Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!
This pretty much sums up my source of happiness. Always question what makes you happy and what doesn’t. It is easy to get caught in a paranoid net. Every decision comes with problems. But you can’t let them stop you. Knowing the difficulties but still sticking to what you’ve been dreaming of is where your soul and spirit lie.
Always swim against. Only the dead fish go with the flow.
The Myth of Headless Buddhas
3 months ago I did a Thailand-Cambodia trip. The most striking experience was with all the headless buddhas. I found them in Ayutthaya, the second capital of Thailand, and also Siem Reap, Cambodia.
I was reading the history outside the temples, and also I looked it up on the internet. The truth is when Ayutthaya, once a strong Siamese kingdom(1351-1767), was invaded by the Burmese army, they destroyed almost all buddhas and beheaded them. But Burma also believe in Buddhism. Why would they chop all the heads from the buddhas?
Biking around this ancient city and looking at those headless buddhas was really a journey travelling back in time.
A buddha head buried in the tree, Ayutthaya.
The same fate was shared by the buddhas in Cambodia. It was pretty surprising to see the same thing in Siem Reap, mainly in Angkor Wat temple. But the story is different. The buddhas were beheaded by the local people themselves during the civil war. They did it to extract the gold inside.
Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia
Most of the sculptures were destroyed.
It was my first time seeing all the headless buddhas. Thailand and Cambodia are to me countries rich in history and religion.
When life puts you in hell, come back with an army of devils
In the city of Bagan, Myanmar, 15 is the age when all the kids have to go to monasteries. In fact, to really become a monk, those little monks wanna-be have to study the buddha language since they are young. Tough job huh? In order to become something that you probably don’t even want to be, you have to abandon all the imagination and follow what everyone else is doing.
This burmese kid lives in a village in Bagan. I met him the first time when he was trying to sell me his sand painting. I did, and gave him a bag of breads. The second day I biked around the city by myself visiting a village there. Turned out he lives there and I ran into him and his friends. He was so excited and showed me the temples for the whole afternoon.
Little monk, that’s how I called him. He was pissed, but smiling. I asked if he wants to be a monk. He said no. He wants to do business and skip all those monastery thing. But it’s hard, at least to a young child like him. But as I knew he has already started doing his small business, selling sand paintings that he made by himself, and toured foreigners around the temples and got paid for it.
He’s little. But he’s definitely a smart ass. Trust me, because he got me asking for money when he showed me temples and the whole day which I thought was out of our friendship but turned out was because he wanted to sell out his postcards. He’s also a cool kid, with his stickered bike and music player on it.
He was so excited playing my phone and checking all the photos.
His smile was so true and genuine I almost forgot I come from a big city and am living my life in a comfortable way. I felt for him because I perfectly knew that he doesn’t like his life, at least not in that way. And he wants to do business instead of getting sent to the stupid monastery as he thinks.
But the thing is, and what I learnt from this is, every now and then, life is gonna push you around. Life will only push you in the direction same as the crowd’s. Some people follow. Some don’t. But for those who beg to differ, life will sound hard and it really will be.
The question is, should we follow? or do we have to?
Think about it. Think about the way you’re living your life. Think about all the daily stuff you’re doing. All the materials you’re owning. Do you want them? Do you want to live with this? Probably not. But as far as I know, life is a bitch, most of the things it gave you come with a tag. “Security”. We need security that’s why we don’t usually change anything, or simply step on the footprint of the person in front, to make sure no danger ahead.
Right now you should’ve realised you don’t have to follow anyone else. What you really want to be on? I bet 90% of the time what you want is definitely not what the people/crowd are doing. Not doing that makes you look awkward and different. What we’re born to be already defined the cover of our life book. Don’t you want it when everybody’s book shares the same cover, same content and most of the pictures, you have that one page you create for yourself? That page you actually feel like you can fill in anything you want, put things in the order you like.
Every now and then life is gonna push you around. But you bounce back, with faith, with the belief that you can excel just like everybody else does. But the way you did it would be different. Don’t let the majority scare you away.
Even when it seems like the lowest point in your life, even when life puts you in hell, come back with an army of devils.
Don’t be negative. Stay positive
(It happened when my flight from Manila to Kuala Lumpur got delay for almost 12 hour, and me getting stuck at the airport.)
Everyone has a different mindset.
Things we think to be very problematic, may not be so bad for others.
But there’s always this rule that applies to everyone who is chasing peace,
“stay positive.” This girl said. I was first very mad at them and trying to push them to speed up everything so that I could be guaranteed a confirmation for my flight. I thought they were mad at me too.
After some minutes she showed up delivering dinner from a local restaurant. At that moment it could seem to as many as people, weird. Very weird because we were sitting with the airline staff on the floor of the airport, having chicken rice. In the meantime I feel like myself the worst person for pushing them the whole time, when they actually care.
A different mindset can see a strange behavior normal. To them, every single problem seems to be okay. Because they stay optimistic. This is kind of what I need now. Learn not to get mad everytime from the beginning. Try to accept that everyone thinks differently.
Mindfulness backpacking 