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The Buddha and his Image
A slide lecture titled ‘The Buddha and his Image’ is to be given by author
and art historian Carol Stratton at Café Pandau on January 27, beginning at
7 p.m. Carol has been studying, writing and lecturing on Thai Buddhist art
for some 30 years, and is the author of the authoritative book ’Buddhist
sculpture of Northern Thailand’.
The lecture will cover two facets of Buddhist art in Thailand; firstly, the
Buddha’s life as it is presented to us pictorially in traditional Thai art
and secondly, the images of the Buddha (statues of the Buddha), the meaning
behind the hand gestures and postures which together relate to his life.
Most of the slides used were taken in Northern Thailand over many years by
Carol’s husband Bob Stratton, who will also be there. A question and answer
session will follow. Tickets are 450 baht, and will include an organic
fusion buffet and a donation to the Single Mothers’ Project. The event will
be limited to 30 guests. This is a fascinating subject, taking in over 800
years of Northern Thai Buddhist art history and its origins from further
back in Indian Buddhist Art, with some very beautiful images shown. For
bookings, please contact by email on [email protected] cafepandau.com.
A brighter world…
Last Tuesday an old man approached the White House from across
Pennsylvania Avenue, where he’d been sitting on a park bench. He spoke
to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, ‘I would like to go in and
meet with President Bush.’ The Marine looked at the man and said, ‘Sir,
Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here’. The old man
said, “Okay” and walked away.
Last Wednesday, the same man approached the White House and said to the
same Marine, ‘I would like to go in and meet with President Bush.’ The
Marine again told the man, ‘Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no
longer president and no longer resides here’. The man thanked him and,
again, just walked away.
Last Thursday, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the
very same U.S. Marine, saying .I would like to go in and meet with
President Bush’. The Marine, understandably agitated at this point,
looked at the man and said, ‘Sir, this is the third day in a row you
have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I’ve told you already that
Mr. Bush is no longer the president and no longer resides here. What
don’t you understand?’
The old man looked at the Marine and said, ‘Oh, I understand. I just
love hearing it’. The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said,
‘See you tomorrow, Sir’.
Chiang Mai cold snap
gets pandas hot
Pornography, a strict diet, and even sperm
donation having failed, it seems that the
unusually cold snap in Chiang Mai may well
provide the answer to a dilemma… the reluctance
of Chiang Mai Zoo’s male panda, Chuang Chuang,
to mate with his female counterpart, Lin Hiu!
The zoo has been attempting to mate the two
since they arrived as Animal Goodwill
Ambassadors from China nearly 6 years ago,
without success. Various novel means have been
tried, starting with the zoo’s realisation that
Chuang Chuang was too overweight to mate, which
resulted in the hapless panda being placed on a
strict low-carbohydrate diet. Unsurprisingly,
although Chuang Chuang lost 7 kilogrammes, he
still seemed to have no inclination to behave as
a panda should when confronted with an
attractive mate during the breeding season.
Probably too hungry to focus on the task at
hand…
 It
might be cold outside but things are definitely
heating up in the Panda enclosure at Chiang Mai
zoo.
Tired of waiting for something to happen, in
2007, the zoo authorities managed to
artificially inseminate Lin Hiu, who,
unimpressed and probably suffering by then from
low panda self-esteem, refused to get pregnant.
In desperation, Chuang Chuang was shown 15
minute film clips of pandas having sex, which
had absolutely no effect. Pandas, it seems, have
notoriously low sex drives, possibly the reason
why they are an endangered species!
However, hope was at hand immediately the
unusually low temperatures hit Chiang Mai,
coinciding, luckily, with Lin Hiu’s mating
season. Chuang Chuang perked up, and was seen
following his mate around—she didn’t seem too
upset about this, either. The pair normally live
in a climate controlled habitat, but the fresh
cold air would seem to have had the desired
effect. The pandas are now being carefully
watched for signs of mating—although we don’t
suppose, considering Chuang Chuang’s reaction to
‘panda porn’, that’s helping a lot either!
Countries, people, Obama and hope
Most of us here probably think of our home
country as our ‘country of origin’ and consider
Thailand as our ‘country of residence’. These
terms are often used in official and
semi-official documents and in media texts.
But…what do they mean? What is a ‘country’?
