The retreat at Wat Rampoeng

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Mornings began with a bong - a loud resounding bell from the temple's ornately-housed bell at 4am. My first full day I snoozed for another hour, not quite convinced it was healthy to rise so early, especially as no sleeping was permitted before 10pm - you may rest but not sleep during the day. By the second day I was on my feet in one wakeful movement in automatic response to the first bong. And for a few days I was even up well before 4am to get in some extra meditation before breakfast. Those days I did sneak a tiny nap during daylight, I admit.

The bell's ringing was enhanced by the baying simultaneously of the temple's dogs, which seemed perfectly normal to my sleepy head. One morning I was practising my meditation by the bell tower when it started to chime. I moved my gaze to observe the bell and saw that the young monk ringing it had not chosen to stay on the ground and tug on the rope, but had scaled the tower to sit in its open side, where he held the rope right near the clapper - as one would hold the halter of a frisky colt. The bell was bigger than his body, and made me jump with its loud tone when it first sounded, so I don't believe his hearing will remain much good for long. Or perhaps his already being deaf got him the job?

Phra Guy had walked me through the fundamentals of the meditation practicalities. For six of the following 24 hours I was to practise walking then sitting in lots of 15 minutes each. Walking involved thinking the words, "Right goes thus, left goes thus," over and over while slowly moving my corresponding feet forward in a straight line. Head slightly bowed to avoid eye contact - as was the requirement for the whole stay, including meals and breaks - and eyes focused on a point I was walking towards. "Turning, turning, turning," slowly, always to the right, and pausing between each foot movement, in order to retrace my steps.

Sitting on a mat, legs crossed, hands resting in my lap, thinking, "Rising, falling, sitting," slowly in rhythm with my breathing. The 15 minutes - which grew to 40 by day nine, for ten hours of the day - was marked by a little digital egg timer I carried with me. These timers, with their subtle variations of tone, rhythm and intensity, could be heard chirrupping all over the temple site from 4am to 10pm. The small geckoes, to be found near every window and doorway calling out for tasty moths with their sharp notes, were no doubt confused by the competing similar sounds.

Most people seemed to do their early practising in their rooms: minimalist white walls, cool floor tiles, no furniture except a hard bed, and a bathroom close to hand. This provided a convenient place to slowly wake up, and the wall-mounted fan helped as even before dawn it was quite warm, and once the pain began in the crossed legs the body temperature soared. Each room had its own narrow terrace outside for when walking inside the room became claustrophobic - although the risk of breaking one of the eight Buddhist precepts by squashing an ant increased with outside walking in the dark.

The next bell at about 6am summoned us to breakfast. Wearing all white, we took off our flip-flops and queued for ‘normal’ or vegetarian food, both of which were invariably some protein with soupy noodles. Lunch was at the surprising hour of 10.30am, and was usually rice, vegetables and soupy protein, followed by some sort of fruit - the type of which was often a mystery to me. Monks sat at one end of the room, students and nuns at the other - men and women separate. We sat or knelt on thin mats at low circular tables, first prostrating three times at the shiny gold Buddha image, and endured 20 minutes prayers and singing while our food cooled, resting just in reach, taunting us especially at breakfast, when it had been 20 hours since our previous meal. I say ‘endured’ the prayers and singing, as the difficulty - after the uncomfortable sitting and hunger - was the inaccessible ancient language of Buddhism used.

A shaven-headed nun with a microphone turned up much too loud would sing phrases we would try to repeat. Fun the first few times. Then the monks would chant a couple of primitive-sounding ditties, with stirring rhythms and eastern modes. The monks - about 50 or 60 of them , aged from ten to 70 - would then start to eat, having been served by the nuns. We would then sing further songs to them about how we mustn’t enjoy our food too much, and how suffering gave us ‘bright skins’, or so the translation read. It did seem an odd way to begin a meal, singing anti-gluttony propaganda songs to scoffing monks (mindfully scoffing, of course). I was relieved when after a few days the dining room became too full, and we had the option of eating outdoors - sitting on a chair at a table. I felt a little guilty about not taking such a full part of the meal-ritual, but as my hours of meditation increased - meaning painful sitting - I felt less guilty.

After some mid-morning walking and sitting came the similar ritual at lunch. Sitting outside, where the no-talking ban was still generally in force, we had the bonus entertainment of watching two puppy dogs playing around the tables, neat piles of shoes and gilded statuary. The dogs all looked content and healthy, especially the puppies; someone was obviously taking care of them and I rarely saw them begging for food. Another entertainment was listening out for the various nuts and fruit that would periodically fall onto a roof with a loud ‘crack’, or narrowly miss landing in someone’s cup of tea, if they were not sitting under cover. As well as this natural litter, the endlessly falling leaves from the rich tree-cover made much work for the monks and students, who each had a responsibility of sweeping for a certain amount of time each day.

Although we weren’t supposed to talk - Phra Guy would often wander past scowling and mutter to no-one in particular, “In white; focus meditate; no talk” - almost everyone relaxed this rule at times, so friends were being made as well as focused minds. However, attending the retreat with people you were already friends with was discouraged - and couples forbidden. On the day I arrived so did a group of five German friends. They all left on day three, claiming it wasn’t for them. The monks reasoned that if the friends had come at different times then they may have been more focused on their own journeys and not swayed by their peers to quit so easily.

I didn’t know at first why the Germans had disappeared. I had got used to seeing them around and had exchanged smiles and the odd brief word (I was one of the mostly non-talking ones) and suddenly they were gone. They had looked like it ‘was for them’ - clean white clothes, good technique with the prostrations, and so on. I had gone to find Phra Guy in his office at the time when I first noticed they had missed a meal. I wanted to ask him about booking a train for my journey back to Bangkok - but was also curious about the Germans. He had left a note on his door saying he had gone out for the afternoon. That explained it, I thought: he’s taken them out for a visit to another temple, or maybe even to help them buy their train tickets for use at the end of their ten days.

