Meditation Madness!

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I was suprised and really pleased to find another person sat in the bus shelter on the other side of the highway. It was another participant for the retreat. Before long, a few more coaches pulled up on the other side of the highway and more people sauntered across the road to join us outside the monastary gates. There were about 100 people on the retreat all in all as it turned out. When it got to about 5.30 we were told we should head down to the retreat centre which was a few kilometres away from the monastary.......and the main road, which meant it was nice and quiet down there too. Luckily enough it was still too early to be getting hot, or it would have been quite a hike with the back pack. I've been carrying a whole load of books around which I must read and get rid of, but it's not til I'm carrying them around I think about it!

Registration day was pretty relaxed. Form filling and an interview.....which was more them talking to us about the retreat than the other way round. We just had to say what we hoped to get out of it. For me it was that I have a 'hectic mind' and would love to be able to shut it up for a while so I can get a bit of peace and quiet! That seemed acceptable enough.....or they didn't comment otherwise anyway!

After you'd registered, you were allowed to go out for the day but (and I quote) 'you have to be back on your cushion by 5pm'. That made me laugh so much, I had to text Jac. Ian has always referred to meditation as 'sitting on beanbags' ........ I knew they'd see the funny side too.

Having registered I got the key to my room and took my stuff over there. Basic wasn't the word. You did get your own room though which was good. The down side was it was more like a concrete cell, with a concrete ledge for a bed....no mattress, just a reed mat. At this point, even if I hadn't have continued with the yoga, the yoga mat would've been one of my best investments! Unfortunately, the yoga mat didn't help with the pillow..........the wooden pillow. Yep, that's right a wooden pillow. About the size of a brick and just about as hard! The silver lining was it had a nice curve shaped into the top of it which was good for support but that was about it. The first couple of nights, I think I was so tired from getting no sleep on the journey down, I slept right through. It was only after that the concrete bed and wooden pilllow really hit home. I think I woke up at least 10 times in the night to turn. And that was with a yoga mat.......god knows what the poor guys who didn't have one of those made of it all!

The schedule for next 10 days, or the first 8 of the 10 days went something like this:

4am Wake up bell
4.30am Reading
4.45am Sitting meditation
5.15am Yoga
7am Morning talk & Sitting meditation
8 - 10am Breakfast and chores and hot tub
10am Dhamma Talk
11am Sitting meditation
11.45am Walking or standing meditation
12.30 pm Lunch & chores
2.30pm Meditation instruction & sitting meditation
3.30pm Walking or standing meditation
4.15pm Sitting Meditation
5pm Chanting / Loving Kindness Meditation
6pm Tea (as in cup of.....no dinner :O( )
7.30pm Sitting Meditation
8.15pm Walking Meditation
9pm Bedtime (lights out 9.30pm)

I can imagine what you're thinking,..........probably exactly what I was thinking too........that's a hell of a lot of sitting on a cushion!

There were various other rules and regulations, no talking for the 10 days, girls and boys stay separate throughout the retreat, no lying down in the grounds, not to kill anything and to keep modestly dressed at all times. That included bathing in a sarong, which was wierd in an all girls dorm...and flipping difficult too. The baths were basically big water tanks in the girls dorm central courtyard which everyone used. so you had to try and hold your sarong up with one hand and use the other to tip water over yourself with a little bowl and soap yourself. It took most of the 10 days to master it enough to get a decent wash and keep your modesty!

The scariest thing was no dinner! I was even considering a quick trip to the shops on registration day before 5 o'clock to stock up on snacks! I didn't though.......I hasten to add......I was a good girl! I have to say, it was actually suprisingly ok not to eat in the evening. Maybe on the first day I felt slightly hungry at bedtime, but after that I didn't even notice.

