It is difficult to take two steps in Bali without encountering an impressive work of art. Stone carvings, bamboo offerings, colorful canvasses, trance inducing melodies, and delicately designed rice fields make up Bali’s endlessly fascinating landscape, and paint a picture of a culture that values creativity, sensitivity and patience above all else.

What comes to mind when you think of water? Cooling, calming, cleansing, refreshing. Sweet, peaceful, beautiful, still. Blue, green, golden, white. Undulating, flowing, frightening, destructive. Stagnant, polluted, frothy, sour. Hot, relaxing, soothing, healing… Water is life’s “mater and matrix, mother and medium”. Water’s true nature is predictably unpredictable, and its manifestations are multifarious and contradictory.

What is health? What is suffering? Why do we suffer? How do we heal? These are some of the questions that a small group of inquisitive travelers and I recently explored during a three-week journey through Northern Thailand.

In my last entry, I used a phrase that I stumbled across a few years ago while I was traveling in Northern India – “wisely selfish”. This phrase, coined by the Dalai Lama, refers to an ancient teaching that suggests that, “one’s own self-interest and wishes are fulfilled as a byproduct of actually (caring) for other sentient beings”. Or as the fifteenth-century Buddhist master Tsongkhapa states, “The more the practitioner engages in activities and thoughts that are focused and directed toward the fulfillment of others’ well-being, the fulfillment or realization of his or her own aspiration will come as a byproduct without having to make a separate effort.”

“Thai Yoga Massage is but a medium that helps us tap into the universal truths that bind us all together.” How much of your success as a massage therapist do you owe to specific massage techniques that you learned in school, and how much of it can you attribute to your personal growth and development?

As the sun crept up the flanks of the surrounding 20,000 foot, snow-capped peaks, I approached the line of villagers that snaked around the small rural medical clinic in Central Tibet. It was my responsibility to talk to the would-be patients while they waited for their one opportunity to see the doctor this month. I inquired about their main health complaints and asked how the clinic could do a better job of meeting their needs; but most people shyly diverted their eyes and giggled at my broken Tibetan, hesitant to respond. I was feeling rather frustrated and helpless until an old woman emboldened by chang, (barley home brew) approached me and happily answered my questions.