I've got a lot to say about my studies with Pichest this year. I've got a lot to say about my experiences with some other local Thai healers as well. However, before I do, I want to share a general feeling about Thailand and Thai people.
When Paul Weitz and myself were at Sunshine School speaking with Max, the director of the school, he said something that caught my ear.
He said, "There is a language problem here but it's not what you think. People here speak from the heart and it comes out differently from us westerners who speak from our head." He then gave me this Einstein quote that reads, "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift...and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."
We came across this Thai way of thinking again a few days later when we met Ma Noi, a local traditional healer.
She has some land a bit north of the city where she and her husband live. She wants to give it to anyone who will use it to benefit the people who need help in her community. She wants no money for it. But she wants to make sure the people who take it can work with her and respect the spirit of the land. It was hard to take this in. This generosity. This complete lack of greed or want. We are conditioned in our culture to not trust this.
But when Pichest talks about giving and sharing, that you can't take it with you, he is speaking not just how he thinks people should behave, but what is necessary in order to be happy. That especially in the west, we want and want and take and take, but in truth, we can't take any of it.
And it only creates more suffering inside us as we try to hold onto things that ultimately are not ours. This is the mindset, the heartset of the people here. A people who can immediately sense if you have a good heart (jai dee).
And where the true measure of a person can summed up in that simple statement, jai dee.
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