I did pop up the shops to get a torch though as I managed to break mine about an hour before the 5pm deadline for 'being back on my cushion!' On the way up I bumped into another farang (westerner) who turned out to be a complete nutter.,......told me I'd better have a knife for day 4 as that's when the demons will come out! I walked off with him going 'hey, hey you!' Luckily there was a guy from the retreat centre heading back to the retreat just coming up the road who gave me a lift on his bike. I never did manage to get a new torch! There was electric lights in the dorm rooms between 5 and 9, but no other electric anywhere, so I used a lantern with candles, which was really pretty nice in a quaint kind of way. There was no other electric plugs or anything so there was no chance of recharging the ipod for some 'in-retreat entertainment' either!!

The silence started that evening with the welcome talk and video. Some people took the silentce as far as having no eye contact.....for me the eye contact and smiles shared with the others was my saving grace. Actually, there were times during the retreat when some people looked really flipping miserable....probably including me! It was quite funny though in an ironic kind of way, considering these retreats are supposed to make you happier people!

Morning bells had to be the worst. It didn't just ring.......it rang for a good ten minutes. Slow at first, getting faster, then fading out, then coming back in faster and louder than ever.......and so it went on......and on! There were times when I'd happily have rammed the gonger down the bell ringers throat! The mornings when it was raining I tried desperately not to feel smug at the thought of them out there ringing the bell in the rain! :O)

Yoga was fab......it was my favourite bit of the retreat next to the hot tub. The hot tub had to be the best. Natural hot springs, surrounded by amazing jungle like plants, at hot bath water temperature. Definitely the one bit of 5 star luxury on the retreat, which I looked forward to every morning!

My chore was sweeping the leaves off the sandy paths in the retreat grounds. It started off great, when it was dry, but it started to rain in the last few days of the retreat which made the sandy paths into one big puddle and it impossible to get the leaves off them. The other downside were the mosquitos. During the whole retreat, they were an absolute nightmare. There were tons of them. Remember that rule not to kill anything?.......we were told to make friends with them and then they wouldn't bit us!! Yep, that was my reaction too! They were the worst bit of the whole ten days. I'm sure they lay in wait for me when I was doing the sweeping in the morning too. Little B*******! I hate to admit it, but I may have broken one of the rules once or twice during the 10 days! :O)

The dhamma talks were pretty good too.......Dhamma is buddhist philosophy. I've been pretty interested in the buddhist way of life for a while now, so it was fascinating to find out more. I'm not sure if I remember everything 100% correct, but I'll give you a quick blast of it just so you get the jist.

Along with not killing anything, one of the biggest things they believe in is impermanence. Buddha's last dying words went something along the lines of 'beware followers, all concocted things disintegrate'. By impermanence they mean things like people and animals die, money goes through our fingers, weather changes, time slips by, relationships change, jobs change, situations change, youth becomes old age etc etc etc.

They say when things change, it can bring about suffering or 'dukkha'. To avoid this suffering, we should ensure our contact with these 'concocted things' is 'wise contact'. By wise contact, they say we should not cling to or crave anything.....money, job, house, belongings, youth, husband, children, friends etc etc etc. Clinging and craving brings about suffering. We can....... and should...... enjoy in the moment, but we shouldn't cling to or crave them. We should also try and keep the mind on an even keel during this 'contact'.......ie not to feel extremes of happiness or sadness. That's a hard one for me. I always thought extreme happiness was a good thing! :O) Apparently extreme happiness is as much dukkha as extreme sadness.

Also, they say you should always live in the moment. The past is gone. It cannot be changed, and tomorrow the past will be different to today....a bit like the wake of a speedboat. The future has not, and may not arrive, so we shouldn't allow our thoughts to dwell there either. Meditation is what they buddhists believe will train the mind to stay in the moment. Meditation basically involves sitting (or walking apparently!) and concentrating on the breath, not allowing the mind to dwell on any thoughts that arise. It's not so much a case of not thinking anything at all, which I'd originally thought, but more when thoughts come up, to let go of them again without letting the mind run away with a whole long scenario about that thought. I guess when you get good at it, this probably does mean no thoughts arise, but for me it's definitely more a case of the former.......on a good day that is!

The other thing I remember is the 'no me, no my' principle. They say there's a lot more to us than the outside physical body we were born with and the ego that we've given ourselves. I guess the silence was to help us experience this and maybe that's the reason why there were no mirrors around the place either!

