PHOTOWALKING

Shoot photos, not bullets. My passion for photography has multiplied over the past year. I cannot leave the house without my camera because I fear that I will miss out on a photo opportunity. Living in Bangkok means LOTS of photographs. Every day there is something new that catches my eye. May it be the elephant crossing my street, or the novice monks receiving food, I must have my camera with me at all times so that I can whip it out and shoot. 

Since photography is now my favorite hobby, I was determined to take as many interesting photos of Los Angeles as I could. Recently, I went on a ‘photo walk’ through Santa Monica in L.A and for once, I was extremely uninspired to take any pictures. The lighting was bad, and there was no action taking place. My mom, my friend Conor and I, walked around, trying to take interesting photos. However, none of my photos were very good, and I was rather disappointed.

However, by the end of the 4 hours, surprisingly I had a lot of photos I liked. 

Farewell

It's Thursday morning, and tomorrow night I leave for Los Angles. I have been very busy running around doing last minute things, seeing friends and packing.

After a long day of shopping with the monk Dhammasara on Tuesday, we managed to buy him a Monk's umbrella and a food bowl. We walked down narrow streets filled with barefoot children, clothing lines, burning fires and aromatic smells to find family businesses selling monk's food bowls. I got to see how they were made and thank god I had my camera with me!

The monk left yesterday- and he is now in Khao Yai in the middle of a forest in a monestary. He spends his days waking up very early in the mornings, meditating, collecting food, eating, sleeping and more meditation. At his departure, he gave me a book which he translated from Thai into English, called 'Reaching The Goodness Within'. He wrote an inscription saying:

"For Anthea, 

With Metta from Jotika Dhammasara". 

I asked him if he was "excited to go live in the forest", and he told me that "he cannot be excited- otherwise he would build up expectations and if his expectations were not met, then he would be disappointed and unhappy". Monks' live in the PRESENT- not the past, nor the future. Maybe we should all think like this because then we would never become displeased or dissatisfied. 

I must say, I have learnt a lot from our monk, Dhammasara. I had various intellectual talks with him, about topics such as politics, religion, culture, beliefs, people etc.

As I said in my first blog, the monk brought peace and tranquillity to our household. No arguments and no raised voices. Funnily enough, as soon as he left we were back to normal. Maybe we should have a permanent monk living with us!?