The One Where I Get Attacked By A Shark

This unfortunate photo is the
only one I have of my surf/scuba
instructor. Sorry, dude!

WARNING: This post contains some... fairly graphic imagery. Not a lot, but enough to merit a warning. And not like geometry graphic, but shark attack graphic.

Note: While I encourage you to read this intro part to get a feel for the scene, if you just want to skip down to the good stuff, scroll down to the header "[THE GOOD STUFF]" below.

Today is my last day in the Galapagos, so I wanted to do something special. My scuba instructor from yesterday, CD, also happens to be a surf instructor so I made plans with him to do a surfing lesson today. RS and AS, the very friendly Mexican couple who I met diving yesterday are also joining us. I headed out to the pier at 9 o'clock this morning to meet up with him. He's a super chill guy and looks sort of exactly like you expect him to: tall, lanky, ripped, beard, typical surfer vibe. We took a water taxi for a couple minutes over to another part of the island to pick up RS and AS and then headed over to my favorite beach, Tortuga Bay.

It's about a 20-minute boat ride to Tortuga Bay, which is crazy because the last time I went there I walked and it definitely did not feel that far. I guess when you have to go along the coastline it's a little different then when you can walk in a straight line there. The beach is split into two parts: the calm, lagoon side where boats can dock (and where I went snorkeling last time), and the rough, wave-filled part where surfers hang out. For obvious reasons, we docked on the calm side. There's an awesome cactus garden that separates the two sides of the beach and greets you as you dock.

Definitely do NOT hug the trees

I also ran across this little guy posing for the camera:

Don't hate me 'cause
I'm (blue footed) boobyful

After docking, there's about a 15-minute walk to get across to the other side of the beach to go surfing. One of the things I love about this beach is that it has the finest sand I've ever seen in my life. It's like walking on powdered sugar and it feels amazing. It also makes it a little more difficult to walk because you sink in so much. It a pretty novel experience. I would recommend to anyone that if you're going to go to the Galapagos, you have to check out this beach.

Beach? Yes. Putting green? No.

Along the way, we passed by these yellow flags every few meters along the edge of the beach. My instructor explained to me that each flag marks a turtle nest! Researchers come out each morning to mark them and they take 52 days for the eggs to hatch. Crazy. What a sweet job. Science is awesome.

We got to the other end of the beach where people go surfing but the place to rent boards was locked up, so my instructor went out in search of the dude with the keys. RS, AS, and I hung out near the water just killing time. Each passing minute made me less and less hopeful that we were actually going to be able to surf today. We waited for about 20 minutes and just when I was about to give up, my instructor came walking back with surf boards!

It was the RS and AS's first time surfing, which was fine by me because it pretty much felt like my first time anyway (even though this was actually my fourth). I grabbed my board, put on my leash, and headed out into the water with everyone else. This beach is the perfect place to learn how to surf: plenty of waves, but none that are too crazy. There's a very gradual decline in the grade (i.e., the height) of the sand, which means you can be pretty far away from the shoreline and still be in relatively shallow water. In the shallower waters the waves are a lot more manageable and farther out there are bigger waves for the more advanced surfers. This is the first time I've ever had a non-private surf lesson, but I didn't really mind. I was happy to just be out there with a board practicing the basics like balancing on my board and paddling. I was still getting a little bit of instruction, which actually really helped. My biggest problem right now is getting my back foot planted when I pop up on the board, but I guess that comes with practice.

[THE GOOD STUFF]

After an hour of being in the water I finally found a good wave, paddled out like crazy and mounted my board. I was actually riding a wave! On my own! This is awesome. It lasted a good... three seconds before I could start to feel the wave dying out from under me. Just as I was feeling that happen, I saw this huge black shadow in front of me and to the left; it was moving perpendicular to the direction of my surf board, heading toward the exact spot where I was about to be. I thought to myself, "ok, that looks kind of like a shark." But here's the thing: I've been to this beach before and last time I was here I saw a baby black-tipped reef shark swimming in ankle-deep water. From what I had heard, these sharks are really docile and don't mess around with people. So even if it was a shark, I wasn't really that worried about it.

