tjansen

XOL123, on 2012-03-22 22:18:46, said:

Has anyone tried LTP, Learn-Thai-Podcast?  Any comments on it?

Thanks,
Tom

Mario2008, on 2012-04-12 14:32:47, said:

Thanks for the reply.  I got my extension today.

I want to give a little heads up.  Even though you have the thirty-day window preceding the due date for renewing your extension, the letter from the bank and the copied pages of the bank book have to be done within seven days of when you choose to go to immigration.  For example, in my case, I entered the 30 day window on March 26, and soon thereafter, maybe 30 March, I made a deposit, updated my book, copied pages, and got the bank letter, so I would be ready to go..  Today, 12 days later, when I went to immigration, I had to make another 500 baht deposit, and redo the bank book update, copies, and the bank letter, because it was longer than 7 days.

Tom

tommckay1478, on 2011-10-27 13:52:52, said:

I like to answer questions when I see them, if I can.  I felt similarly, maybe not quite as strongly.  My wife at the time told me if I kept drinking, it would kill me.  I replied, "Good, I don't want to be alive anyway."  Something happened along the way, I think it was mainly reading a book called "I'll Quit Tomorrow" which described the progression of alcoholism on the way down, and the progression of recovery on the way back up.  I recognized myself perfectly in the first half and was greatly relieved that I had found an answer to what was wrong with me.  I also decided I wanted the second half of the equation, recovery, and started considered quitting, which I did not too long after that.

By the way, nowadays I don't try to talk people out of keeping the suicide option handy.  I consider it a "safety" valve, the use of which can limit how much a person has to put up with before pulling the plug.  I put saftety in quotes because I have read and heard in Dhamma talks that suicide solves nothing.  It continues in the next life where we left off.  Not knowing the validity of mulitple lives, I hesitate to actively endourage someone to commit suicide.

Thanks for the time.  I have another reply further down, or maybe further up, in this thread.

Tom J

garro, on 2012-03-08 12:11:57, said:

Hello Garro,

I have a favor to ask if you are interested in sharing.  Do you feel that your 3rd Step was a complete surrender, at least the initial 'decision'?  Was there anything at all that you thought of while doing the 4th Step that you decided not to include?  Same question about the 5th Step.

I have started doing AA work with Thais, and I am a Big Book Thumper, probably to a fault.  It says in the Big Book that if we don't do a thorough 5th Step, we might not overcome alcohol.  I have been sober 31 years, but I never had the struggle with a compulsion to drink, even when I resisted doing the Steps for several months, while becoming an emotional wreck (that is how it felt).  We use an alternative approach to reading the Big Book, we put together a 4th Step Workshop, preceded by Step 1 and Step 2 review and a working of Step 3, since my own experience calls for such an approach.  We have been presenting these workshops in Ban Pong, Ratchaburi and for (alcoholic) patients at some psyche hospitals in different areas of Thailand.

I could ramble on and on about feeling free, feeling happy that I finally got myself meditating (Step 11) after deciding to retire in Thailand about 4 years ago for that purpose.

Thanks for the time and any feedback.

Tom J.

rockyysdt, on 2012-04-06 17:07:14, said:

Hello and thanks for the question.

After the retreat at Suan Mokh I came home with kind of an idea I would like to meditate, and I did do some meditation   For me, the retreat, although demanding from a schedule and physical comfort point of view, was fairly relaxed in procedures for meditating and in the daily Dhamma talks, which were done live with an English monk who, while entertaining, was not 'hard-core' enough with facts and techniques for my liking.
On the train home, I met a guy who had been to the same retreat as I, who told me about Goenka--that he had heard a lot of controversial comments about the strictness, the cult flavor of it, etc.  I decided I had to check into this.  So about six months later I attended the first of three ten-day Goenka courses.

One major plus to Goenka, again, for me, is that everything except answering quesions that arise, is presented by Goenka himself, via DVD and Audio CDs, in English.  Some people complained  of the lack of the personal touch.  I enjoyed it knowing I was getting the straight scoop from the original source (of this particular method).

The next thing that happened to get me on the cushion was Goenka's exhortation, at the end of the course, to meditate two hours per day for one year to give this method a fair trial.  I did so (having spent almost 30 years in AA knowing I wanted to meditate and knowing that meditation contained the only lasting answers for me, yet being unable to get myself to do it), and I am still meditating 4-5 hours per week, and missing it when I don't do it.  I readily notice the absence of peace of mind during the day when I skp a day or two, even with wonderful reasons.  Originally I had thoughts about going for enlightenment, but I have abandoned that notion for now, lacking the motivation to devote my major energy to meditation.

After posting this, I just remembered the comment of a middle-aged Thai man at one of my Goenka retreats, who said he had tried various courses, including Suan Mokh and Goenka.  He said he settled on Goenka because Suan Mokh meandered toward the goal, while Goenka was a rifle shot (demonstrated in a languageless pencil and paper sketch).

That is about it.  Let me know if there are other questions.  I will be glad to answer them as best I can.

Goenka's web site is www.dhamma.org.  They have centers in several countries, and all courses are financed only by voluntary contributions from students who have already attended a course.

Tom