Religion is a touchy subject

So lets "touch" it. This entry is based on spending a lot of my tour time at religious sites for a "religion" I have read a lot about and would like to think I embrace in parts of my life, but which I do not knowingly practice. From everything I have read Buddhism should be considered a way of living, a philosophy of life, not a "religion" but hey what do I know?

I distinguish the following for the sake of this blog. And all of these definitions are open for refinement

Philosophy of life- The way you CHOOSE to live based on the observations you have made or the things you are willing to experiment with about the way life works, and the nature of causal events. This can be considered, reverence, and spirituality without having to have a deity

Religion - The incorporation of a deity into any philosophy of life, OR the use of and belief in a deity without having to ascribe to a philosophy of life.

Religion-Inc. - The usurpation of a philosophy of life or a religion by power brokers who use the religion or philosophy to garner power rather than BE the religion or the philosophy.
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Given this, and knowing me, you may start to see that I could easily turn this into a rant about Religion-Inc. That would be a blog-and-a-half on its own. Here I simply want to introduce the distinction and comment on what I see at the religious sites and with the people in Thailand and how it affected me.
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The first thing that struck me when just looking at the people in Bangkok was the respect in their eyes for other people that they didn't even know. Their kindness to strangers, their warmth, easy humor, and presence. Couple that with the leadership espoused by their king, and I thought = hey I could live with these people if I could learn to read and speak a language with 44 consonants, 28 vowels used in three different ways each, and 4 other kinds of sound markings!

The thing that struck me about their religious sites- is that while they tried hard to maintain some kind of reverence, and you could tune into the quiet and calm if you took the time to "sit in the presence of" - tour operators and commercial interests sort of beat out the monks for who "owned" the places.

The great statues of Buddha, the emerald Buddha, the reclining Buddha, the Solid Gold Buddha ( 5.5 tons of solid gold- now there is a thought) and the myriad of Buddhas in various poses all over the place --- Rather than becoming triggers to one's own spirit for quiet reflection or even a call to action, were reduced to icons serving Religion-Inc. I had to constantly lock out the crowds, "erase" their rather crass and annoying comments, stop hearing their lack of reverence for just honoring the symbol as a trigger to a man's extraordinary life, so that I could approach some level of oneness with my own sentiments and calm.

On one level I found it annoying that all of these people were simply there filling up the emotional and aural and visual space with crap "ohhh take a picture of me with God- OK now whats for lunch". On an entirely different level I was amused at myself for being annoyed. And on another level i was annoyed at myself for being amused when i felt I should be clearing out the infidels with the jawbone of an ass- and on and on for many levels.

On balance- just seeing the many level of idiotic consciousness dancing around in me was a gift from Buddha - so something was at work.

When people make religious icons, I see them being used a number of ways. First as simply a reminder, a trigger to stop and reflect in this spot where hopefully many others have stopped and reflected. I also see people simply turning the icons into gods and worshipping them, not worshipping where the icons happen to be and using them as triggers.

In the same way people have turned other people into Gods rather than as exemplars of how humans might live- Notably- Christ, Mohammad, Buddha. To me, turning them into Gods reduces the experience of spirituality and being human. Using Christ, Mohammad and Buddha as triggers to my own humanity - is to me a much more empowering place to be.

Anyhow- here are some Buddha pictures- since that is the primary philosophy of Thailand! Enjoy


One of the smaller temples we visited. All visitors must take their shoes off at all temples. The Thai have this belief that feet being the lowest part of the body are "unclean" in such a way that it is considered an insult to show the soles of your feet to another person - point them in that direction - or point them in the direction of the Buddha images or icons.
Many westerners and Europeans either didn't care about this or were ignorant of it and so have been damned to eternal Buddhist hell for their transgression ( ha ha) The other name for Buddhist hell is "here".






The Solid Gold Buddha












The Reclining Buddha, and a picture of the bottom of his foot with all kinds of mystical symbols engraved therein.



The face of the Reclining Buddha
Me, having climbed to the top of the Golden mount wherein Buddha's ashes are supposed to be stored. I climbed up over 300 steps 3 days after my stem cell procedure. Many have claimed that my boost was psychosomatic. All I know for sure that after 15 years of pain in walking a short distance, I had no pain climbing over 300 steps. So if I had 15 years of psychosomatic pain all I can say is what an idiot I am. I happen to feel that this process actually helped my body heal and eliminated a majority of the pain in doing so. If this process has helped me then it was worth it. Of course I'm still an idiot- some things can't be fixed! By the way I am not in pain I am just squinting into the sun. However after looking at this picture- I need a new face!