Black-tipped reef shark; Photo:
http://www.sealifeweymouth.com/explore/our-creatures/blacktip-reef-shark.aspx

A split second later, I wiped out, sending my board flying out in front of me as a half-jumped half-felloff the back. The water level here was about waist-deep so I immediately tried to stand up, but as I landed in the water, I felt something beating against my leg really hard. Like... realllllly hard. It sort of felt like what I imagine a tail fin would feel like as a big fish swims by you. I wasn't sure what was happening but then my leg started killing me. My first thought was I must have hit it with my board, which has definitely happened many times before since I'm a total noob at surfing. But then I thought about it a little more and realized that my board went flying in front of me, so that couldn't possibly have been it. I grabbed my leg and pulled it into my body for about five seconds because the pain was so bad, fully expecting the initial pain to subside, but finding that it only continued to get worse.

I finally got control of my board and used it to help me raise my leg out of the water and that's when I saw one of those things you never really want to see on yourself or anyone else. There was a big slice through my left calf and what was underneath wasn't skin, it was a white color. And blood. Seeping out from many, many, many places along the inner side of my left leg. ...this doesn't look good. Above my knee I could see a row of puncture wounds that clearly corresponded to a row of teeth. I didn't want to yell out for help... for some reason I still don't fully understand, so I just waved my arms trying to capture my instructor's attention, then beckoning him over when he noticed me a couple seconds later. I showed him my leg and CD immediately yelled at the two other students to get out of the water right now (in Spanish, obviously; this whole day takes place in Spanish). I started walking out toward the shore and he was like, "get on the board." I protested mildly, telling him that it's okay, I can walk back, to which he responded more firmly for me to get on the board. I acquiesced and flopped my way onto my surfboard, after which he pushed me the remaining 15 meters or so back to shore.

Back on the beach, CD and RS carried me, still on top of the board, a little more inland away from the waves. Immediately, a few other people who happened to be on the beach came over to help us. This was all a little bit of a blur for me. One of the guys that came over called for a boat to take us back to the main port. During that time, they got some bottled water and poured it on my leg. There were four very clear bites with about five teeth each. They started with the worst a few inches below my knee on my inner calf, and then got progressively lighter until a few inches above my knee. CD used his white t-shirt to cover my leg and protect it. I don't know if you've ever put cloth (or... anything) on an open wound before but let me tell you, it is NOT pleasant. But it was probably for the better, given how much sand was potentially flying around.

Looks like I'm just sitting on a surf board, right? While that's technically
true, all the fun stuff happened from the point of view you can't see
here. Just you wait, it's coming further below. Promise.

SCIENCE!

At this point, my leg was hurting. Not like crazy, but hurting. The salt water wasn't doing me any favors either. While sitting there on the surfboard, I remembered a wonderful thing. See, for most of this trip, I've been carrying around a few choice "just in case" items in my little travel daypack (like a whistle, for example). The vast majority of these items I've never had to use. But I remember that one of those items happened to be New Skin Liquid Bandage, a truly miraculous substance that you brush onto things like cuts and it acts as both an antiseptic and then hardens to form a protective seal, replacing the need for a band-aid. Amazing. It's in these times that Present Me is so thankful that Past Me had enough foresight to have Future Me's back.

I wasn't really thinking about the whole hardening part, just the antiseptic part, so I told the people I was with about it and someone went to retrieve the vial from inside of my backpack. He then poured it over my bigger wounds and used the little brush to gently brush it around. And, well, have you ever put hydrogen peroxide on a cut? Ok so imagine that. Except instead of hydrogen peroxide, think crazy strong hydrogen peroxide. And instead of a cut, think massive holes in your leg due to shark bite. That's what this was like. In fact... that's exactly what this was. OUCH. But honestly, probably for the better. Who knows what crazy kind of bacteria were living in that shark's mouth? I bet it didn't even brush that morning. Lazy shark.

