Wat Songdhammakalyani and the Venerable Dhammananda Bhikkuni: Part 1

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“Do you know this place?” I asked the taxi driver and showed him the paper. The driver was one of two drivers who were sitting outside Bundit House waiting for someone to come by needing a taxi. The drivers always have their taxi’s waiting in a line. Sometimes they leave the engine running for the AC so the taxi stays cool, while they sit on a raised wooden platform under the shade of two trees off to the side of the road. That day there were two taxi’s, and the driver of the first car came around off the wooden platform to greet me and ask where I was going. He looked at the paper that the International Relations Office at MUIC had given me. I had been in there the day before asking to have a meeting set up with Dhammananda Bhikkuni, a female monk who lives in the neighboring province. They called her monastery for me, and set up an appointment for me to do a meditation class with her at 8am (although it would be taught in Thai) and then a private meeting with her at 10am and they printed off directions and a map to the temple so that I could show a taxi driver where to go. However, Chad from the International office had called me back later that day to change the schedule. The monastery had called him back and asked to switch the appointment from 10am to 2pm, but also that I could go the morning after, at 8am, for meditation, which would be taught in English.

It was only 12:30, but I didn’t know how long it would take to get there, if there would be traffic, or if the taxi driver would know where to go, maybe he would get lost, so I gave myself extra time to get there and figured I could explore the monastery grounds while I waited until 2pm.

The taxi driver was indeed confused, and took the paper over to the other, younger driver still sitting on the platform, and they discussed over the paper for a few minutes. The other driver got on the phone with somebody and went to his car to get out his reading glasses. While he was on the phone, two European men came up to the taxi line. “You must be trying to get somewhere really difficult,” one of them said to me, commenting on the confusion clearly printed on both taxi-driver’s faces.

“It’s not really around here,” I confessed.

The first taxi driver noticed the two men standing around his taxi and hurried over to them. They told the driver where they wanted to go, someplace the driver knew, and they went off. Leaving me with the younger driver on the phone.

He was on the phone for only a few moments after the first driver left. Then he hung up, waved the paper at me and said, “Okay” and motioned to his taxi. When I got in, he showed the paper to me, pointed at the temple on the map and asked something in Thai. I thought he was affirming that was where I wanted to go, I said yes and nodded and he handed the paper to me and we went off.

It occurred to me a few minutes into our trip, that he might have asked if I had been to the temple before, not if that was where I wanted to go. Clearly the temple was my destination, it was circled on the map and was written at the top of the paper, and I hoped he wouldn’t be asking me for directions as we got closer.

About twenty minutes later, he pulled off to the side of the road and motioned for the map again. I handed it to him and he got out of the car and went up to a young man cooking food at a stall on the side of the road. The driver showed him the paper and the young man nodded, swallowed the bite of food he had just taken, and motioned in the direction we were headed. They both nodded and the taxi driver got back into the car. “Okay?” I asked. “Okay!” He confirmed.

We went ahead maybe only 100 meters and went around a bend, and just there on the left was a shiny white and gold temple. He asked something in Thai and pointed, and I assumed this was the temple. I nodded and made some sort of half-confused, half-affirmation sound, “Ay-uhh-yeah”, and he turned into the driveway.

We drove past the white and gold temple on our right and came to another building on the left that seemed to have an office. I paid him the 270baht it cost, said thank you in Thai and got out; he also got out of the car. There was no one in the front office, but as we peered into the door, two monks came around the side of the building. The taxi driver said something to them in Thai, pointed at the map that I had given him, and they nodded. He asked a few more questions and gave them the wai and left.

I gave the wai to the first sister who was talking to the taxi driver, “I have an appointment with the Bhikkuni,” I said, unsurely. I was very early; it was only a few minutes past 1:00. She shook her head and said something in Thai. She didn’t speak English. Another sister came forward from behind her, “You are Willow?” She asked.

“Yes,” I said, grateful someone spoke English.

“You have an appointment at 2:00.” She looked confused and didn’t understand why I was so early.

“Yes, I’m pretty early.”

“Yes.” She furrowed her brow. “You can wait for the Bhikkuni?”

“Yeah. I was wondering if I could walk around. Take a look at the grounds?”

“You should not go far, she will see you.”

“Okay…” Now I was unsure again.

“There is library,” she gestured across the way, and turned and went back to her office.

The other sister who didn’t speak English was still there and she said something and gestured up the stairs that were just outside the front desk.

“Library is upstairs?” I asked. I thought it was one of the buildings opposite the office.

