OVERVIEW, WRITTEN AFTER THE LAST DAY:
I'm exhausted, and tomorrow morning I'm going right back to Wat Po here in Bangkok for another massage. I woke up every day for 11 days straight at 4 AM, (Dad would be proud) and we were in silence for 10 days straight. No talking, Nothing. They gave us two meals a day, the last one was at noon. I did yoga as the sun rose, on a concrete floor (which didn't hurt my knobby knees at all....yeah right!) They gave us wooden pillows! We bathed with cold water and buckets, with water taken from large cement holdings. Everything was outside in nature, and I learned a TON about Buddhism. Meditating is VERY DIFFICULT. Just try it: Sit still and close your eyes and focus on your breath, nothing but your breath. When a thought pops into your head, let it go and focus again on your breath. How many times do the thoughts return? It's SOOOOOO difficult! We're all full of a bunch of jumble in our minds. Read on for details of my day-to-day experience there....
DAY 1.
I've arrived at Suan Mokh International Retreat Center in southern Thailand, for a SILENT 10-day Theravada Buddhist Meditation retreat. The setting is beautiful: palm and banyan trees, warm breezes, and open-air pavilions in which we will eat, meditate, and do yoga. There's a pond on the grounds, and a hotsprings for our daily relaxation! But my room is like a cell: all concrete (including the bed), with just a small straw mat over it and a WOODEN pillow! We are supposed to bathe while wrapped in a sarong, by pouring cold water over our heads with buckets. And we will be waking up at 4:00 a.m. EVERY DAY to meditate, followed by yoga facing the sunrise at 5:15 a.m. Two meals will be served, the last of which will be at 12:30 p.m. Hmmmm.....Maybe this isn't going to be all that fun....
DAY 2.
Ok, I'm not supposed to be writing. This is Day 2, and silence means NO WRITING, TALKING, READING, WATCHING SHOWS, or LISTENING TO MUSIC. Basically, all of the things we normally fill our lives with. This is the hardest thing I've ever done In My Life. No pillow, no fan, no electricity except for 3 hours per day, no sinks or showers, no mirrors, and no baring our butts to the world in the hotsprings, like they do in Japan. Waking up at 4 is extremely painful. Not to mention the yoga, again on just a straw mat, (none of this cushy yoga-mat stuff), the concrete digging into my knees. Then we have to listen to this old Thai monk drone on and on about impermanence and suffering and not clinging to things and that meditation is the way out of worldly suffering. And I DO feel pretty calm, given all of this TORTURE. I sleep during each breaktime--- and I fall asleep immediately. Very unlike me. My knees are killing me from sitting in meditation-- it's SOOOO painful. We are cultivating "mindfulness" -- concentration and one-pointed attention. My thoughts race around through my head uncontrollably, it's so difficult to just pay attention to the breath, letting everything else go. I'm glad that I came, but thoughts of escaping back to the beach, or to Bangkok, or to Laos early, or to taking photos, or to planning my school year....they hit me almost constantly. But then, I guess that's my general "out," isn't it? Escaping. To stay with it, keep going, try to calm my mind....this is what I have come here to do.
Two girls I met on the bus on teh way here had learned about this place from the Lonely Planet guidebook--ha! What a JOKE. Neither of them knew anything about what they were getting themselves into, and neither of them lasted a day. One girl read the material and didn't even sign up, and the other one stayed one night, and left in the middle of a meditation session the next morning--- practically RUNNING out of there to go and pack up her stuff. At least I knew full well what I was getting myself into.
There are two meals per day: one at 8 a.m., a kind of rice gruel soup with cucumbers and cabbage to crunch down with it, and at 12:30 is lunch--- kind of spicy but yesterday we had a very nice glass-noodle dish. Not bad food, but last night I was STARVING. Then I had a HUGE spider in between the wall of my room and my neighbor's room. The legs were so long and it was holding a big white stomach, which I knew was going to turn into little baby spiders all over my room if I didn't do something about it SOON. I motioned for help, and one of the Thai nuns helped me get it out of my room, and as soon as she did, it burst into millions of spiders almost immediately (with no small trauma to me, either). Whew!
Last night, after a walking group meditation session around the pond, listening to frogs and crickets and watching the moon rise above the palm trees, I had a dream that I went to the movies and ate a huge popcorn.
DAY 3.
This is the hardest day yet. I'm seeing everything I go through in life---all while sitting and watching my thoughts race through my mind. I realize how I struggle to escape the things I somehow end up doing. I also realized how I am never truly "present" where I am--- I'm always thinking of the past or the future. I'm always racing from one thing to the next--- in action and in mind.
Through not talking to anyone, I have also realized how much I always go to talk to someone or call someone when I have a problem-- even a tiny problem. I find myself wanting to say, "My KNEES hurt! My BACK's in pain! I HATE rice gruel soup!" Somehow, telling someone makes me feel better, keeps me going. But I've realized that it only keeps me focused on what's wrong, on my suffering--- by getting other people involved in it, it becomes more justified, more important. Instead of just acknowledging it for what it is, and letting it go, I harp on it. I have to always TELL people what's going on with me. I've also noticed that I'm very social, even in my silence. I'm always smiling at people or making eye contact....and deep down, what I want to do is to chit-chat about what we're doing, and how hard it is....and ask if they think so too. But I can't.
