Giving thanks

This post is a slight departure from usual in that it has nothing to do with archives and not much to do with film.

I've been reading a lot of interviews with Apichatpong Weerasethakul recently about his recently released film Uncle Boonmee who can recall his past lives.  The interviews have really struck me as, as well as coming across like a really nice guy, Weerasethakul makes some really simple but incredibly profound and meaningful statements.  I just like his simple way of wording things and some of his words came to my mind yesterday when I got the terribly sad news that a friend of a friend had recently passed away.  I knew Jose too and having seen him only a few months ago found the news very hard to take in.  He loved Thailand and was planning to return there to live and work so it seems fitting that the words of Weerasethakul gave me some comfort. 

This is the section that came to my mind when I got the sad news:

‘So, we are going to die right, you and I?’ opens Apichatpong Weerasethakul conversationally. ‘One day we are all going to turn to dust. But we will not disappear,’ he adds reassuringly.

‘We just integrate and transform into other things. In classical reincarnation you are reborn into another animal but I believe it’s more like an energy, what Buddhists call a transmigration of souls. The idea we connect with everything: with the sunlight, the Earth, the animals – we are all recycled. That’s what I’m interested in.’

It's not like I hadn't heard these ideas before, in fact it fits in with my beliefs, but I think to read it in the Metro newspaper on a crowded tube on the way to work just really hit home how powerful and how complex these simple sentiments really are.

To finish this post I though I would use a beautiful image which my mum drew, with some inspirational words from Thich Nhat Hanh which she used as the centerpiece.  She used to have it hanging on her bedroom wall so she would read the words every morning when she woke.  I don't have this up on our wall yet but I do try and remember to smile first thing when I wake up and give thanks in that way, through a quick thought and a smile.  

So I just thought that on this day of Thanksgiving in America I would take the opportunity to write a few words to give thanks for love, for friendship and for this beautiful world we live in.  Jose's energy will live on through his friends and family and all the people he has met along the way.