Hmm Stem Cell Activism

Bsed on absolutley nothing except that I think the US is becoming a third rate "power" with regard to medical research and leading edge medical technology being made available to the public I started a meetup group in Mountain View.

Come join the meetup group if you are close.

Topics of discussion
1 Personal stem cell anecdotes-how have they affected your life
2 Stem cell treatments now available.
3 Stem cell studies going on around the world
4 Link up to other stem cell groups.
5 WHat it will take to convince/coerce our current health care system to use existing safe stem cell processes NOW
6 Identifying the real quackery in this whole area (and it is rampant)

Click here to check out
The Mountain View Stem Cell Meetup Group!

Thai Cultural center

In many respects you have to look at the Thai cultural center like the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. It is a place for the performing arts in Thailand hence the name Thai Cultural center. It also has a lot of decorations and even a small hall of antiquities from the Thai people's colorful past. However for more real information on the indigenous culture, the museums and of course the people themselves are funds of knowledge.

Some of the pictures here are of the outbuildings of the cultural center, a pond that was being de-scummed and restocked by the yellow shirt brigade (yellow is the color of the Kings birth- day) for the king's visit, and a small koi pond with highly allergic fish being separated in plastic bags so they didn't catch something from the humans ( ok ok that wasn't the reason but it was a good guess! )

The center was touting the farewell performance of Dame Kiri Te Kanawa a singer of world renown - yet largely unknown out of operatic circles.

Trip to a cultural event

Hi all -- This brief evening trip was suggested as a way of getting a flavor of Thai culture, people etc. It was all very nice, but in the end just a huge stage show, much like you would find at the Polynesian cultural center in Hawaii etc etc

This is not to say it was bad to go there - but I think there are much more authentic ways of getting involved in Thai history, culture and life. For what it was- it was ok, and the stage show was intensely Hollywood- complete with some astounding special effects- like a complete river running through the show, elephants wandering through the audience, people flying all over the place on wires, and a Guinness entry about having the tallest stage in the world- which confused me until I saw all the people flying on wires from about 80- 100 feet up in the air!!



We were not allowed to take pictures in the show- but here are some pictures before and after the show and in their " typical" Thai village- which actually did introduce us to some of the things and styles that felt more authentic including silk moth management, raw silk creation, and looming etc.