Perhaps it is easier, and maybe more relevant at
present, to define what it isn’t. To many
people, a ‘country’ is not its government, its
laws, its officialdom or its position in the
world hierarchy—a ‘country’ is its people, its
topography, its culture and its beliefs, and the
effect that these definitives have on each
other.
Which leads us to the next question—the
definition of ‘people’. Essentially, and often
unfortunately, ‘people’, includes the good, the
bad, and the very, very ugly. Good people
ornament their setting, wherever they live, as
does a beautiful landscape, making lives happier
and more rewarding; bad people, of course, do
the opposite. The ugly—we all know what a
destructive effect they have, on lives, on
hopes, on environments, on culture, on belief,
on everything which makes life itself worth
celebrating.
Which, again, leads our questioning further—why,
in the first few years of the 21st century, do
we seem to be increasingly aware of the latter
category, in our everyday lives, in politics, in
the world economy, even in the changing face of
religion? What went wrong? Or it is just that
electronic media is now so common worldwide that
communities in far flung corners which existed
quietly on their own terms for a thousand years
are now dragged screaming into what the West is
pleased to call the ‘real world’? In which, of
course everyone has to be told, with no frills
or favours, that depression and disaster is
galloping towards us like the 4 horsemen of the
apocalypse? Are the truly ugly really in
command? It would seem so.
Every week, the news from governments gets
worse, (please remember, though, that
governments are not countries), a further
financial bail-out in order to rescue yet
another failed bank here, another Middle East or
African conflict with massive numbers of
innocent casualties there, another minority
group, such as the Rohingya, persecuted and
tormented here, millions denied heating in the
worst winter for nearly 50 years because of a
row between two governments there. All reported
in gory and often, (but not in the case of the
Rohingyans), inaccurate detail, right there in
our living rooms, in our newspapers, and on our
monitors. And we keep on reading, viewing and
grieving. Nothing we can do about it, right?
Wrong. Very wrong. Ye Olde English saying…’For
evil to triumph, all it needs is for the good to
do nothing’. Which leads us back to what a
‘country’ is—it’s its people, and, most of all,
it’s the good people. The ones who are not
afraid to shout about what’s wrong—the ones who
will stand up and be counted—the ones who will
not allow things to get any worse simply by
making a concerted effort to make them better.
These are in the majority in any country.
America, for example, has had more than its
share of such, think, for example, of Martin
Luther King and his dream, then remember, (as if
you could forget!), that the USA, right now, has
its first black President. The outpouring of
hope and positivity a week ago, as the
inauguration was watched on television by
countless millions worldwide, could be felt as
strongly by those thousands of miles away as by
the fortunate several millions who stood in the
freezing cold on Pennsylvania Avenue just to get
a glimpse of the new President and hear his
words.
And what words they were! Throughout history,
every time our world has seemed to be sinking
into darkness, an individual or individuals have
found themselves in the limelight, and turned
that spotlight into the illuminating glow of
hope. Such does not happen quickly, the worse
the situation, the longer change takes. But it
does come eventually, because such individuals
have the ability to inspire by their vision, to
share it with the masses. Obama is one of these
people, perhaps the only one in prominence at
present. In his inauguration speech, he did not
mince words, he promised action, swift action,
which is exactly what is needed. It remains to
be seen how tough a job this is for this
extraordinary man, but, for now, the spotlight
has fallen on him, and its glow is illuminating
the positives hopes of the world. Carrying that
light will be a huge burden, but there is only
one way to attack the creeping, (some might say
galloping), negativity which strips the colours
from our world today, and only one weapon is of
any use—positivity! Obama has this in great
measure; it’s up to us to practice it as well,
however difficult it may be. Positivity in
everything we do, in our attitude to negativity
in any of its forms, whether we meet it here in
Chiang Mai, or on the world stage through the
media. In whatever guise it presents itself, we
need to be able to recognise it and negate it by
means of standing up for what we know is right.
Fear is irrational—what could be worse than the
continuing decline we are witnessing today? If
we do nothing, ‘they’ will win, in our own
backyards and in the wider world. Confrontation,
although difficult, is a positive move;
remember, bullies are invariably cowards. We
need to take back our ‘countries’, our lives and
our world, beginning in our chosen city and
reaching out from here to…. Everywhere!
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