Sharing

📝 🌀In Thailand, we have an ancient Thai tradition, which matches our 'new normal' sharing activity (also evident in some other cultures). I have previously shared the story of how Thai people have always given food and other necessary items to people in need. Since Covid-19 this is even more evident. Today Thai people are going even further, with all sorts of cupboards, boxes etc. filled with food and essential items being placed outside Thai houses and shops, for anyone in need to take. These are then topped up and refilled by those anyone who can afford to, in a continuous cycle of sharing and receiving. 

🎼 The song ‘Love is all around’ suddenly comes to my mind, but then again 'Nah'!! I disagree with my mind this time. This is above and beyond 'love’ (in Buddhist terms), but it IS Kindness and Compassion [refer to Mettra and Karuna in Pali language]

 

🌀My mum used to tell me a story about my grandparents before she was born. My grandparents lived (in Thailand) in a very remote, isolated area, in the middle of nowhere. 😊One day, they received a warning note from a well-known group of bandits, warning that their home would be robbed during the coming week (by themselves!) (this was such a polite and thoughtful tradition of those particular bandits, to warn their victims-to be 😔). However, my grandparents decided to remain at the house, not to leave 😖 and will not resist. 😱 As they had animals which required feeding and presumably they had nowhere else to go - remember they lived in the middle of nowhere. 😓 So the couple stayed. (How brave were they? ☹️ I would have been scared to death and surely died before the bandits appeared! When the day arrived, the bandits turned up at the front gate of the house. Suddenly, the head bandit announced that the group would not be robbing this house (my grandparents’)
(“W H A T “ 😳🙄 !!!)


Apparently, when he had arrived at the house, he then realised that once - a long time ago, this house had provided him with water! In traditional Thai houses, a pottery jug filled with water (looking quite like this one) was placed in front of the house to provide water to passers-by, to any who would definitely be thirsty from walking in the tropical heat. And that's the story

The bandit left without bothering my grandparents 🥳🤩, just because of a couple of sips of water he once had... This true story has been passed from my mum to me, from generation to generation.👩‍👧

🌀This tiny pot reminds me this hundred-year-old story reflects the same generous and the sharing culture that still evident in Thailand today. 🥺

 

Napier, NZ, 17 May 2020


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