  CAS flew across the mystical,
magical Mekong into Laos ... Land of a Thousand Buddhas.
Laos is a country crippled by
decades of disastrous communist-socialist rule and unwitting
involvement in the Vietnam War, but whose people never lost
their faith in the Buddha and who found true peace and solace
in the holy Dhamma.
 Like Lord Buddha, the monks went
on alms round, in silent dignity, that the world may share merit from
their practice and ultimately attain liberation together.
 We ran into a huge Dhamma programme
at Wat Mixay and were so glad to toil more than 10 gigantic
speakers with the novice monks that the Dhamma might be blasted
to the bludgeoning masses later that evening.
 The Venerable Abbot accepted CAS's
offerings of meticulously picked menu ( consisting of pumpkin,
beans, leafy veges amongst other delicious and nutricious substances )
so that the holy Sangha might keep their body for continued
practice for the benefit of the world.
 Holy Green Tara manifested in
our guesthouse in Vientienne and this is probably the one and
only guesthouse with a Tara statue prominently plonked in the
lobby in this predominantly Theravada Buddhist land. As said,
Holy Tara doesn't abandon the nice and faithful or even the
awful and faithless !!
 Our vehicle into the faraway "wilderness"
to help the poor, sick and needy !!
 Far, far, far away to somewhere
into the malaria infested villages ....
 A local Communist headquarters, with
pictures of Marx, Lenin and the Laotian Heads, beaming from
the walls.
We were instructed to declare
everything we had brought for the poor vollagers and so
we splashed our spread of hundreds of panadols, salon-pases,
cough mixtures, books, pens all over their very long creaky
wooden tables until we were told that enough has been displayed
and that we were indeed "cleared" to proceed with our mission
!!
 At the first of our stop, a classic
"sweatshop" with literally thousands of the poorest
villagers huddered together to make Reebok shoes and shirts
for a terrible pittance, the Beings @ CAS and our Communist
escorts were mopped by the workers who came and pleaded for
a myriad panacea for chronic gastric, bloodied coughs, splitting
headaches, month-long insomnia and even vitamins for the
unborn baby !!
We dispensed and dispensed and dug
out even our own asthma medications, our own multi-vitamins,
ginsengs and all until we had absolutely given everything
away. This, as we were taught, is the beginning of Bodhicitta
!!
 Over the next few days, Beings
@ CAS toured many schools, almost all destitute,
but critical for lifting these children and their family out
of poverty. The children's cheerful choruses melted more
than just the chocolates and cartons upon cartons of nutricious
soya milk for nourishment of their little, growing bodies.
The Dharma Propagation Fund ( DPF ) @ CAS, once more, heroically
overspent ... but Everyone @ CAS applauded.
 A village school after class ....
 Schoolbags dropped while eager
hands and legs scampered out to kick balls here and there.
Sigh ... the story never changes.
 Bewildered, shy, curious, happy.
 Old school buses donated by the
Japanese continued to ferry students and bags to schools.
 Desperate poverty exhorts creativity:
children are now bellowed from breaks and into classrooms
with what was once a tyre ... a teaching on the inter-dependent
nature of objects and phenomena !!
 Orphans are dipped into the only
flowing tap and scrubbed clean.
 The familiar, chaotic maths
under the mindful, loving gaze of the Buddha.
 A room full of children surrendered
into the orphanage by deceased parents, single parent or parents
who no longer could afford to feed their own child. Each
is a character, utterly innocent and so very cute.
 The entire school's staff with
our driver ( extreme right ) posing for a heartiest THANK YOU
and BYE-BYE .... for now !!
 Next morning, at the coffeehouse,
near Holy Tara, in serious, detailed talk with an invited university
professor ( one of the very few available who could translate
well ) on how to help more the children ...
 As the Lam Rim taught that all
beings were our mothers, we simply could not neglect fishes
which we are sure even Tara protects and loves.
 Emptying this time, whatever our
Friends @ CAS donated to our Khensur Dorje Tashi Release Life
Fund, many of whom donating with so much trust and hope, and
not all are smackingly rich of course, we emptied troughs and
troughs of mother fishes, days after days, into the raging,
frothing Mekong after struggling them round and round holy
temples with dangerously sagging arms while intoning Namgyalma,
Kshitigarbha, Medicine Buddha, Kalachakra and who else ... the
Biggest Mama of All: Holy Tara !!
 As the Buddha taught in the Heruka
Tantra and other holy texts that lamp offerings allow for creation
of the greatest merits that could then propel us fastest to
Buddhahood, so that we could then, after having become a Buddha,
the apex, climax and paragon of everything good and holy in
the universe, teach countless and countless mother sentient
beings and bring them similarly to Buddhahood, we made it a
stubborn point to bathe almost every temple of note with Lord
Buddha Shakyamuni in it in golden candle lights, never mind
that hot wax frequently dripped and burnt the unmindful fingers
or that the heat frequently bathed us in clammy sweat for the
rest of the long day.
Thankfully and with great happiness,
we inevitably bring in the excited novice or village children
to help out the hapless, devotion-gone-crazy pilgrims from
a foreign land, in lighting the hundreds of hot candles.
Now, everything is brighter and has become even brighter !!
 Wat Ong-tul Maha Wihan: Seat of
the Vice Phra Sangha Lat or the next-in-line Head of the
Sangha of Laos.
 As the Buddha taught in the holy
sciptures of the immaculate virtues that arise from flowers
offered with faith and for the benefit of others ( never for
ourselves ), the Beings @ CAS ordered and plotted for the acquisition
of the most exquisite flowers, perfectly, flawlessly manicured
to offer to the Teacher of Gods and Men and who showed the path
to happiness to all ....
 Sweets for the dirty, little paws
.... packed secretly within are our endless wishes that they
will do well in this life and the next.
 The haunting whinings of an ancient
street musician ....
 Could we not share our
LAotian delicacy with him, so cold and forsaken amidst trampling
tourist legs ??
 But, hungry still, we ordered
one more plate for ourselves, this time, tomato vegetarian fried
rice.
 The local brew of Laotian coffee
turns skimpy beings into roaring machines. Mix these machines with
Bodhicitta, they sometimes chugged louder, stronger and
hopefully with more kindness .....
 Eyes peaked with coffee could
see a vendor sister keeping her baby brother in makeshift
tent to keep out the sucking mospuitoes.
 So, hands peaked with coffee dug
into the wallet to acquire some of the loveliest-ever-seen objects, if
only to support the vendor sis and her baby bro in blue tent.
 Of course, other less cute but
really quite fantastic artworks can also be found by eyes
peaked with coffee.
 When we returned late at night,
we found out that, besides Mama Tara, Heruka Chakrasamvara
had actually also been present all along. Only that it had kept
quiet and silently watched us from a hidden notch just near
the lift landing.
 Hence, we pledged to either die
or drink more LAotian coffee to honour our "sadhana commitments"
of the day. We chose the latter.
 Very happy with CAS and the legions
of generous Frens who pumped money, hopes and wishes into
the DPF and release life fund named our precious, holy late
Guru, a Protector Guardian betrayed his glee when he thought
no one was watching or taking pics.
We got him.
____________
tELL
A fRIEND
"KNOW
DHARMA; SHARE DHARMA !!"
Be
part of our thousand++
"Friends
@ CAS"
( that
belongs to Chenrezig & other holy beings ) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx "I
wanna number my days in samsara. sUBSCRIBE mE NOW
!!"
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