Soon after my first learning experiences in Thailand, I received private instruction from Kira at her school in London. She was the first person in the West to help me integrate the Eastern approach to learning that I had received in Thailand, and I am grateful to have received her insights and expertise.

My experience with Kira led me to study with her teacher, Asokananda, who did much to preserve traditional Thai medical practices. Sadly, he passed away just weeks before holding his workshops in Montreal. Two of his senior teachers were sent in his place, and I was fortunate to learn from them both.

After Asokananda's sudden passing, I decided to go back to Thailand to visit the Lahu hilltribe village where he had conducted research and taught courses. There, I had the privilege of assisting Itzhak in a beginner course, and through this experience I learned the value of taking on the "beginner's mind" when teaching and practicing this therapy.

It was Itzhak who first told me about this blind therapist working in Chiang Mai. So, after my time in the village, I went to experience Khun's work for myself and later began to study with him privately. His heightened sensitivity and precision in applying this form of therapy has had a profound impact on my approach as a practitioner.

When the timing was right, I returned to Thailand again to be in the presence of this Thai Master, and I was blessed to receive the wisdom of his integrated approach - body, mind, spirit, and nature - to the practice and teaching of this branch of traditional Thai medicine.

My gratitude for the enduring gift that he shared with me has no measure.

"Siddhartha reflected deeply as he went on his way. Something was no longer in him, something that had accompanied him right through his youth and was part of him: this was the desire to have teachers and to listen to their teachings.

Slowly the thinker went on his way and asked himself:

'What is it that you wanted to learn
from teachings and teachers,
and although they taught you much,
what was it they could not teach you?'

And he thought:

It was the Self - the character and
nature of which I wished to learn.
I wanted to rid myself of the Self,
to conquer it, but I could not conquer it;
I could only deceive it, could only fly from it, could only hide from it.

Truly, nothing in the world has occupied my thoughts as much as the Self, this riddle, that I live, that I am one and am separated and different from everybody else, that I am Siddhartha; and about nothing in the world do I know less about than myself, about Siddhartha.

The thinker, slowly going on his way, suddenly stood still, gripped by this thought, and another thought immediately rose from this one. It was:

'The reason why I do not know anything about myself, the reason why Siddhartha has remained alien and unknown to myself is due to one thing, to one single thing -

I was afraid of myself;
I was fleeing from myself.
I was seeking Brahman, Atman.
I wished to destroy myself,
to get away from myself,
in order to find in the unknown innermost, the nucleus of all things - Atman, Life, the Divine, the Absolute.

But by doing so,
I lost myself on the way.'

Siddhartha looked up and around him.
A smile crept over his face, and a strong feeling of awakening from a long dream spread right through his being.

Immediately he walked on again, quickly, like a man who knows
what he has to do.

Yes, he thought breathing deeply,
I will no longer try to escape
from Siddhartha.
I will learn from myself,
be my own pupil;
I will learn from myself
the secret of Siddhartha.

He looked around him as if seeing the world for the very first time.

Meaning and reality were not hidden somewhere behind things;
they were in them...
in all of them."

Excerpt from Siddhartha
by Hermann Hesse

In oneself lies the whole world
and if you know how to look and learn,
then the door is there
and the key is in your hand.

Nobody on earth
can give you either the key
or the door to open,
except yourself.

It is in the understanding of ourselves
that fear comes to an end.