Rising, Falling

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Rising. 5 am.

If I had not taken a vow of silence, there is little doubt that I would have complained to Sean about getting up so early.

The things I do for the promise of enlightenment.

This early, high in Northern Thailand mountains, the world is still covered in layers of dusk, more shadow then light, so I rise from bed and grope my way along walls out of my sparse room and to the bathroom. Feeling better after splashing water on my face, I return to my room to get dressed into meditation clothing. All white. Throwing the shirt over my head, I shiver. It is still cool and I am hungry. My last meal was at 11 am the day before.

I check the clock, realizing that I need to hurry if I want to grab tea and make it to the Darhma talk on time. As I hurry onto the path, I am relieved to see faint outlines of white shapes slowly making their way up the hill. I am not late yet.

Dusk is slowly lifting and I can see the faint hue of the purple and red sunrise on the dirt path leading up to the monastery. The crunching of slow, mindful steps creates a background beat for the rustling of wind through the leaves and morning song of birds as we make our to the top.

I pause, exhale, step through the door and find Sean. He has already set up a couple of nice bum mats for me on the space on the floor next to him at the back of the room. Perfect. Surprisingly, he doesn't look tired. He smiles. White suites him.

We sit perfectly straight, waiting for the monk to come. The room is bare, the floor covered with light red walking carpets well worn by thousands of feet mindfully placed. The first rays of a coming dawn shine off the modest Buddhist shrine at the front of the room.

Behind the closed orange door at the front of the room, I can hear the soft jingling of keys and I know that it is only going to be a second or two before our monk teacher comes through the door.

Dressed in orange simple robes and layered with a darker brown robe to keep him warm in the morning chill, our teacher enters, turns on the small loudspeaker at the side of the room and sits down at the front.

"Good morning," he smiles at us, his round cheeks lifting his dark rimmed glasses up a little. "This morning, I am going to tell you about one of my other students... she was a very successful lady, good business, good money, good relationship, good everything. Why she come here? Because she have to eat the pill for sleeping. Yeah, you know, when the time come to go to sleep, she cannot because her mind is so busy. She complain to me. ‘Teeeacher, I have a good life, good money, good job, good marriage, but I cannot sleep. What should I do?’”

He pauses, for a moment, letting his eyes rest on the twenty bodies in the room, taking a moment to note each of us before he continues.

“She have to eat the pill to sleep. See, not good. This is problem that if you need two pill to sleep now, in another year you will need three or four or five and then one day you die.” He points to someone at the front of the room, "no, not you die, and she still live, but general, you know, general, the outside people like this".

I smile to myself. Our teacher was always talking about the “outside people”. The first time I had heard him say it, I had wondered if there was a crazy tribe in northern Thailand who never went indoors and called themselves the “outside people”, but after a bit, I realized that he was referring to the people outside the walls of the monastery. Everyone.

“You know... if you asked someone to drink a glass of poison, would they? And if they said yes, you would think crazy person. Well, that is what you do every day.”

He looked at me and smiled, waving his arm, "no not you, just general people, outside people do like this every day."

"Why I say that outside people drink poison? It is not super magic power; it is hormones. When you angee (angry), you brain make hormone and the hormone act like poison. When you upset and feeling negative it also do like this." He stopped to push his glasses up his nose.

"Buddha says that you cannot control what happens on the outside... there are good guys and bad guys and that doesn't matter. But I have a lot of people come to me and say ‘Teeeacher, I really hate that guy ‘cause he cheated me’ and I ask him, ‘how long ago was that?’ And they say, ‘five years ago’ so the angee and upset feelings have been poisoning their body for five years. Every day, when the person remembers that pain, they poison themselves over and over again. They kill themselves when they do this."

In no apparent hurry, our teacher takes another moment to survey the room. We all sit white clad, straight and silent.

“So why not people die quick? Because hormones is small poison and it not kill you quick. It will make you sick. If you can learn to clean thoughts, you can avoid maybe 50% or 60% of all illnesses. It is like this.”

“You,” he said pointing to a girl off to my left, “move this way, I want to be able to see all of your faces. It is important.” He shuffled with the crossing of his legs, right over left, in half or full lotus position.

“People come here and we ask them to do very simple thing. Walking meditation. Right foot rising, right foot falling, left foot rising, left foot falling. Very simple yes?" He looks around the room and we nod. "And sitting meditation. Belly rising, falling, feeling relaxing, also very simple yes? "

And again, we nod.

"But I think not so simple because people cannot do. When someone walking, their foot goes like this but their mind is ‘oh, I bet my child is missing school because I left her with my husband and my husband has no idea about her.’ They are walking but their mind is not here.

That is why, when you walk, if you feel your mind go somewhere, you must follow it. If you start thinking, follow the thought with ‘thinking, thinking, thinking,’ and bring it back. Never try to force the mind. The same goes if you hear something outside, maybe a little birdie... follow the sound and say to yourself, ‘hearing, hearing, hearing...’ bring your mind back gently and then begin walking again.

Same with sitting meditation. Very simple. Close the eyes, feel rising and falling with the belly. People forget to breathe with their belly so maybe it will be hard for you in the beginning, but you should breathe from here,” he says putting his hand on his abdomen.

"Do not force it. In time, you will remember how to breathe like this. People breathe too shallow now, and that also make them sick. But the mind does not want to focus on the breathing and it goes to ‘I wonder what I should eat for breakfast?’ or maybe it thinks about the stock market.

Most people surprised when they get sick. They say, ‘I am so healthy, I take all of these herbs and I eat well. How can this happen to me? But people like pills. Ah, a pill for everything. A pill to be happy, a pill to lower the fat in their blood, a pill to sleep. You cannot make a problem go away by forgetting it with a pill. It is always there. More time means you need more and more pills.

People come here to find themselves because they do not have time. They are so busy being mothers, fathers, being busy with their lives. They do not know how to take care of themselves because they do not know who they are. The mind is so busy with the past stuff and the future stuff and the emotions that they do not know where to start.

This woman that take the pill, the three pills to sleep every night, she like this. She take the pill because her mind is dirty because it is too busy. So I tell her to breathe in and breathe out and first she cannot do because she does not know how to sit with her mind.

Later, after she train mediation for some time here, she is able to sleep without pills. She told me later that she is very successful, and have a good job, but the problem is that her work is so busy she goes for long time without seeing her husband. Her job is killing her marriage and that hurt her mind so she eat the pill to sleep."

He looks at us, “you came here to find yourself. Mediation is good for that. Just remember rising and falling. Practice all day. Do not fight yourself."

With that, he smiles, stands up in one graceful motion and leaves the room the same way he came with the faint jingle of keys marking his exit. I smile. Breathe in.

Close my eyes,

exhale,

and feel my belly falling...

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Comments

[taracloud]

Breathing in, breathing out
Thanks for reminding us of the crazy tribe of outside people where the real is. Lovely depiction of the teaching and process of staying in the present. Good for you two to take the time to stop and remember; I felt myself slowing down and coming home as I read. Best wishes for us all in remembering. May all beings be well, may all beings be happy, peace, peace, peace.

[Where Did the Real Go]

Hi Tara, Thanks for the thoughts! Indeed, it was an enlightening experience, the challenge for us - as for most - is to maintain those practices and incorporate them into daily schedules. We all have a tendency to put those kinds of lessons as a lesser priority and allow the others to slowly eat away at us. But of course like anything, it is a constant process!!

[Dancing Dave]

Taking time to...
'Tis so true our minds are so full of this and that it impedes the simple things...living. Lovely blog Erin reminding us what is important. The wisdom of your teacher was well expressed. Thank you.