Some Thoughts on the Procedures

• I went with http://www.theravitae.com/ and its associate http://www.vescell.com/ because their processes emulated a natural body process which goes like this - When there is a damaged part of the body it sends out some kind of chemical or neuronal or hormonal trigger (something) that kicks the body's own reserves of stem cells into action. These move from the bone marrow to the blood stream and follow these "chemical markers"" to the site that is complaining and then do a repair job.
• Actually- you have about 1,000,000 circulating stem cells at any one time.
• The only difference between what my body would normally do and what happened here is that they focused about 25 times the number of stem cells that would be floating around my WHOLE blood stream at any one time ( about 23 million) into several tiny areas of my cardiac arteries ( which means it was like 10,000 times more concentrated) and they first stressed the cardiac system a bit by restricting the blood flow ( with a balloon catheter) so that the heart would start to complain at various areas and send out chemical markers. Then they released the stem cells which were right there and went to work immediately.
• They don't claim to know the whole mechanism of what works - only that what they do works in about 75-80% of the cases! They have demonstrated this time and again for over ten years of research and over 4 years of clinical trials with live patients.
• American clinical trials are proceeding very slowly and are doing things like double blind studies ( which severe cardiac patients really cannot afford to go through). The US trials are debating the advantages of getting stem cells from the ones floating in the blood vs. the ones in the bone marrow - etc etc etc. And arguing about exactly what triggers them .
• Many of us cannot wait for US research teams to count the number of hairs on a fruit fly's butt and see how it correlates with sun spots and mad cow disease. It is sufficient to know that there is a high correlation between what TheraVitae and the Doctors at ChaoPhya Hospital do and the results they obtain. The detailed researchers can figure it out and help these guys refine the process even more.
• There is also a product call stem enhance that I am taking and sell - that is about 1000 times cheaper and releases stem cells into the blood stream - although at a lower rate- ie only about 25% more than you normally have floating around. Also they just float around at a higher concentration but aren't particularly concentrated in any one area until you stress yourself. TheraVitae gets the stem cells from the circulating ones and then puts them through a growth cycle for a week that multiplies them to 23 million or so.
• I am taking StemEnhance as a maintenance program for the good benefits I already have! It seems the only advice you get from any doctor these days other than take a bucket of pills is: 1 Lose weight; 2) Eat low fat; 3) Get exercise. I do all that already so i looked for other nutritional things to help me.
• I have 2 websites you can look at- the retail one http://www.stemcellhealthy.com/ and the business site http://www.stemcellhealthy.biz/ in case you want to consider this for a business too.
• Now all that said some people have commented on the level of medicine in Thailand vs anywhere else. I can only comment on Thailand and US and India. All of the doctors I saw or that worked with me were board certified in the US and had worked for some time and trained for some time in the US and in other countries. Several of the doctors were board certified in several countries. IE they know what the hell they are doing.
• I found the doctors here in Thailand to operate on a much more human and humane level than many of the doctors in the US that I had. IE they took the time to make sure you were ok, were settled in before the operation, could communicate with the staff etc. The staff were much more present and personable than many I have had in the US and seemed to operate in a way to keep you at ease vs running around with a harried look. Perhaps it was the patient loading or perhaps it was that most of the Thai people I met were entirely people oriented and took genuine interest in you even if you couldn't speak their language.
• Much of the equipment is 10-20 years out of date compared to what you can find in a US hospital- but it is by no means any cause for concern. For example, the blood pressure cuffs are often these little cases with mercury tubes in them that are carried around- so what - they work fine. The ekg machines often use these little suction cups that sometimes don't stay on so well - but they take the same information the other kinds do.
• The MRI machine - i cannot comment on except for its size -- I am a big guy and getting into one of those older MRI machines was a true sausage stuffing contest. Its a damned good thing I am not claustrophobic. Two indications as to how tight it was: A) when the blood pressure cuff inflated fully while i was in the unit- it squished the rest of me so much i couldn't take a deep breath. B) When i was pulled out of the unit I was wedged in so tight I couldn't move so I ended up scraping my elbow enough to draw blood. I could not suck in anything to get it out of the way.
• Blood draw- These phlebotomists are expert with needles- they don't use indwelling catheters except for longer procedures like the angiogram. They hit the vein the first time and don't use those little vacuum bottles to suck things out of you but use an old fashion syringe and they work fast and effectively. Plus there is a nurse to hold your other hand- they are big on human contact and it does make a difference in terms of the relative connectedness and calmness of the client - me.
• There seems to be a lot of waiting around once you check in - and tests, and other things- but then they need time to observe you see how stable you are and otherwise do their own assessment of your ability to tolerate the procedure. This takes time and at least you get to be in comfortable surroundings when they do that. After all you have to remember the people that show up here are not in the best of shape. It would be sheer folly to simply rush them in suck their blood out and then push them back to the hotel and equally - drag them in a half hour before the operation.
• They even have pajama like hospital clothes so your butt isn't always hanging out . The only time they go to the gown is just before the angiogram.
• The only surprise and one that initially bothered me but then didn't was that an hour before the procedure they gave me a valium- which is normally what people get to start to slow them down before the major anesthetic. Surprise!! the only anesthetic they use is a local in the groin which surprisingly is all I needed. They need to keep you alert enough to be able to give them feedback on any symptoms- remember they have to stress the heart a bit so it will put out those markers that attract stem cells. At no time did i feel at risk or under stress and i did notice some discomfort as they were poking around but nothing alarming.
• I had one tortuous artery that took them a long time to navigate and luckily for me they did since they found something that my doctors back home missed entirely!
• I noticed the hospital meals weren't exactly the kind that are tied to your conditions that I have come to expect in the US hospitals. You could pretty much order what you wanted. If you were dumb enough to order a cheese burger and a malted then you probably deserve what you get !
• Blood pressure and temperature taking time was an event. A troupe of people came in and fussed over you then left.
• They actually let you sleep through the night!

I felt better 3 days after the procedure. Some people take shorter or longer. Some people actually called me a liar when I mentioned how fast I felt well. All I can say to them is I'm sorry they didn't have the results I had - but to deny me what I know and feel is mean spirited and ignorant at best. Further their opinion of my internal landscape means nothing to me and perhaps makes their blood pressure higher than it needs to be!

If anyone has any questions feel free to ask - next on to more pictures!

Wat's this? Wat's that - every where a wat wat

Wat is Thai for temple. There are hundreds of king's temples and hundreds of rich people's temples and temples everywhere you can turn here. One of the blessings of money is that you should create a temple if you have money. So many companies, wealthy people, foreigners who have businesses here etc create temples about as fast as you can say Phuket.

There are however several famous Wats we visited. We visited Wat Po, The temple of the emerald Buddha, the temple of the Gold Buddha, the temple of the reclining (not sleeping) Buddha.

