News:I have been working on some old projects which need some detail but they are nearly finished.1.Samadhi Chapter will be released in the next few days. Around..15pages2.Paauk Chanting Book (already) translated by Ven Anandajoti has been 96% finished for almost a year! I hope to release it before 2015. Mahanamakara is already on his website ancient-buddhist-texts.net That will show the line by line style of the new book.3. Third Precept Article: "Sexual Misconduct with A Multi-life View" will be released maybe the first or second week in September. It is around 25 pages. The third precept is quite strong and […]

This free software is awesome for making audio books from text files.  Balabolka Balabolka is a text-to-speech program (freeware). This was posted on Google+

Hepatitis VaccinationThe whole monastery has been offered a Hepetitus-B vaccine (nuns and yogis included). I recently had my second dose. According to wikipedia, after the third dose, I won't need any booster and I will protected for life. I could have gotten this when I worked at Bayer on the Advia blood meter, but it seemed like it would take too long and it was said at that time to only last a few years. The 3 dose schedule is only 6 months. This was posted on Google+

Water Cooling TeaA common ineffective way to cool tea is to pour the tea back and forth into two cups. A better way is to use the thermal mass of water to cool your tea. By placing it in a bowl of water that is deep enough to submerge 80% of the cup, the tea can be cool very fast. If you stir the tea with a spoon while sliding the cup in a circular motion inside the water, you will add another exponential cooling factor. The water in the bowl will become warm or even hot due to the […]

Cats really really really love nori seaweedWe were served a huge bag of nori today (now a few days ago) which was impossible to finish. I gave the cats half. They really really really loved it. It looks like two out of four of her newest children (not shown) will survive. The elder daughter is eating with her mother. This was posted on Google+

A List Of The Foreigner YogisSomeone recently asked how many foreigners are here at Pa-Auk and could not find my old post. This is the list from last month. There are probably some more added since all of the nuns were asked to break their Vassa at Maymyo branch to come back here. I would imagine Pa-Auk would have the most consistent largest concentration of foreigner residents in all of Myanmar. I cannot imagine hotels in Yangon consistently having these numbers. I am not sure of Nauyana numbers.I might guess about 20 males and 35 females (at Dhammika Ashram, a […]

She's Got A Ticket To RideI remember when I was in Colombo, Sri Lanka taking a bus in order to renew my visa at the immigration office. In Sri Lanka, they have special coupons for monks to ride on the government "red buses" for free. However, the local buses in Colombo are rarely rarely government buses. A friend told me that if you walk on the first few steps before boarding and say that you do not use money, the conductor will usually let you on. He told me to look at the conductor's face and see if he was […]

This time I asked the lady who was giving out unlabeled pills in the alms food line what it was. "B12," she said.I popped it in my mouth and woke up in the same Matrix just as before. This was posted on Google+

Chanting, Flowers and Possible Origins I found what seems to be a perpetual flower source and have been doing chanting on a regular basis. I have been inviting other monks to join me in my kuti and it now looks as though I may have two regulars. One of the faults of Pa-Auk or Myanmar in general, according to most foreigners, is the chanting style. This is because they have a pronunciation scheme that is different from all other countries. All countries vary a little bit, but not as much as Myanmar. Of course, now that fault is removed:-) Chanting […]

Tears Of JoyI had arranged for a pedometer for Sayadaw U Revata as an idea to get him to walk more. As Sayadaws become more busy and famous, they get driven in a car to where they need to speak or interview and then they sit and listen to interviews or speak for several hours. After that, they go to the next place in the same fashion. They often have willing assistants to take care of their daily duties so they can spend more time teaching. The less they are active, the more their bodies deteriorate. I call this Sayadawitis. […]