Do good and it will be returned to you. If it misses you this lifetime it accumulates for the next.

There is a general misunderstanding of what is meant when Thais go to the temple and "make merit" (by freeing a bird or giving food to a monk). They dedicate the merit they are making to a love one that has passed on, they are not accumulating merit for yourself. The merit you make for yourself is in the ordinary way that you "paddle the boat down the canal" as you go about your daily life.

It captures perfectly Thai cosmology, it is not something that they believe "in" but that they absolutely understand to be true, kind of like the way we "believe" in gravity.

I came across it as one of the sidebar picks while viewing an entirely different video.

I know you know these cultures better than most here.

Thanks!

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... in the first place.
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This reminded me of my cousin -- my godmother, hero, mentor, role model and
friend. She got her medical degree in the 60's (probably one of 6 women among
hundreds of men in her class). She worked her ass off, practicing emergency
medicine in three ER's simultaneously. She decided to specialize in Nephrology
and eventually was sold a partnership in a small medical "corporation" for $1(!!!)
by a doctor who admired both her work ethic and her work. She lived with her
partner MaryAnne for over 25 years, from college until her untimely death in her
late 40's.
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She may have been the last physician in Philadelphia who accepted produce from
patients' gardens, often to her partners' consternation. What they DIDN'T mind
was the fact that she would pull the "on call duty" for her group on ALL holidays
("I'm the only one without kids&quot .
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Thanks for bringing up fond memories of her.
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What a sweetheart!

There have to still be people like her, don't you think?

I think there are.