Advertisement
Published: February 9th 2007
My lovely "cell"
note the wooden pillowWe definitely could have used some Sister Mary Clarence on this last experience. I apologize for the length of this entry but I really want to be able to remember every detail. It may be a good idea to read it in a couple chunks.
The first thing April, Celia and I decided to do upon arriving in Thailand was a
silent retreat at a Buddhist monestary called Suan Mohkk. We were having a horrible time when we first arrived because the locals were mean, unhelpful and didn't speak a word of English. So even though we knew very little about the retreat, it was easy to make a last minute decision to go to a monastery where everyone has to be nice! The retreat was 10 days long, we only expected to last 3 or 4 but ended up leaving after 3, 2 of which were completely silent.
The idea of this retreat was to follow the eight Buddhist precepts; refrain from destroying all forms of life, taking things without permission, harming others by speech, any sexual activity (mentally, verbally or bodily), smoking or intoxicating oneself, having meal in between afternoon and before dawn, beautifying or entertaining oneself,
and sleeping or sitting on a luxurious bed or seat. The hardest and most important of all the rules was that we had to remain completely silent the ENTIRE time. They believe that we are all born into a modern and material world and that often this leads to an unhealthy or even miserable way of life. It is thought that many people feel lost and unhappy and that learning to simplify would make people much happier. Through silence and meditation we were supposed to get to know ourselves better, reflect on our lives and potentially come of out it with a new sense of how we wanted to live our lives. My reason for wanting to do this retreat was to experience life as a Buddhist monk or nun. I wanted to educate myself about their religion and way of life.
Once we had been interviewed by a nun and signed in, we were handed the keys to our "private" rooms. Sound fancy? Well, as you can see in the pictures, these rooms might more accurately be described as little jail cells. I seriously burst out laughing when I first unlocked the padlock and opened the door to
The bathing room
Again, not so easy using these little buckets to bathe dressed in a sarong. my room. There were even bars on the windows! The bed was a wooden table covered by a straw mat and our pillow was made of wood (which was surprisingly comfortable). We were also provided mosquito netting to sleep under, a blanket and instructions on how to remove frogs and stinging scorpions and centipedes that often visited the rooms. Remember, we weren't allowed to kill anything and this included mosquitoes. As bad as it sounds though, it was clean and became my own little haven whenever we had free time.
Besides the silence we also weren't allowed to entertain ourselves in any way. That meant no reading, writing, music, or games. I foolishly handed over absolutely everything I owned that could have tempted me to break this rule.
We had to dress in loose clothing that covered our legs to below the knees, no sleeveless or see through shirts. We also weren't allowed to beautify ourselves in any way, including make-up of course. We had to bath with our bodies completely covered and this took place in a central room with a concrete tub and pails. Do you know how hard it is to properly wash yourself in
a sarong? To discourage anything and everything sexual, males and females were separated the entire time; eating, meditating, swimming in the hot springs, and the dorms of course. It's even so strict that when a female is passing something to a male monk, she has to set it down and he will pick it up.
Below is the daily schedule we had to follow:
4:00 am - woken by the bell
4:30 am - hearing an inspirational or thought provoking reading
4:45 am - sitting meditation in the meditation hall
5:15 am - yoga class (divided again into male and female groups)
7:00 am - morning talk and sitting meditation
8:00 am - breakfast and chores
free time (which I generally spent lying on my table bed staring at the ceiling because there was literally nothing to do)
10:00 am - Dhamma talk
11:00 am - Walking or Standing meditation
11:45 am - Sitting meditation
12:30 pm - Lunch & Chores
free time
2:30 pm - Meditation Instruction & Sitting
3:30 pm - Walking or Standing meditation
4:15 pm - Sitting meditation
5:00 pm - Chanting & Loving Kindness Meditation
6:00 pm - Tea (actually watered down hot
April swimming in the hot springs fully clothed
This was on the very first day before the silence began chocolate)
7:30 pm - Sitting meditation
8:00 pm - Walking or Standing or Sitting meditation
9:00 pm - Bedtime Goodnight (the dorm was locked at 9:15pm)
Soooooo much meditation! We figured we were doing about 8 hours per day. I have never felt so restless in my life. Everyone around me would sit completely upright and still and I would sit there like a restless 3 year old constantly changing positions. I could not meditate no matter how much I tried to concentrate on my breathing. I realized I have an incredibly active mind and at the same time decided that I like it that way! I didn't want to push thoughts out of my head. The only time I would look like I was meditating was when I was really sitting there half asleep.
