Inspire from the wisdom of the Lazy Man Lahn, the ethnic minority defender from Vietnam, strongly advised us to meet Oshi: “Oshi is a man of wisdom, a real farmer”! This was more than enough to stimulate our curiosity. We left Laos end of June to meet Oshi in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We had a wonderful talk about happiness. It's very hard to sum up our meeting, synthesize a few hours of discussion and harmonise a bulk of thoughts into an article. We originally came to discover Oshi’s farm, his project and his vision, but the discussion actually turned up speaking mainly about happiness. Oshi shared with us the story of his community, his project and activities, but also his point of view on the system (the societal system in Thailand and globally) and the so-called “modernity”. In this article we want to render some taste of Oshi’s powerful wisdom. Here is an overview of the lessons we remember from our talk:
Happiness lesson 1: Slow down for the earth “Meet me at the lazy man coffee”, said Oshi. We rented a bike in Chiang Mai and drove for about one hour and a half to a remote village in the forest. In front of an open living room made of plain wood, a man invited us to join. Oshi was about to come to meet us soon. A peaceful atmosphere was reigning over there. We took place at the only table. The man told us that visitors barely come more than once a month, some by chance, just like us. A woman was there, she works for a network of eco products’ retail that collaborates with small farmers. As a new employee she had to travel to get to know the farmers. She had not enough words to explain how great the coffee was, but she warns us that it takes time, this is indeed slow coffee, slow culture, “laziness”. The lazy coffee tastes like a little cup of paradise. For us it was like stepping into a dream: drinking a delicious coffee with the beautiful garden behind us, banana trees, papaya, different local fruit trees, and coffee trees indeed. Here we discovered the concept of “lazy” agriculture, slowing down for the earth, following nature’s rhythm. At the lazy man coffee shop we learnt this story about a man that was growing his fruit trees and vegetables in a way that seemed “lazy” in the negative sense, but this man just had to lay down close to the mango tree and wait for the fruits to fall. This man was wise, he would listen to the nature and wait for it to feed him. This man wanted to enjoy bird watch and listening to the birds, so he planted trees. This way the nature would stay healthy and fertile while he was also preserving his energy. Mankind needs to slow down to preserve the earth and preserve mankind itself. On the contrary, intense agriculture exhausts both men and nature, ending up with unhealthy life altogether. Happiness lesson 2: Reconnect with nature Oshi arrived, wearing shorts and the traditional embroidered sweater of the community. He looks young and fashionable, with a gentle face. His eyes and look express a mix of serenity and suffering, a great wisdom emanates from him. His appearance is incredibly quiet, yet you can feel a great deal of energy burning inside him. We started the discussion without real purpose, like strangers, without directions. However we had a gut feeling that something important was going to happen. At some point Oshi asked us what we were doing, what we were looking for. As we explained our trip and its purpose he seemed reassured: we were sharing the same values, we were one. Oshi started to explain his project. People call this project the “Karen village”. He said “Karen” is just a word. Similarly, he explained about the “Esquimos”, that “esquimo” is not their name, merely a name that the colons use to qualify them. They are Inuits, which means “human” in their language. Oshi’s community is named “braponio”, which means human in their language. This is all to say that education and information often does not encompass all the truth, is often not what it says it is, often faked, often with an angle. We need to learn and discover by ourselves. From what we understood, Oshi has a farm here in the village near Chiang Mai. He works together with the community to grow food. He is also an important actor for building a worldwide farmers’ network. He meets and shares with farmers that have the same values. Moreover, he welcomes children and youngsters from all over the world to come to his place and reconnect with nature. What he acknowledges so far is that many western youngsters are depressed, so young and already desperate... These young people have lost or even never experienced their link with nature. On top of that, Oshi organizes agriculture training sessions as well as spiritual training sessions. His vision seems to us to be mostly about reconnecting humans to nature. Happiness lesson 3: Question the system and its “modernity” Oshi shared with us the context of his land, of his community. In the 1960s, by the end of colonization, the Thai government turned towards “modernity” and engaged on a modernization roadmap. Oshi considers that the government put a “western brain in Thai hearts”. For instance, the forest ministry of Thailand was still governed by British people and/or people that studied forest management in western countries such as the United States to apply it in Thailand. At the same time, opium plantations invaded the land, the forests. There has been severe environmental damage but also social damage as many people got addicted to opium. Later, people were kicked out of the forest to facilitate access to corporations to exploit and destroy the forest and the mountain. The brit-inspired government was following the Indian way of using resources, reproducing the damages caused in India. Feel free to read our blogpost about "Pebble Garden" to learn more about how Auroville bio-region went from indigenous forest to desert > https://sustainable-autonomy.weebly.com/blog/discover-auroville-pebble-garden Now the land where Oshi’s community lives is surrounded by national parks. The land is endangered as the state is continuously trying to invade it. The government still wants to take possession of this land, but the community defends itself. This is a serious fight, people are regularly kidnapped… If the land was to become national park the people would be chased. Ultimately this would result in an environmental problem too because the forest would be emptied of the people that know how to maintain it. Actually the community knows the forest, knows how to prevent and manage fire, knows how to protect the water, etc. The government forest policy is inspired from abroad and lacks knowledge about its biodiversity and unique local-specific characteristics. Declaiming the land national park is a harm for both the people living in there and the nature. Oshi is seen as a bad person because he fights against the government. This fight is not only to protect the land but to