Tag Archives: buddhism

We are currently having renovations done in our ‘new’ home. Every time I watch the builders calculate the square meterage of a floor or wall, I’m reminded how many of us, back in those dim-distant school days, complained about studying maths, and claimed that we “would never need it in real life.” If you talk […]

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Last October, we were heading off on a much-anticipated short trip to Thailand’s North. Ask any Thai about the northern cities of Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai, and they will tell you that they are: “very beautiful! There are many temples.” A non-Thai friend of ours in Bangkok asked what we would see at our […]

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Asian markets are such a wonderful miscellany of contrasting colours, smells, sights and sounds – and nowhere is this more true than in Cambodia’s second largest city of Battambang. Dark corners hide from both the distorting light emitted by flickering fluorescent tubes overhead and the burning glare of sunlight streaming in through openings in the […]

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I love the concept of a “new year”. I always have. As I said this time last year, I like to regard the period between New Year’s Day and my birthday, which follows closely after, as a time of quiet contemplation – to look back over the accomplishments (or otherwise) of the year before, and make some decisions […]

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I’m in a state of flux at the moment: we have just packed up all our belongings in one home and are in the process of transiting to a new home in another country. The Holmes and Rahe stress scale rates this as a reasonably stressful time on a number of counts: “change of residence” (+20); “change in living conditions” […]

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