It was Lai who set me straight. Lai was a young Vietnamese man who looked and moved like he had come to grips with meditation, and that it agreed with him, if you can imagine that. In fact he had first come to this temple a year ago, to escape a lot of stuff going on in his life, he said. He hadn’t known much about mindfulness before coming then, but after ten days he stayed on for another two-and-a-half months. This time he had come back with his parents and brother, who all seemed to be accepting the challenge well. Lai turned out to be a good source of information, from what was going on at odd little ceremonies, to the whereabouts of missing Germans. He was even able to enlighten me on why the dogs had barked that one early morning then subsequently stopped. Lai had discovered that the more he meditated, the less he needed to sleep. (I made a mental note - it may work the other way around, too.) The dogs had barked at him that night, as he went out really early to meditate in the depths of night by the Buddha statues, but the dogs had since become used to him and the hours he kept. Lai was also a good source of treats - occasionally giving me a sachet of sugary coffee he had bought from the shop, when he saw me with my earnest black tea.

One ceremony of the monks I didn’t at first grasp was held at eight o’clock each morning. Some of the white-dressed students, shaven-headed nuns and assorted locals would line one side of the main thoroughfare through the temple, standing behind trestle tables laden with packaged food. At first it looked like they were having a cake stall; perhaps to raise money for a hearing aid for the bell ringer? But then the monks, biggest/oldest to smallest/youngest, would solemnly process past, each holding before him a large bowl, sometimes encased in an orange wrap, with a carrying strap. Into these bowls the stall holders would place various juice boxes, chocolates and sometimes money. I’m not sure what the monks then did with the food - hopefully not eat it all. I imagined that it went back to the shop for sale. Lai told me that this was part of their alms begging, and that early in the morning all over Thailand Monks roam the streets with their bowls and receive gifts from the faithful populace.

On the two Tuesdays I was there the moon’s cycle meant that we were able to take part in celebrations for Buddha Day. The ceremony was held in the evening, and involved some kind of sermon in the main hall, followed by a triple procession around the decorated and lit-up pagoda. The sermon seemed to be very funny, but the language was lost on me. The procession was more accessible, and I duly bought my candle, three incense sticks and lotus flower to carry during the silent procession through the fragrant wafts of incense and delicate candle light.

Each evening the students would report individually to a senior monk. Here we would discuss our progress with the meditation, air any difficulties - usually about the amount of pain from the sitting - and get our instructions for the following day - usually an increase in the number of hours we should meditate for. The reporting began with waiting together for the monk to arrive, usually an hour late, and we were instructed to keep silence and remain disciplined during this time. Phra Guy had identified one persistent talker among the students, and hissed at me one day, “Don’t sit next to her!” One-by-one we responded to Phra Ajan Choi’s little bell, and walked into his room on our knees, prostrating three times before the Buddha-image then three times before Phra Ajan Choi himself. The wisest advice he gave me during my reporting, when I was fretting a little over not being able to concentrate as much as I wanted, was, “Don’t worry; be happy!”

One morning I was practising my meditative walking on the roof terrace of the ornate library. I was halfway through a lap and heard a loud ‘thwack’ on the floor behind me. I was startled for a moment, but reasoned it was probably just a particularly heavy nut falling from one of the trees, so thought no more of it. When I got to the end of my lap I slowly turned around, as part of the slow walking. My eyes scanned the roof for signs of the splattered fruit or nut, but instead came to rest on a four or five foot long bright green tree snake, coiled in my path, halfway across the roof. Its head was raised, but looking the other way. I briefly froze, then backed away slowly to the entrance into the library, being thankful that my escape wasn’t blocked. Having been brought up in a country where snakes were universally feared because of their deadly poison, it was quite a scary thing to happen, and I thought that I was very lucky the snake hadn’t fallen onto my head!

I rushed through the library, not sure if I should warn the contemplative students not to go out on the roof. Luckily I seemed to be the only one who regularly used that area, so I thought I would be alright not to disturb them but get the advice of a monk. The English-speaking monk I found assured me that the greens ones were not dangerous, but as for the brown ones, they were a different matter. Fortunately the brown ones don’t climb trees. I went back to the terrace, heart still racing, in order to take a picture of the snake. There didn’t seem to be anywhere for it to escape off the roof, so I assumed it would be still there somewhere. I couldn’t see it, however, and only assume it was hiding in a big pile of leaves in the corner, and pitied the monk who went to pick up those leaves as part of his duties. Needless to say I no longer meditated under a tree, and stopped the walking-practice outside in the dark.

While I was in the retreat I felt myself becoming more focused, and really believed I had more control over my thoughts. I also felt I very quickly gained an improved perspective on my life, and especially about what I hoped to do once my current trip had ended. In fact I was aware quite distinctly at one stage of a voice within me saying, “Don’t let anything get in the way of what you want to achieve.” You have been warned! I hope the mindfulness will continue to be a part of my life, but perhaps in more subtle ways than the leg-breaking meditation. I certainly feel like I walk slower now. As I left the temple, before breakfast in order to catch an all-day train back to Bangkok, my tuk tuk passed dozens of orange-robed monks processing along the streets with their bowls, and people were stopping before them to bow and give them gifts.

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Comments

[Maggie]

erm ...
Fascinating - thanks Nick! 'you may rest but not sleep during the day' (how does that work then??? ; ) ) M

[Julian]

Deutsche
What happened to the Germans?

[Noz]

The disappearing Germans
disappeared without a trace.