“Yes,” she nodded and gestured up the stairs again.

I took off my shoes and left them at the bottom of the stairs. There was a dog lying on one of the first steps and I said something nice to it as I walked past, but it got up hurriedly and went away. On the second floor was a huge open room with few tables around the edges. I saw a sister in there filing up a mug with water from large water jugs sitting on a far table. This wasn’t the library but there was another floor above so I kept walking up the stairs. On the third floor was another large room, but this one had many statues of Buddha at a far end and the ceiling was vaulted to a peak in the middle. No library.

I came back down and the sister who spoke English gestured to me quickly, as if I had been missing out on something. I put my shoes on and followed her. She led me to a sitting area underneath a large, green building and told me to wait for Dhammananda here. I sat at a bench under the building and only waited a few moments before I noticed a monk crossing a garden and heading my way. I wasn’t sure if this was Dhammananda, but she looked familiar and was certainly headed in my direction. When she came closer, the English-speaking sister went to her and helped her sit at one of the far chairs. I rose from my bench and gave her the wai, said Sawadeekha, and smiled hugely. All of a sudden I didn’t know what to say.

She laughed at my wai and sawadeekha as I sat down across from her.

“So how did you hear about us?” Was her first question to me.

“She is friend of Miss Jennifer,” said the English-speaking sister. I am indeed friend to Miss Jennifer, and although it had been Andi and I who had initially told Jay about the Bhikkuni, she was the first to take the initiative and come talk with her. Jay had told me about how wonderful and enlightening her talk was, and how she had cried with the Bhikkuni as they walked through the garden, speaking of life and her goals. She had told me that the Bhikkuni had blessed her and given her prayer beads and offered to have her stay in the monastery for 20 days after the semester ended. I had high expectations, but I had nothing of importance to speak to the Bhikkuni about.

“Oh, you know Miss Jennifer?” Her face brightened.

“Yes, we go to Mahidon together.”

“Ah okay.” There was a brief silence and then she turned to her sister and asked for water. The sister left and the Bhikkuni turned back to me. She asked me why I chose to come to Thailand, what I was studying, and how I liked it here. I told her about my discovery that, although I had been following a path of medicine, I realized once I came to Thailand that I needed to follow more of an ecology path, something that would lead me closer to the earth and animals. She didn’t seem interested in what I had to say at all, and I realized I was doing a crap job of explaining why I was here.

“I’m sorry it is busy today.” She changed subjects, I was glad for it.

There was construction happening everywhere, it seemed each building was having something added to it, and an entirely new building was being built not too far from where we sat. There was much hammering and sawing, and the sound of the highway just beyond the gate was anything but peaceful.

“What’s going on?” I asked, gesturing to the woman hauling a wheelbarrow of bricks past us, she was covered in white dust.

“We believe, as the Buddha teaches, that we do not need many things. We try to live with very little, but one of our sisters has been keeping too much. When you read one book, there is no purpose of keeping it. When you finish with one book, you should return it, you need need not to keep it with you. This sister had so many books. She had too many things.

“Her bed was too big,” the Bhikkuni continued. “We had to remove her bed and replace it with one much smaller and simpler.”

What? This was not the answer I was expecting at all. But before I could press, the English-speaking sister returned with water for the Bhikkuni.

I wanted to bring the topic back to her, and me, and Buddhism, and life. I remembered one of my questions I had wanted to ask her. In her TED talk she spoke of roots, and how you need to find your root. I wanted to tell her that I think my dad is my root. That he wanted to work with the earth and had not gotten the chance to, and that maybe it was my time to take that up in his place.

“I watched your TED talk,” I began.

“Oh!” She smiled. “Everyone comes here to see me, they have seen my TED talk and they want to speak with me, but no one here has seen it!”

The sister also handed a glass of water to me, “Khapkhunkha” I thanked her.

“You haven’t seen it,” the Bhikkuni said to the sister. The sister shook her head and lifted the lid from the Bhikkuni’s water glass for her. “Everyone else has seen it but my sisters have not. You’re stupid!” She said to her sister and they laughed. I laughed and smiled too, “You should watch it,” I said to the sister. “It’s very good.”

She didn’t respond, but smiled and sat down at the bench behind us that I had been sitting on previously. “It is the language barrier,” Dhammananda Bhikkuni said. That makes sense, even though the sister did speak English, it was probably not very easy for her to watch and understand an entire 20 minutes of a speech in English. And the other sister had not spoken English at all.

