BUDDHAM SARANAM GACHAMI (TO THE BUDDHA FOR REFUGE WE GO)
MAY 15, 1998
Where to begin. How does one decide to travel by train to the south of Thailand to participate in a ten day Buddhist meditation retreat. For some it is a lifelong journey, for others a quest for knowledge. For me it was pure inquisitiveness and the ability to disappear for ten days. I am not sure what I expected or hoped to take home with me. I came home with much more.
The retreat, well, it was, it was awful. It was awful and wonderful and frustrating and enlightening and exhausting and invigorating. It was all in all an incredible experience and one I know few people will ever have the time or opportunity to explore.
This was a retreat for English speaking people. Ten days in the forest monastery of Suan Mokkh in Surat Thani, Southern Thailand. The monastery is in the middle of a vast coconut grove, incredibly peaceful and serene. The rules are simple. No talking for ten days. Up at 4:00 a.m. every morning. No food after noon, only breakfast and lunch which was rice soup in the morning and rice and vegetables in the afternoon (every day). No reading or writing (except to take notes during some of the talks). No showers, only bathing with buckets out of a concrete type well outside. There were around seventy people when we started, half men half women, kept separate at all times. We slept in the women's "dorm" in concrete cells with concrete beds (no mattresses at all). Remember now that this is Thailand, Southern Thailand in the middle of the hottest time of the year so it was around 90 to 100 degrees every day. The whole experience was kind of like an Auschwitz for a new and better you.
Sleeping was an adventure. First thing was to pour a bucket of water over my head outside, go into my cell and dry off a little, cover my entire body with baby powder and then lie down on the concrete stark naked. I was instantly covered in sweat and the real trick was to put my body in a position so that no major bones were digging into the concrete while not letting any one body part touch another because that made me hotter. Not a lot of sleep on this trip. Up at four in the pitch dark to begin our daily routine which went something like this:
Morning reading, sitting meditation, walking meditation, yoga, sitting meditation, breakfast, chores, guided sitting meditation, sitting meditation, walking meditation, sitting meditation, lunch, bathing, lecture on Buddhism, walking meditation, sitting meditation, walking meditation, chanting, tea break, group walking, guided meditation, sitting meditation, bed.
Meditation is not easy. It is uncomfortable to sit in the "meditating posture" so I was physically sore, not to mention the yoga and the concrete bed. But trying to clear your mind, I mean sweep it clean was nearly impossible for me. After ten full days of trying I maybe had fifteen minutes where I felt I was actually meditating. It was an incredible feeling really but I haven’t had it since. The talks given throughout the day on Buddhism were fascinating. We had one Thai Monk, Ajahn Poh, who was the Abbott that ran the monastery. He spoke very broken English but really appealed to me because he left out all the frivolous words we use as native speakers and got right to the point. He would say things like, "must hurry practice meditation because never know we die, the end." "When you can meditation you get enjoy". He was great. Then we had a quite radical, political American monk who has been a monk in Thailand for 16 years now. He ran the monastery down the road. The difference between the two men and yet their belief in the same philosophy of religion was intriguing.
So I got into the swing of things and all was going well. I was beginning to relax, to reflect, to calm down and get in tune with my inner self…right up until the forest fire.
There are very few things in life more comical than a flock of white robed, long haired, flip flop wearing, non speaking, in harmony with the world meditators trying to put out a major forest fire. The first fifteen minutes were ridiculous because we had taken a vow of silence so we were all running and nodding and pointing with our heads and grunting. Finally somebody said something and then we all just started talking at once. The fire had been started by a careless fisherman burning his nets and the winds had taken it. It was raging when we got there and was threatening to burn down the monastery next to ours (the American monk was the Abbott for that monastery). The winds kept changing so we were a bit helpless but we spent about four hours wetting down trees and cutting back and hauling away all the underbrush. There was a road and hot spring (the only available water) separating the fire from the monastery so we were trying to prevent it from crossing the road. We were in the hot sun at noon fighting a hot fire with boiling water from the hot spring. The fire truck finally came, manned by three or four fifteen year olds in true Thai fashion. Finally a man with a walkie talkie showed up and looked important so we all left the rest up to them. The fire was finally extinguished about ten hours later.
Following our futile attempt at fighting nature, we all trudged back to our monastery and of course after four hours of a pure adrenaline rush were thrown back into total silence. Later that evening the monks all came to thank us and it turned out to be quite emotional.
My neighbor in the "cell" next to mine was quite unique. She stayed the whole ten days but rarely attended anything. She bathed about six times a day, spent most of her time locked up in her cubicle with the small window and door shut (which must have elevated the temperature to about 400 degrees). I was forever hearing sloshing noises and mumbling and goings on and she stayed up most of the night. She had enough food (against the rules) to feed an army and was forever handing out candy and oreo cookies and chips and packaged milk and instant coffee to people saying "Let’s share". Bless her heart, she was so sweet but I think she needed medication instead of meditation.
The rest of the time was fairly routine and we got back into the groove. I learned a lot about Buddhism and a lot about myself. I make light of the whole experience only because it affected me in a way that is hard to describe. I believe that everything in life changes you, whether it changes you for better or worse is entirely up to you. I am different. Maybe just slightly but different. Better, lighter, happier. In the hours upon hours of meditation time I had lots of time to think about my life. It is amazing how much comes to the surface of the mind when there is no distraction. No noise coming in, no one talking to you, no music, no television, no radio, no children, no spouse, no nothing. And nothing going out, no talking. It was interesting to see how little of what we say is really that important. All this silence in your mind makes everything that has been pushed to the far caverns of the brain bubble to the surface.
I had a chance to gaze at the group one day from a distance, people of all nationalities, color, race, religion, education and expectation sitting peacefully on their mats in the sand, surrounding a very charismatic monk on a sand pedestal. He was leading everyone in a beautiful Pali chant in the middle of the coconut grove as the sun was setting behind him. How lucky I was to be there.
Lots of love
em