protect the culture of his community and revive the thai wisdom. “We need to educate people, make them become Thai”. As pointed previously, “modernization put a western brain in Thai hearts”. It needs to be reversed, people need to come back to their roots, unlearn what they have been told. Oshi refuses the politics and the schools’ brainwashing. He refuses the current system as a whole. For him, education in Thailand is bad, children are kept in class to recite and get punished. The system also pushes a propaganda for “modernity” inspired by the western world. Professors would say to the children “you need to work hard at school, not to become farmer”. This is a very violent mindset and violent words that demonstrate a strong disdain for peasants. Unfortunately, we recognize this mentality in our western cultures too, where farmers are becoming less and less and many of them even commit suicide. This system that pushes society to disconnect people from the earth has no heart. People need to trust themselves, trust the land, their ancestors, their wisdom. People need to be able to be critical, to question, to forgive. The school nowadays does not provide the children the environment to grow as human and to understand the nature. In the meantime, the government does not provide adults with a positive environment. People need to step back from this corrupted system and understand what is happiness. "Go home, return home. Go away from the cities, get in community, live collectively.” Happiness lesson 4: “Work with the soil and with the soul” Oshi has been traveling a lot, he has been traveling from farms to farms in several countries, nurturing a network, building strong bounds. For him, happiness does not lay in the amount of money we get. He has been very marked by the people in Tokyo. In Tokyo people have a lot of money but they are very poor. This is a typical example of our society. We live in a sick society where people forget the hand-work and the feelings. For Oshi, happiness is to build your house, to grow your food, to grow your coffee, to breathe the air of the forest… He says “I work only four months per year, during the harvesting season. I have no holidays, everyday is holiday, I don't need money.” This is happiness. “Working with the soil and with the soul.” Oshi receives students as part of a program organized with an American association. Last year he hosted 50 high-school students from the USA. Many of them were suffering from depression. He asks himself, how can children suffer from depression so young. They lose their soul in the city. Happiness lesson 5: Live in accordance with the law of nature Oshi’s village is 300 years old. “My village is older than the United States of America!” Says Oshi proudly and with reason. This is powerful to put it in this terms, powerful words for a powerful idea. Yet after three hundred years living here the nature, the culture, the wisdom are untouched. Can we say the same of America, with its history of disseminating the indigenous populations, with its capitalistic craziness, its #1 rank in resource consumption and pollution? There might be something to meditate here... In the village, there are about six hundred people. Each family has its farm and, for the most part, grows rice. Everybody has a rice bank, this is a security, they know they can eat, that's all humans need. There is no separation between farming and living, farming is not seen as working. People follow the rhythm of the nature, this is the way of sustainable living. They employ heritage farming practices. In this community there is lots of support, of caring, of sharing. Every summer, people gather together in the forest to prevent fire. People take care of each other and of the nature around them. They leave with the nature! Oshi asks, “If the people here were not strong, why the forest is still here, the river is still here, etc. ?” People here “live under the law of nature”, they know the nature, know how to preserve it, they know how to live. Happiness is in the roots, in the wisdom! “You drink water, you need to take care of the water. You eat from the land, you need to take care of the land.” This is the ancestors message. Happiness lesson 6: Embrace suffering As we can read on Oshi’s face, there is a lot of suffering in him, accepted suffering. He told us that “suffering is part of human feelings”, we must accept it, embrace it; it does not bring happiness to resist sadness. Oshi’s community names the earth “the crying land”. As much as trees need water to grow, humans need tears to understand. Suffering is part of the life journey, it has its reasons and its purpose. Crying is the first sign of life. People need to cry together to understand and find solutions. So many people nowadays suffer from depression because they avoid suffering at all costs. We go shopping, eat chocolate, buy the most expensive car, we show off to get immediate satisfaction, to pretend. In fact we are consumption addicts and we hide ourselves under makeup. Deep in ourselves we all experience that consumption does not buy happiness. Yet, in order to avoid suffering, we try to buy happiness through immediate pleasures. We end up neither suffering nor happy, we end up simply depressed, ignorant of our purpose in life, ignorant of our soul. So, what's the way out? Our happiness advice: take your responsibilities Within this sick system, individuals do not have to act like sheep. It is not a fatality to run blindly behind the artificial paradise of consumption. Maybe we should start to roll up our sleeves and be ready to suffer. You know what? Everybody will have to suffer anyway, the system is sick and it will collapse, there is no doubt about it. Nothing is permanent in this world, certainly not finance, capitalism neither oil. It is more than time to stop denying our problems. Stop denying global warming. Stop denying the illness of finance and capitalism. Stop diverting our look from the homeless, the migrants, the orphans. Stop blaming others for pollution, mass extinction, death…
We can all make our own choices, even if it is painful. It is good to suffer for noble causes, this actually makes happy. It starts with little yet powerful steps. There is no point to make a long list of all our harmful habits, everybody can understand that every individuals are responsible and every individuals have the freedom to purchase what they really want. Use your money as a vote, consume for your party, decide the world you want to live in. We do not have to be all farmers, at least not yet. We can be responsible urbanites, we can do our share. We can also become farmers, acquire a piece of land and be happy. It is ok to dream, but then please dream big. We wish everybody would take a step towards happiness, real happiness, and accept suffering as part of it. Thank you for reading, we wish you a happy life.
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