Forest Recollections

"I stayed [in the forest] for two nights. The first night, nothing happened. The second night, at about one or two in the morning, a tiger came--which meant that I didn't get any sleep the whole night. I sat in meditation, scared stiff, while the tiger walked around and around my umbrella tent (klot). My body felt all frozen and numb. I started chanting, and the words came out like running water. All the old chants I had forgotten now came back to me, thanks both to my fear and to my ability to keep my mind under control. I sat like this from 2 until 5 a.m., when the tiger finally left." --A forest monk During the first half of this century the forests of Thailand were home to wandering ascetic monks. They were Buddhists, but their brand of Buddhism did not copy the practices described in ancient doctrinal texts. Their Buddhism found expression in living day-to-day in the forest and in contending with the mental and physical challenges of hunger, pain, fear, and desire. Combining interviews and biographies with an exhaustive knowledge of archival materials and a wide reading of ephemeral popular literature, Kamala Tiyavanich documents the monastic lives of three generations of forest-dwelling ascetics and challenges the stereotype of state-centric Thai Buddhism. Although the tradition of wandering forest ascetics has disappeared, a victim of Thailand's relentless modernization and rampant deforestation, the lives of the monks presented here are a testament to the rich diversity of regional Buddhist traditions. The study of these monastic lineages and practices enriches our understanding of Buddhism in Thailand and elsewhere.

In 1925, a gold rush exploded in this isolated area of northwestern Ontario. A surge of gold seekers hastened to get to Red Lake. With people flooding in, the provincial government decided to establish a presence. In 1926, the Department of Lands and Forests, Ontario Forestry Branch, set up bases throughout the region. This historic book is produced through research mainly via a series of recollections from those who worked for the “Forestry” from 1926 to 1986. The stories are from forest firefighters, pilots, technicians, supervisors, conservation officers, parks workers, junior rangers and a safety officer. Anyone who has visited or lived in this area will gain an appreciation of the history.

Anecdotal histories from past Forest Service workers. -- Amazon.

Recollections is the result of many meetings with the twenty-eight veterans interviewed, and many hours of editing. The veterans’ names appear in the Contents section of the book. Their stories and their enthusiasm in telling them took me back to those years of uncomplicated patriotism, of courage, honor and glory, and, yes, of loss and suffering. We are proud of them still.

A preacher must have common sense, knowing how to turn everyday life experience into Dharma lessons, and assess an audience to maximize communications with them. "Sons of the Buddha" shows how three boys evolved into remarkable exponents of this ideal. Filled with lively anecdotes and illustrations, and brimming with local color, the book shows how each worked successfully to change moral attitudes and Dharma practices, restore Buddhism's social dimension, bridge the divide between laypeople and monastics, and champion tolerance toward other religions.

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. My life is not dated by years? There are moments which act as a plough; And there is not a furrow appears, But is deep iii my soul as my hrow.?Byron. The change of seasons changed also our mode of living, as well as the places where we then had our wigwam. In the fall we gathered the wild rice, and in the winter ve were in the interior. Some winters we suffered most severely, on account of the depth of snow, and the cold; our wigwams, were often buried in snow. Wo not only suffered from the snow and the cold, but from hunger. Our party would be unable to hunt, and being far from the white settlements, we were often in want of food. I will narrate a circumstance of our sufferings. when I come to speak of the actual condition of our people, before Christianity was introduced among us, which, when I think of it, I cannot but bless God for his preserving kindness to us, in sparing us to hear his blessed word. Soon after being Christianised, my father and another Indian, by the name of Big John, andmyself, went out hunting; my father left his family near the mission station, living in the wigwam. While we were out on the hunting grounds, we found out that some Indians had gone before us on the route up the river, and every day we gained upon them: their tracks were fresh. The river and the lakes were frozen, and we had to walk on the ice. For some days together we did not fire a gun, for fear they would hear it and go from us, where we could not find them. At length we found them by the banks of the river?they were Nah-doo-ways, or Mohawks, from Bay Quinty; there were seven of them, tall fellows. We shook hands with them: they received us kindly. My father had determined to take all they had, if we should overtake them. After they gave us a good dinner of boil...

Travelogue of Eastern United States in the early 1800s.