 5 people died instantly, dozens of bystanders, police, journalists, and camera crews were seriously injured; people and body parts were flying through the air. It was a bizarre scene.

From now on Queens Day won’t be the same any more.