Holy Days

I have just returned to the states from a 5 week healing arts adventure in Thailand. My first week was spent in a temple outside of Bangkok. We were greeted by a western monk from Chicago named Fra Frank. He had been living in this temple under very stark conditions for three years. It will take another two years before permission will be granted for him to leave the temple to visit family and friends in the States. We were the first people from America that Fra Frank had seen in a long time. We relished in each others company. He shared his wisdom, challenges, and an opened heart with us. He was joyed to have learned from his father a week earlier that the White Sox had won the World Series. Living at the temple would have been difficult to imagine without him. The wat was not accustumed to western visitors and since none of us spoke Thai it would have been difficult to integrate in the short time we had. Fra Frank is a beautiful, humble man that treated us like royalty. We received meditation training daily: walking and sitting. We were introduced to and given darshan with the Abbot of the wat. He also arranged for master nuns and monks to give Buddhist teachings to us. The wat was very beautiful. The temple housed Buddha relics that were just recently received from Sri Lanka. My first time meditating in the temple I could feel this immense, warm, uplifting energy. It was later I learned about the crystalized bones of the Buddha. It is said that being in the presence of these bones is having a moment with the Buddha. The name of the temple is Wat Sanghathan. Fra Frank can be contacted at: watthan@ksc.th.com. From the temple an over night train takes me to Chaing Mai to study Thai Yoga Massage, Chi Nei Tsang, and to visit an amazing and very special elephant nature park....postings and photos soon to come. This was a healing arts trip Sunny Klabber led. She can be reached at bodyandsolmassage.com