Sisa Asoke

I just spent four days at Sisa Asoke, a self-sufficient (read sustainable) Buddhist village, at least 8 hours east of Bangkok, and about 30 minutes from the Khao Pra Wihan Angkor-era temple in Cambodia, (but that is another story....That story being that I also found myself in the middle of a border dispute...maybe I'll get into it later....)

Anyhow, Sisa Asoke was absolutely lovely, and the people even lovelier. Exceptional human beings. I don't have a camera, but they lent me one for the last few hours that I was there ~ someone should be sending me the pictures, and then I will put them up. The village itself reminds me of the little communities on Ward's and Algonquin Islands, on the Toronto Islands ~ except that the houses here are almost all on stilts. The community started in about 1974, when some monks camped out in a cemetary and started giving Dharma talks to local people who came to them asking for winning lottery ticket numbers. The woman who met me at the bus and gave me a tour of the community was born in 1974, and her parents became involved with the community in 1974, so she has basically been involved her whole life. The first thing they built was a temple, then, in 1987, they built six houses (the 'houses' are adorable); at the end of "Lent" that year (the end of September) twelve more houses were built and the population of the village was forty. This put a serious strain on their resources, such that they had to cut their bananas into four in order to feed everyone. Around this time, they were also seen as a crazy, communist cult (this at a time when Thailand was fighting communist insurgents in the north-east) and avoided by most people in the area.

In fact, some people would argue that their philosophy and way of life is close to an ideal form of communism, but it is based for them strictly on Buddhist principles. In fact, they have developed a philosophy of life called "buhn-ism" ("buhn" is the Thai word for 'merit'), and contrast it with capitalism in their writings. "Tam buhn" in Thai means to "make merit" (ie to gain karma points for the next life) and most Thais make merit by going to the temple on holidays and giving food to the monks, or paying for a roof tile to help maintain the temple, or making offerings, this type of thing. But the Asoke people believe (quite rightly, I think), that this is a superficial view of merit-making, and that really one should be concerned with making merit on a daily basis, through giving to others and helping others whenever one can, with no expectation of reward. Their whole community is built on this philosophy, and I must admit that they seem to be very good at it individually as well. While I was there

1) I did not pay for my room or food. They will not accept donations from anyone until they have visited the community at least seven times, and are sure that they understand who they are giving money to.

2) The woman who runs the soap and shampoo-making shop asked me to come and help her so she could practise her English (and me my Thai :) She gave me a bottle of shampoo, a bar of soap and, the next day, her scarf. She is also an absolutely delightful woman (not because she gave me things! :)

3) When the woman who picked me up from the bus saw that one of my sandals was broken, she took them into town with her the next day and had them fixed.

4) She also brought me some DVDs and a DVD player so I could watch them if I wanted to.

I'm sure if my mother is reading this she will be cringing ~ please, tell me you hid money in their pockets, Nyree! Oh ~ although this list is by no means complete, when they took me to the bus station to go back to Bangkok (two people) one of them said 'Oh! I have a gift for you! I forgot it at home!' and the other one said 'Me too ~ I wanted to give you something, but I didn't know you were leaving so soon!' to which....I mean, Wow, people.

But aside from listing how I benefited from this trip, and perhaps showing what a perfect ingrate I am (in return, I spent a few hours helping to make shampoo, which was really fun, taught English for about an hour and a half, and maybe taught the shampoo-lady a few more words of English....) I must admit that this philosophy of 'buhn-ism' (working hard in order to be able to give to others) is very enlightened. I guess I'm stating the obvious.... I mean, yes, I obviously benefited personally more than they did....but it doesn't take a genius to see that if everyone acted like this the world would be a wonderful place. It is in all the major religions "Do unto others....", and in the 'Conversations with God' books "God" spends a lot of time trying to drive home the point that we should do unto others as we would have them do to us because 'they' are actually us, we are all One. It's one thing to read about it and think about it, tho', another to see it in action (and yet another to do it yourself).

The members of the Sisa Asoke community all do different jobs - they make soap and shampoo, organic fertilizer, mushrooms, rice, vegetables and fruit ~ they are presently planting bio-fuels in order to be able to power a generator to produce their own electricity. In all things their philosophy is to first create what they need for themselves, to be self-sufficient, and then to give away (or sell cheaply) any extra. They will not charge more than 15% more than their cost for anything they sell. I spent $3 for two large bottles of detergent, body-wash and a box of seeds, which even by Thai standards is remarkably cheap.