The Bhikkuni went on to explain about how she did the TED talk, how she had to learn how to use Skype for the interview before the speech, and how she had traveled to Chiang Mai to give the talk. Somehow along the way we got into the topic of women in Buddhism and how many see female monks as a threat to Theravada Buddhism. I asked if she knew where the Dalai Llama stood on the subject of Bhikkuni’s and she didn’t know, but she did say that there is one sect of Buddhism in Tibet (there are four different types of Buddhism in Tibet, I cannot recall the names now) where they will begin ordaining women at the end of this year. So that is a boost for women in Buddhism, and hopefully it will trickle down to Thailand in time.

“You want to come for meditation tomorrow morning?” She asked.

“Yes, I would love to.” I answered.

“If you wish, you can come earlier in the morning, at 7:15 we eat breakfast, you can come have breakfast with us. Do you intend to stay here?” The question caught me off guard. Stay? Here?

“I hadn’t planned to, no.”

“Oh, had Miss Jennifer not told you that you can stay?”

“She is still in Chiang Mai, I haven’t been able to talk to her this week.”

“Ah, we have rooms,” she gestured above us. “This is one room here. There are beds on that side, and here is the washroom,” she pointed to an area of floor above us that had many pipes. “They’re very simple.” I made some sort of affirmation, nodded, and thought about it. I wasn’t sure I would like to stay, it was very noisy, and not at all the peaceful garden temple I had in mind.

“Do you meditate?” She asked.

“I have meditated before, but I don’t think I’m very good at it. I would really like to take a meditation retreat after the semester is over, and learn more about it.”

“Yes, we do not have anything like that now, but we hope that by this summer we will be ordaining 12 more Bhikkuni’s and have a meditation retreat in July.” She explained how they host a meditation retreat for women who consider becoming Bhikkuni’s and that although they cannot be ordained in Thailand, they go to Sri Lanka for ordination. She continued to talk it up for a while, and how I would need to be able to sit and meditate for at least one hour a day, and that for the women who wish to be Bhikkuni’s she has them go ten days with no speaking.

“Could you do that? Could you imagine yourself not speaking for ten days?” Even she seemed impressed at the thought.

“I can imagine it, but I don’t know if I could do it!” I said excitedly.

“So you wish to come for meditation tomorrow morning?” She asked again.

I nodded.

“You can come early if you want. At 5:30 we have morning chanting and then at 6:00 we go around for alms, if you wish you can come for that. And then at 7:15 is breakfast, you are welcome to come for that as well.”

I was so excited! Of course I wanted to come and hear the morning chanting, and to partake in alms ceremony with them, and to eat breakfast with the Bhikkunis! But in order to do that, I would have to get up really early. And the cost of coming here again was in the back of my mind.

“Well, maybe it would be easier if I stayed, so I won’t have to travel so much.”

“Sure!” And she told me that the sisters would provide me with bed and clothing so that I would be able to wear my clothes when I left tomorrow and not get them dirty. At 4:30, she said, we would gather by the front office, or bookstore as she called it, and we would do some sort of work on the grounds, usually in the gardens. She told me that at 6pm she would have the cook make me a simple dinner, and that at 7:00 was evening chanting. All the while I wanted to take out my phone and tell her that I had a list of questions I wanted to ask her. I wanted to tell her to wait – there are so many more questions I have for you. But she was summing up our meeting and was gathering herself to go. She pointed at the bookstore and told me to tell the sisters that I would be staying in room 11 and to ask them for anything I needed. I didn’t know what else to do but to thank her and head in the direction of the bookstore. It all happened so quickly.

I walked to the bookstore not really certain of what I had just agreed to. Excited that I would be staying at a female monastery, but disappointed that I had not asked her any of the questions I wanted to. That I had not gotten what I came here for. But was that selfish of me? Would it have been right to ask her to not go back to her work because I had more questions for her? Would it have been okay to bring out a cell phone before a monk? I decided that maybe I would see her again later and be able to ask my questions then.

There were no sisters in the bookstore, but they were at their desks in the back room, sitting behind computers. I took off my shoes and poked my head in, “Khawthotnakha,” I said quietly. Excuse me.

They both came out from behind their desks to help me.

“I would like to stay here tonight. The Bhikkuni said I could stay in room 11?”

“Oh, was the room locked?”

“No, I haven’t checked yet. She said I could stay here tonight because I want to be a part of the morning meditation and ceremonies.”

“Okay so you have a key?”

“No, I don’t have a key yet.”