So how did we handle all this? It wasn't thanks to any encouragement from home. Thanks Dad 😉 When I told him what we were about to do he sarcastically said, "A silent retreat eh? That should be interesting; you and April have always been such quiet types." He's right though; going together meant we were doomed to fail. Had we been alone I think each of us would have stayed longer. It was so hard to be in such a tough and comical situation and not be able to talk about it. We had to completely ignore each other while eating, walking and meditating. At the same time, it was nice to know we weren't doing it alone. I remember being in a very frustrated and lonely state on the first day. April stuck her tongue out at me as we were walking past each other and it completely cheered me up.
However, after the last four month of being so free, I did feel extremely trapped. I remember looking around and feeling so out of place, like I was in some sort of cult. I clearly did not fit in with all the dreads and loose wispy clothing. Some people got really into it. Everyone would walk around in a complete trance. We were encouraged to walk in bare feet at all times, very slowly and methodically. On the first night we did a group walking meditation which meant the boys walked one by one around a square pond and the girls around a round pond. I just kept imagining what it must have looked like from the air, all these people walking slowly and silently around a couple of ponds. I had to really concentrate on not laughing at this point.
Eating meals was also entertaining. The food was all vegetarian and very bland. For breakfast (and remember at this point we hadn't had a meal for 18 hours), we ate a barley gruel mix with a few kernels of corn, carrots and kidney beans. Then there were some unidentified green leaves and fruit. Lunches included dry whole grain rice, curried squash or yams, a tofu veg mix and again some fruit. We were also supposed to eat very slowly, savoring every bite. One day I sat across from a girl who ate with her eyes closed and chewing very slowly. I was actually a bit jealous because it looked like she was truly enjoying this food. Despite the fact that the "people watching" was highly entertaining, I also have a lot of respect for the people who got really into it. It was NOT easy.
Anyways, I do feel bad for poking fun at this experience because it was run extremely well and by some of the nicest people I've ever met. After we got used to the routine a bit, it really did get much better. I just decided that it wasn't the way I wanted to spend my travel time. I do see how it could help people to learn about themselves and it's really the best way to learn how to meditate. I just think I have the wrong personality type to be able to give it a fair chance. Maybe I would feel differently if there was something unsettled or upsetting in my life that I needed to deal with.
I did learn a lot about Buddhism and life in a monastery. I also learned how to entertain myself without any modern forms of entertainment. Looking back, I probably was going a little crazy though. I would sing songs at the top of my lungs, play the piano and name as many of the muscles and bones of the body I could remember from functional anatomy class...all in my head of course. One afternoon I was so desperately bored that I unraveled a whole roll of toilet paper, counted all 154 squares and folded it into nice little piles to keep in my day pack (toilet paper is extremely rare in the bathrooms here). That was a clear sign that I needed to get out!
The feeling of "breaking free" was like no other and since then we have been having amazing experiences in Thailand. I'll write next about the Thai islands...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.248s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 18; qc: 76; dbt: 0.1896s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Ken McIlwrick
non-member comment
Pardon My Laughter!!
Heather, oh Heather! When I found out you were going on this retreat I had a chuckle or two, but after reading your account I could not contain myself. I am quite impressed you held out for 3 days. There are many interpretations of Buddhist philosophy just as there are Christianity. Not all monestary's are like this and in fact a few encourage song and laughter as these are special gifts of the divine. They feel that if we hide them, it is like we are not appreciative of these gifts. There is a similar analogy between strict old-order and new-age Christians. Well it has been snowing steady since Sunday but today (Friday) we have had a reprieve. The snowbanks along are driveway are close to 2m now. Have fun on the islands. There should be some neat wildlife to see and hear. Ken Mc