I have to say, I believed in a lot of the buddhist philosophy........besides making friends with mosquitos that is! The sitting meditation.....well, I'm not sure I experienced the extreme happiness the monks spoke about, but when it went well I did feel amazingly calm, relaxed and peaceful, which was fab. I say, when it went well, because I did spend a lot of hours on my cushion watching other people and wondering why the hell they could do it and I couldn't! As I found out at the end of the retreat, it turned out everyone else was having those exact same thoughts. It also got quite painful after a while. The legs only stay in one position comfortably for so long and there are only so many different positions you can sit in. Thank god for the hot springs in the morning!

The walking medition I didn't get..........at all. It basically involved walking pretty slowly, concentrating on each part of every step, as opposed to the breathing which you'd concentrate on in sitting meditation. It just didn't do anything for me and when I looked around at everyone doing it, I could only hope no-one had a camera. We looked a right load of idiots walking around like zombies! It was so bad, Wako popped into my mind once or twice! After a while, I just treated it as a nice walk to get the blood moving in my legs again!

Chanting's not really my thing, but it's amazing how good it was to speak again........It was the only chance you got to open your mouth during the 10 days, so in that respect it was good. The monk who led the chanting was also quite funny....at first anyhow...... the joke about the wooden pillow did wear off by day 3 though despite his efforts to keep it going past day 5!

Just when we were getting used to the schedule, it changed on day nine. Evening on day 8, they posted the new schedule on the board. It was probably one of the worst moments of the retreat. There was to be NO LUNCH EITHER!!!!!! There was a major panic moment, followed by severe depression. The meditation also changed. No talks at all, just 2 or 3 hour sessions of meditation throughout the day.....walking, sitting, standing, whatever you liked, but hours and hours of it in one go. I woke up, or should I say, I was woken up on day 9 with utter dread. Like most things though, when you dread something, it's not half as bad as you've thought it was going to be.

Luckily on day 10, lunch was back on the schedule again along with a couple of the talks, including a feedback session where people could get up and speak into a microphone and tell us there experiences. That was pretty interesting. It was also funny how as soon as people got back behind the microphone the egos came flooding back! It was also funny how the sandles changed on day 10 too. From about day 3, everyone had lined up their sandles really neatly outside the buildings where you kick them off. Day 10 came around and the sandles were right back in a whole higgledy piggledy mess like they were on day 1!

The whole 10 days was an emotional rollercoaster for me. There were times when I felt really good.....very relaxed and calm and loving the peace and quiet of the retreat........ but then there were the times when I felt completely useless (at meditation), pissed off, fed up, tired, and wishing the 10 days to be over! I have to say though, overall, I'm really really glad I did it. I would do it again.....maybe not too soon.... but I would do it again. I did actually get a lot out of it. It's given me a different outlook on life in some ways. The buddhist philosophy was great for that. It kinda helps you deal with a lot of stuff that life throws at you. The retreat was also an amazing chance to reflect on things. Out in the big wide world, you don't always get a chance to think things through clearly. It's only when you get completely away from the situation that you get a chance to really see things the way they are and not just the way it seems when you're right in the middle of it all. It's also made me realise I need to try and live in the moment a bit more. I'm not sure how many times I used to drive to work and not remember a bit of the journey coz my mind was elsewhere....and that's just one example.

On Day 11, we could talk again.....mind you a few of us had given in and started whispering on day 10! It was bizzare how on day 11 you felt like you knew everyone, even though you'd not spoken to them, apart from a few people on registration day. In the end they had to ask us to leave the retreat centre because we were so busy talking and the staff wanted to go home!

Leaving the retreat on day 11 felt really strange. Back into the big wide world again! The noise of the main road was immense after 10 days of silence. I think we all left with good intentions of minimising intoxicating substances and keeping up with the meditation. By 9 o'clock that night we were on the beer! All good things as they say! I did keep up with the meditation for a while, and even now I still do a bit. It is something I'd like to keep with me for a while......who knows! :O)

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