“Was there no key?”

“No, the Bhikkuni said I could stay in room 11?” Should she have given me a key? I thought.

They exchanged confused words in Thai and then got on the phone with someone. They pointed in the direction that the Bhikkuni and I had been sitting and talked in more Thai. They were having difficulties with their phone. The sister that took me to see the Bhikkuni before, came out of the office room. They exchanged confused looks and said things to each other in Thai. I felt like I stood there for a while as they tried to call somebody and looked very confused with each other.

“I’m sorry,” I finally said after some time. “I didn’t know this would be so complicated.”

“Not complicated,” said the first sister, waving her hand to say it was no problem. “Come to your room.”

And we all walked towards the green building under which the Bhikkuni and I had just sat. All three sisters walked me to my room, but one of them stopped along the way to get me sheets and a pillowcase.

“I have a friend from Poland come to stay here,” said the larger sister who was the one to take me to the Bhikkuni. “She is coming today.”

“Oh neat!” I said as they turned the key that was in the door and opened it to my room.

It was very simple. There were two thin cots, a shelf, a place to hang clothes, and a small bathroom with a toilet, sink, and showerhead. They placed the sheets and pillowcase on my bed and said that if I needed anything else to just ask them.

“Thank you, khapkhunkha! Oh, there is one thing. Do you think I could have some clothes, I didn’t bring anything else,” and pulled at the shirt I wore.

“Of course, we will take you,” said the smaller sister who also spoke English. The larger sister had already left the room.

The short, petite sister took me to another building with the older sister who had not spoken but in Thai this entire time. They took me to a room that had shelves full of red, orange, yellow, brown, and white robes and shirts and skirts. The two sisters spoke in Thai and pulled out a brown shirt. The older sister held it up for me and it looked like it would fit so I took it and placed it over my arm. For the next five or ten minutes they spoke in Thai and went through the shelves. I wasn’t sure exactly what they were looking for, but in that time they also pulled out a white shirt and white pants. As I stood there, waiting by the door, they spent the most of that time looking for brown bottoms to go with the brown shirt. Eventually the younger sister pulled out what looked like a giant pillowcase but was open at both ends.

“Will this be okay?” She asked and held it up for me.

“Uh, yeah,” I said, not knowing what to do with it though.

“You need a belt,” she said. Her and the older sister pulled out a basket of red rope and found one of suitable length.

“Will you show me?” I asked the sister as she tried to hand me the brown sack and belt.

She stepped through the large sack and pulled it up to just underneath her breasts. She held it open with one hand, while she pressed it into a fold agains her body with her other and folded the excess fabric across her front. She then used the belt to tie it around herself and folded the top part of the sac over the belt. Her and the older sister discussed in Thai while she took it back off and handed it to me.

I thanked them and gave them the wai. We left the building and I separated from them and headed towards my room. By this time it was almost 2:30 and I decided that I was going to try to meditate for one hour, and challenge myself to see if I can do what the Bhikkuni said I would need to do for a meditation retreat.

I went into my room and turned the fan on full blast. I took off my shirt and leggings and bra and put on my potato-sack skirt thing. I pulled it up to underneath my boobs, tied the robe around it, and folded the top over and tucked it underneath the rope just as the sister had shown me. Then I put on my brown shirt. I looked good 😊

I was kind of thirsty, so before I committed to sitting for one hour, I decided to go and get some water from the second floor of the main building where I had seen the sister getting water before. I walked that way in my brown robes, went up the stairs and took off my shoes by the door. I crossed this huge room, way bigger than it needed to be as there were only three tables, but it could easily fit an extra fifty or more. I went to the counter with the jugs of water, picked out a glass with flowers on it and a handle, and filled it up with lukewarm water. A door was propped open to a balcony that faced the highway.

On the balcony was a small garden with a scarecrow and wind chimes. I sat on a bench by the garden that was growing something indeterminate, small, and green. I sipped on my water and contemplated on how noisy the highway was, and how the sisters must all be used to it by now. I didn’t think I could live the rest of my life, trying to be peaceful and to be at one with the world, when there was a constant reminder of everything I stood against, just outside my front gate.

When I finished drinking I went into the kitchen, washed out my cup, and sat it back on the rack where I had picked it up. Then I walked back to my room.

