Last month, I lived in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The following is a window into the world I entered – and will continue to explore upon my return just before the Chinese new year – while there.
If I had to use one phrase to sum up my November spent in Chiang Mai, it would have to be, “just say yes.” Saying “yes” became a daily practice as I was given the opportunity, all too rare in life, to go about my days without an agenda. Less than a week’s worth of clothes accompanied me across the globe, and I brought no laptop. My phone remained unused, except to jot down quick notes about the areas I visited and the people I met. Decisions about what to wear, where I needed to go, or what had to be achieved were, for the most part, erased from my mental sphere. I was free to experience each moment as something beautiful in itself, if I allowed it.
And what a succession of fleeting miracles, one after another, for nearly thirty days. Here are a few: walking along the familiar soi (side street) adjacent to my guesthouse, drinking a cup of tea with the rising sun; sharing a small exchange with the older Thai woman who sold boiled sweet potatoes, little jewels tasting like candy that would serve as my breakfast, most days. Meeting a friend on the sidewalk whom I had met the day before, him leading me to an event that same night which would open my heart. Trusting the recommendation of another friend to attend my first Qigong class, only to meet a teacher who would profoundly align with the course of my life’s purpose. Delighting in everything my senses could possibly absorb, only to retire to nap or read at my leisure, deeply resting in mind and body in order to create and perform at open mics, a world entirely new to me, with intention and authenticity.
As I relate this part of my experience, one conversation in particular strikes me. Sitting together in one of the hundreds of Buddhist wats (temples) that adorn the city one day, my monk friend, Bin Bin, said that the meaning of life is simply to “be happy.” When asked how, he said, “If someone calls you a dog, don’t get angry. You know you’re not a dog, so why be angry? Learn to control your mind; then you will be happy.”
What does this have to do with saying yes? To me, saying yes to momentary miracles meant knowing the truth of what was right in front of me. It meant understanding that no matter how many times I had been called a dog in the past, either by others or my own clouded mind, I was a unique human being blessed with the gift to explore, share, and grow with the billions of other human perspectives that, scattered infinite like the stars, make up our world. In Chiang Mai, I lived in complete presence every day, each moment seamlessly unfolding into the next in a sequence of events whose seeds had, unlike pure coincidences, inevitably been planted all along the way.
My greatest experience in Thailand was not riding the elephants I never rode, or petting the tigers I never visited. Rather, it was the constant unraveling of habits by cultivating my intuition, daily. It was learning to say yes without letting lifelong habits – my old dogs – tell me what I did or did not know. I learned to say yes, recklessly. I said yes, knowing my habitual safety nets were the very illusions that held me from pursuing my calling. I hope you, too, can find space in your homes, communities, and work pursuits to keep saying “yes” with courage, intention, and, greatest of all, faith.
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