Perspectives...

PP was a comfortable mix of Buddhists and Muslims. The Thai people I met in general are a giving, content and quite serene people. They have been amazing since the disaster, quite honestly offering tourists the shoes off of their own feet if they had lost their own, volunteering to drive people in their cars from the disaster centre in Phuket to visit friends and relatives in hospitals from Phuket to Nakhorn Si Thammarat, to the temples and mosques being used as temporary morgues, to Krabi...The list of selfless acts is endless. These are not a rich people, and many of those giving and helping had lost so much themselves, their homes, their businesses, members of their family. Some of my Thai friends have lost as many as 11 members of their family(Ae, Heidi and Lavoy), yet they were still there for others, translating, getting food,etc. Even now, 6 weeks later, many Thai people in Phuket will come up to farangs (foreigners) and apologise for the waves.

Their advice to my friends (almost all of whom have remained in Thailand) is not to think about it, that life must go on, to concentrate the mind on the present moment, not dwell in the past. In particular the Buddhists appear to be coping admirably, their beliefs and perspectives on death being that it is like sunset, it isn't the end. There have been many ceremonies held in the effected regions to ease the journeys of the deceased and provide comfort to those left behind, many of such ceremonies being inter-denominational. The Thai Buddhist belief system still contains elements of animism, from before Buddhism was prevalent, and there is strong beliefs in spirits. Whether or not these are your beliefs, the symbolism of the ceremonies has been a beautiful moving and comforting experience to many. Around the Phuket and Krabi region, one white rose for each of the deceased was sent floating out to sea a week after the event. Many of my Thai friends requested that I place a candle in each of my windows to light the way for those souls that were lost and confused. Huge gatherings of over 10000 people were held, each person holding a candle in glass lantern, listening to the monks chanting and blessing those lost. Then hundreds of lit canvas lanterns were released floating up into the night skies, again to light and guide the way for the spirits on their journeys. I hear also that in many regions walls of remembrance have been erected, and are surrounded by gifts, incense and food.

Much of this is necessary in the Thai collective consciousness, since there remains a widely-held view that if our lives are extinguished too early, or in horrific circumstances then our spirits remain here. The ghosts or spirits of those deceased walk around, sometimes not knowing they are dead. Many press articles have reported mass-sightings of such ghosts since the tsunami, but being primarily western fit this into our frame of reference as being post-traumatic stress or mass hysteria. Many of the volunteers collecting bodies and clearing the debris from pp refused to stay there overnight having heard farang ghosts calling them to join the party,"since they do not know they are dead, and think they are still on holiday". Similarly in Phuket, voices are heard calling for their children, sometimes screams, sometimes parties of ghosts getting into tuk-tuks asking to be taken somewhere but on the drive disappearing. As such cleansing ceremonies have been undertaken, monks are frequently called upon to bless and chant at the beachfronts, and the Thai people work hard at meritious acts (the making of good merit) for those passed to improve their condition.

A typical Thai Buddhist funeral is a beautiful occasion, where those present must try not to be upset as then the spirit of the deceased will want to stay with the living as they are sad. There is music and fellowship to banish the sorrow, and the belief that the spirit has learned what it had to from this lifetime, and will re-incarnate, therefore the sunset. The bodies are burned and the spirits released, set free to rise with the smoke.

Some Buddhist phrases of resonance at this moment:

"If you understand, things are just as they are. If you don't understand, things are just as they are"

"Sit through it, and let go of everything"

"No thought, no reflection,no analysis,no cultivation, no intention, let it settle itself"

"Pain is from within, not outside, it is your own state of mind"

"Let everything go where it naturally wants to go and you will always be successful"