touristy things

HIYA!

I will write about touristy things. I swear. Just not quite yet. Haven't gone anywhere yet. Tomorrow we'll arrive at a border crossing with Cambodia so I'll write about that.

Yesterday while walking I saw a dog in the road. Lying down. Had obviously been hit. As we got closer I could see that it was breathing. I'd never seen a dog dying on the road before. It was really hard to look at. It had difficulty breathing and I could see blood under it's head. I heard it yelp a couple of times. I saw it get up once or twice then fall back down. It was hot when we walked by. Cars and pickup trucks whizzed by, container trucks whizzed by. What a hard way to die.

I felt so sorry for the dog. I don't know that I could have been of any real help.

I thought so of many things. I remembered seeing a kitten in Japan that had had its eyes burned. One of my co-teachers had thought about jumping on it with his boots to put it out of its misery. I remembered when I was living at the temple in Chiang Mai and smashing little moths that flew into the dish-washing water. I killed them thinking that it's better to die a quick deatht than a slow one. I remembered an Asoke monk telling me that we shouldn't interfere with the lives of other things. We shouldn't kill them. They should be able to live out there lives to it's natural end. Without intentional killing. It's a karma thing. But of course, if a person or an animal is dying, and we help, then what does that say about that person or that animal's karma? I remembered how when I was a small kid I'd cry when saw I a dead dog on the road.

I know that I've always been very sentimental about animals. I know that many people say that such people anthropomorphise animals. Animals don't have any feelings, they say. I don't know. I remember years ago a young woman telling me that she once looked into the eyes of a cow and she knew right away that that cow had a soul. It's in their eyes. She was so passionate when she told me. She was drunk too. It's easy to be passionate when we're drunk! I don't know if I anthropomorphise or not, but I don't care to wait until I am fully enlightened. I believe that I did the right thing yesterday in not helping this dog. This is so common. It's an everyday thing here.

Want something touristy? Well, there you go. Something about a "dog's life" here in Thailand. Soon, I'll write about the Thai - Cambodian border town. We're going to Aranyaprathet, in the eastern part of Thailand. Pretty directly east of Bangkok.

Oh, and durian. Soon, I'll write some things about this amazing piece of food.

I'd really like to write about honesty, but, I'll leave that until another time. I like to keep these entries short. This is long enough.

Troy.