Getting back to our old events … Saturday 19th June, 2010, we will be back in the Tai Pan Hotel for lunch and film.
This time round be ready for the heart warming, life affirming, beautiful Young at Heart.
A true story following a chorus of singers, whose average age is 84. Less spoilers the better, but be assured this is a beautiful film.
And of course the famous Tai Pan Buffet, now at the still reasonable price of 250 baht/head. The buffet has plenty to choose from, including a fair vegetarian choice. You can also make your own pizzas! Part of the aim of our Little Bangkok Sangha is to relax a bit and have fun. This is a chance to meet with some of the other Bangkok expats (and a few Thais too). We’ll all be eating together so everybody should meet some new (and old) people ….
12 noon – meet and eat at the Tai Pan Hotel buffet
1:30 – go up to the meeting room on level 5
2-4pm film and our responses.
4pm – official finish, or stay a bit longer for coffee/chat – up to you.
Lunch price is set by the hotel; and for the room hire we will chip in together to cover the 2500 baht cost.
You are welcome to come just for lunch, just for the film, or both – but hopefully you’ll be here for both – all our Tai Pan gatherings have been fun. You don’t need to book in advance; just come on Saturday 19th.
The Tai Pan is easy to find and get to:
Directions:
Goto Asoke BTS or Underground line. Walk East and go down Sukhumvit 23 for 336 meters (thanks Google Earth). Turn left into the Tai Pan Hotel. Restaurant is on the ground floor as you enter the building. Make sure to come and announce yourself – or they might not give you our discounted price for lunch!
I also have distanced from my parents. Although I can’t say there was ever a time when there was any closeness.
I sincerely hope that the mindfulness training will shape us as we get older, but I am a fan of scientific investigation – and would need some good long term surveys to really be sure.
From seeing people who practise, and how they age, I would say anecdotally that you age better as a meditator. And certainly you are more able to handle the crisis of illness/dying.
The important thing with family is to fogive. That does not mean you have to become friends with them, or suffer abuse of any kind. But in your own mind, we have to have ‘let go’ and ‘let be’.
I remember after watching this film you said whatever the personal trait people have tends to get amplified or aggravated when they reach old age, quoting a caretaker you met at some nursing home in Bang Khae. Does meditation from younger age help attain self awareness that prepares one for old age in this regard? I’m asking this because me and my wife came to agree this is exactly what we’re observing in my mother who turned 70, (my parents live just 15 min from our home in Bangkok), although somewhat subsiding for my father. Unlike most Thais I found that I have distanced myself more and more from my parents as I grow older and I’ve only recently learned from my wife that she complained bitterly about me not coming to visit her. Yet the older she gets the more difficult a person she seems to becomes. I recently gave up on the idea of taking her to accompany us on our next trip to Europe that me and my wife once planned to do before she gets too frail to travel faraway destination.
Jun, any effort you make now will make you feel so much better after they have died.
Thank you for the comments.
My mother stopped dying her hair since last year. Even before that I could tell she got older every time I met her. It’s hard to see my own parents in accelerated aging when they turn 70 and 80. What’s even harder is knowing they’ll soon leave this world maintaining their ignorance. I’ve never bothered to invite my mother to Ariyason for Monday sessions even though they live so close to soi 1.