I made up the bed closest to the window and sat on the cot opposite. I stretched out my legs, preparing myself for an hour of sitting, set the timer on my phone for one hour and told myself that I wouldn’t look at it until it went off, crossed my legs, placed my palms on my knees and closed my eyes. I don’t think I successfully meditated for many reasons. 1) I was constantly aware that I was thinking about everything. 2) I was worrying about the fact that I had agreed to stay at the monastery, with no plans, no change of clothes, no soap or face wash or toothpaste, and a paper to write that was due on Monday. 3) I was horribly uncomfortable, my back hurt, my knees hurt, and my feet kept falling asleep no matter what position I put them in. 4) I was trying so hard not to fall asleep. I felt my head nod on my chest a few times, and my mind wandered so deep that it was almost like I was dreaming. 5) I kept telling myself that only thirty minutes had passed, that I couldn’t look at the clock. I knew I had been sitting there for so long already, that I couldn’t bare to look at the clock and see how much time I had left. But I was really curious to see at what point in the meditation did it become almost impossible for me to even try to focus. I finally gave in and checked the clock. Only 3 minutes left.

I had been so close to making it to the end without checking! It was exactly what I didn’t want to happen. Oh well. I was getting horribly uncomfortable and my mind was not in any place to be still. I couldn’t control my thoughts and all I wanted was to lie down and stretch out. Finally my alarm went off and I stretched out. I actually felt quite accomplished that I was able to sit there for one hour. Even though I hadn’t been in complete control of my mind, nor had I sat completely still, I still achieved my goal of sitting for one hour.

After stretching out, I did a few sit-ups and crunches and some jumping jacks though because I felt so sluggish and slow, I needed to get my blood flowing again. It felt strange doing sit-ups in my brown monk clothes, and I wondered if monks do anything in the way of physical exercise.

I was ready to leave my room but it was only 4:00, so I thought about getting a book from the bookstore/office and reading it for a few minutes until 4:30 when we were to meet up and go do work. So I left my room and went down to the bookstore. There was a small desk behind which a young sister sat, but she didn’t look up when I entered so I just walked over to the few bookshelves they had, and noticed all the books were in Thai. Hmm.

“Do you have English books in the library?” I asked the sister behind the counter.

She looked at me questioningly.

“Books? In English?” I said more simply.

“I, no English,” She said as she waved her hand in front of her chest at me.

The larger sister who spoke fairly good English poked her head out from the offices behind the bookstore. Her and the sister in the bookstore exchanged words in Thai and then she looked at me.

“Are there English books in the Library?” I asked. She shook her head and motioned for me to come out and meet her around the side of the building.

I repeated the question to her again.

“Yes, yes,” she said.

“Which building is the library?” I asked, looking across the way at two almost identical buildings.

She pointed in that general direction, but I still wasn’t sure which building.

“Which one?” I asked again.

She pointed and then said “Go in, on left-side are shelves with English books.”

I’ll figure out which building it is, I thought to myself.

“Okay, thank you!” I said, heading in that direction.

“Ah. At four, half past four, we meet here to do work.”

“Yes, I’ll be back at 4:30.”

She nodded.

I walked down the path that separated the two buildings and thought the one on the left looked more promising as a library. And I was right. It was kind of hot and stuffy in there, but it wasn’t too bad. I walked to the bookshelves on the left and looked at the books in English. All of them were really old, and of course they were all about Buddhism. None of them really stood out to me, they all looked like they were written somewhere between 1970 and 1990 and looked pretty dull. I pulled out one that had a nice cover picture and started to read it. The author described some history of Buddhism in Mongolia. How the Huns had captured a Buddhist monk from Tibet who ended up teaching them the way of the Buddha and that’s how Buddhism started in Mongolia. Buddhism was a prominent religion in Mongolia until the Russians invaded in the 1960’s and destroyed all but 5 temples.

That’s as far as I read and then I realized I really wasn’t that interested. So I put the book back and kept looking. I just grazed around looking at all the book titles. Some were Buddhist teaching books, some were Buddhist history, others were books that simply had a theme of Buddhism, and then there was a whole bookshelf of books about Women and Women in religion. I enjoyed looking at all the books, but I didn’t pick up another one.

At 4:30 I left the library and came back out to the office but no one was there. On the other side of the library were some chairs and tables in the shade so I decided to sit there until someone came to get me or until I saw the sisters walking about. I sat there for only a few minutes until I saw a tall white woman come out from the green building, looking lost. She noticed me sitting by myself, I waved to her and she came over to me.

“Hello,” she said with a heavy accent.

“Hi! What’s your name?” I asked right away.

“Gersha,” she replied. “And yours? What is your name?”

“Willow.”

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