Getting up at 4 this morning, I thought I might DIE. My bones ached from the hard cement under my one-inch mattress I found upstairs and put under my straw mat. I could hardly get up. But I did, and each day I am getting a little stronger, and a little better at yoga! And did I mention that meditating is so painful! My back, my knees, I have tried every meditation posture imaginable, and they ALL hurt. But I'm determined to keep going....7 loooooooooooong more days.
DAY 5.
Did I mention that I'm not supposed to write? I'm not. And I can see why....it causes me to think more and more about what I'm going to write next....about describing my experiences, instead of letting them go. And I'm not supposed to be THINKING, at all. I'm supposed to be suspending thoughts, letting them go, and focusing all of my attention on my breath. And this, I must say, is harder than anything I've ever done in my life. Now I'm using a little meditation bench, so I've bypassed most of the knee pain I was experiencing before, yet it still takes tremendous effort just to get through 3 in and out breaths before my mind wanders off to engage in swimming in the sea.....It's a good thing I'm just scatterbrained, and not full-on A.D.D.! And this rice-gruel brekkie that they give us DAYINANDDAYOUT is making me recall with vivid fondness the rice and beans of my Dominican Republic trip, back when I was 19.
Anyhow, once I get through the 4 a.m. wakeup nightmare, I quite enjoy being here! There is an English monk here who gives the most insightful, well-organized, lucid, hilarious, and interesting talks each day--- all without notes. I get there early to make sure I don't miss a word of it. His mind is so clear that he can organize his hour-long talks impeccably so that we understand everything so well. He has described all of the steps of "Anapanasati," or Mindfulness with Breathing, which is the path the Buddha laid out as the way to enlightenment. Of course, almost none of us will ever be able to achieve this "enlightenment," but creating more peace, serenity, and loving-kindness in our lives is enough. Sometime perhaps I'll type up all the notes I took during my time here, but for now let's just suffice it to say that I learned a HEAP about Buddhism. And he entertained us, to boot.
Day 7.
How about that? The 7th day of the 7th month of the 7th year....and it's Day 7 of the retreat! Today the English monk explained about defilements of the mind, focusing on the main two: greed, and aversion. He said that there are many others, but many people are dominated by these two. The "greed" types (that's me!) try to bring everything to themselves, they collect things, want to experience everything, are friendly and generous, and always looking toward others for pleasure, interaction, and stimulation. They are always thinking about the future, and basically indulge in pleasurable things. The "aversion" types try to push things out of their lives, away from themselves. They don't collect a lot of belongings or material goods, they are more minimalist, skeptical. They can be more negative, and tend to dwell on the past. He told us that these both cause much suffering for people, that when we hear, we should just hear. When we do anything sensory, we should just experience it, not categorize it as good or bad, not labeling it or creating dramas about it. Life, and everything in it, is a process. And the only thing making ANY of it good or bad are our minds-- making it so. Meditating will help us take a look at what we think is good or bad in our lives, and see the other side of it. Maybe I don't need to travel as much...maybe I don't need to do so many things at school...maybe I don't need to get so attached to things, to people. Maybe I need a little LESS stimulation. A little less pleasure. A little less desire. A little more contentment.
DAY 8.
Today I went for an interview with the English monk. After I had spent a couple of minutes explaining some problem I'm having with long breathing, he said, "You don't BLINK." I said, "What? I don't? What do you mean?" And he still said, "No, you don't. You still haven't!" And I guess I realized in that moment that I had just been staring and hadn't blinked at all. He said, "That's very strange, I've never seen that before. Do you wear glasses or something?" "No, perfect vision." "Are you mad?" "I don't think so!" "No, you don't seem mad." And then I realized it: I don't blink at all, in my life. I never slow down, never take a step back. I'm always over-involved, knowing everyone, doing everything, traveling everywhere. Maybe slowing down, BLINKING, so to speak, would be good for me. I'm going to use this motto of "BLINK" to remind me to meditate each day when the retreat finishes, to slow down, to take more time with things. Blink.
DAY 9.
My ear is bothering me terribly since yesterday, lots of pain inside. I think it might be a pimple, so I went to the office and told the lady about it. She took out some antiseptic, and dug out what she thought was a pimple, poking it with some stem of an herbal plant she picked out of the jungle. Hmmm, I thought....I wonder if this is going to work.
DAY 10.
The following quote sums up what meditation is for. And I definitely feel more peaceful after just sitting with myself for days on end, in nature, and examining how I go about living my life....watching my "monkey mind" jump from one thought to the next.
"The purpose of meditation is personal transformation. The 'you' that goes in one side of the meditation experience is not the same 'you' that comes out the other side. It changes your character by a process of sensitization, by making you deeply aware of your own thoughts, words, and deeds. Your arrogance evaporates and your antagonism dries up. Your mind becomes still and calm, and your life smoothes out. Meditation reduces your fear, tension, and worries. Restlessness receds and passion moderates. Thus meditation properly performed prepares you to meet the ups and downs of existence."
--Ven. Henepola Gunaratana