Some flowers of Bangkok

Here are several pictures of flowers I have found around Bangkok. They seem to love roses, orchids, lotus and frangipani as well as many others they use to weave garlands. I found a lot of these orchids in Jim Thompson's garden. Jim Thompson revitalized the Thai silk industry in the post WW II era. His house is in an unassuming industrialized area smack in the middle of the metropolitan maps of bangkok they pass out- down a dead end street marked by dozens of cheap trinket sales men, tuk-tuk cabs, and one dinky little sign that if you aren't coming from the right direction you will miss.

Luckily enough most of the people you meet along the street recognize you to be a nut case looking for Jim Thompson's house- otherwise why in hell would a foreigner like you hang out in that neighborhood. They are only too happy to point you to the right direction and as well extol the virtue of their gems, jewelry, coconut drinks, fried bananas, and god knows what else- all with a smile and all taken with no umbrage when you refuse.

It turns out that Jim Thompson has an annual silk sale and we happened to be in town for it. For those of you from the east coast who have gone through Filene's basement sales- this was sort of like that except everyone was a foot shorter than you and going at twice the speed you are capable of! Also its huge- they rented out a complete hall of a convention center called Bitec, ran free shuttle buses to it, had kiddy town in side, gurads and people on patrol all over the place. More on that later.

This a very humid and smoggy climate right in Bangkok. The typical temperature while we have been here is around 87 in the day time and about 80 well into the evening. There seems to be no shortage of water, and the drinking water is remarkably good. Skin, hair and epiphytes love this climate. The only similar growth in orchids I have seen is in Singapore where orchids bloomed on stalks of 10-20 feet in length while at home all I could get was a measly 10 inch stalk on orchids of the same kind.

Thailand has a rose garden festival here too. What is most interesting though is a few days before the kings birthday trucks load (and i mean in the tens to hundreds of thousands of plants) of marigolds- yellow the king's birth color and one of his favorites- started to come into the city. Hundreds and hundreds of city workers built special presentation gardens all along the main street- the ROYAL Avenue - between the King's formal palace ( the one everyone can visit) and his private residence palace a couple of kilometers away. Every public park had marigold displays, every tree had yellow ribbons, evey store had marigold displays, every subway had marigolds. The whole place was a yellow blitz. Further hundreds of other workers simply cleaned the routes the king was likely to take through the city- more on that later too.

The Day After -- Dec 12th

You all may be getting this on Dec 11th. Last night after my nanites flew all the way from Israel and arrived at 4pm I had a 3 hour procedure not unlike an angiogram done with only a local anesthetic- boy was that news to me!!- the last 2 angiograms at us hospitals they knocked me out for the most part.

The 3 doctors placed 23 million of my stem cells in the parts of my heart that needed regrowth the most. They couldn't use angioseal since I just had a catheterization last month so the cardiologist himself came by after 4 hours of compression bandage, removed the catheter and spent the next 35 minutes himself applying pressure to the artery- no stinking clamps for him!!!

This morning I am up and around an perky- not having to wear off too many drugs. The spooky part was I was so awake I got to watch the whole process- not for the faint hearted. It turns out that awake patients give valuable feedback while tracing out areas that need assistance.

Any how the implantation phase is over and the next phase of recovery and improvement is ahead of me. The medical team here is better than a couple I could mention at O'Connor hospital- but I wont, and they all take an interest in you because that is who they are!.

A couple more days of recuperation and we are home next Tuesday. Darlene barely survived it :-) and was a great help to me even with all the support from the nursing staff here.

Thanks for all your support- now on to more hijinx!!

Some Travelling and pictures Dec 2

Double click any of these pictures to blow them up!~



Lobby of Swissotel




OK now to catch up on some sight seeing! To the left is the Swissotel Le Concorde, and below is Darlene on the front steps of the hotel-- ready to go far a little walk to find the local 7-11 ( for real). Note to the left Caesar's is a high end private night club - men only - invitation only- std's free.










The grand palace also houses royal temples and a royal monastery of the emerald Buddha.


Entrance to the Monastery part. The emerald Buddha is one solid piece of JADE not emerald carved into Buddha shape. It was " found" in 1434 AD.

Outside the main gates







Wandering around the grounds





Looking around the monastery compound







Me daubing some water on my head in front of the temple of the emerald Buddha. People use a lotus flower to daub water on themselves in order to get good luck.





The main internal monastery square the building ahead houses the emerald Buddha.











Here we are at the entrance of the "grand palace". This is the king's ceremonial palace and is open to the public. His Home is another palace about 2 kilometers away and surrounded by guards carrying ak-47s and you cant see anything from the street except the barracks.







Here is a picture from one of the murals lining the monastery walls.






This is a bigger view of one of the temple stupas.