You've been forewarned: here are some close-ups of the other side of my leg that you didn't see above:

After laying there for a few minutes, we got word that there was a boat coming to take me, so four guys spread out to opposite ends of the surf board and carried me Cleopatra-style down the beach, with AS carrying my daypack alongside us. Remember how I said it was a 15 minute walk to get here? Well they had to make that same 15-minute walk back. But, you know, when you're carrying a dude on a surfboard, it takes a little more than 15 minutes. And remember how I said that the sand here was like walking on powdered sugar? Turns out that makes it super hard to carry a dude on a surfboard down the beach too. I was so impressed. Before they started carrying me, I honestly at first was thinking, "hey, if one of you just wants to get on my left side to support me, we can walk down there." In retrospect, that probably would have been a terrible idea, but I didn't really feel like I was in so much pain that I couldn't walk. The guys had to rest every couple of minutes but to be honest, I was impressed at how little they actually did rest. Eventually they found a giant log and put it under the surfboard and used that to carry me, which was a little easier for them, but I can't imagine that much easier.

As an aside, despite the searingly painful, blood gushing, potentially-life-threatening terrifyingness of the situation, I was in surprisingly good spirits the whole time. I was talking pretty calmly to everyone. In Spanish, no less. Trust me, I'm as surprised as you. But like... this is such a ridiculous thing to happen and it's no one's fault, so how can you even be mad about it? Screaming out in pain or being angry or scared wasn't going to help the situation. It wasn't going to get me down the beach faster. It wasn't going to make that ambulance get there any quicker. It wasn't going to make me any lighter for the incredibly generous dudes carrying me down the beach. So why not laugh about it? I was cracking jokes with the guys and everyone was doing okay, as far as I could tell. My instructor was making fun of me for being so heavy that they had to keep stopping. I asked him if he wanted to switch places for a little bit. No big deal. Part of me wonders if the meditation retreat from back in October had anything to do with it, or if I would have just been this way anyway. I guess we'll never know.

We eventually made it back to the calm part of the beach where we first docked. There were a lot of tourists there and everyone was staring, obviously. People were taking photos. It was kind of funny. A few minutes later, the boat arrived to take us to the main harbor and a few people lifted the entire surfboard onto it. I said goodbye to RS and AS, thanked them for their help, and apologized for ruining their surfing afternoon. They couldn't have been more wonderful about the whole thing.

My instructor and one other guy hopped on board and we were off! The ocean was relatively calm, but I could feel every tiny wave we passed. To be honest, I was probably way more amused by the whole thing than I really should have been, but... come on, who gets bit by a shark?! Honestly. This photo was taken from the boat on the way to the main harbor:

As we were pulling up to the dock my instructor started chuckling. I asked him what he was laughing at and he responded, "... there are a lot of people here." Ha! We pulled into the dock. I couldn't really see much because I was lying down in the boat, but as we arrived, I could see a whole swarm of people peering in to see what had happened and I saw the ambulance waiting at the dock. We docked and a couple medics boarded with a stretcher. They set it down next to the surfboard and move me over onto it. Then they lifted the stretcher out of the boat and onto the dock, which was terrifying in and of itself because as they lifted me, I wasn't totally confident they weren't going to drop me into the water. But it turned out okay. They got me into an ambulance. Everyone was taking photos. Even people in uniform looking very official were taking photos.

My instructor hopped into the ambulance too and we took a quick two-minute ride over to the hospital. On the way, a doctor asked me a few questions about what had happened. We arrived at the hospital and they took me right into a room and laid me on a bed, still on this hard plastic stretcher. Then a bunch of people came in to look at the thing. One guy who turned out to be the doctor who was going to take care of me finally took my info, name nationality, etc. and then explained to me what was going to happen. Except it was in Spanish and my medical vocabulary isn't stellar. Puntos? What are puntos? He finally was able to charades it up enough to help me understand that he was talking about stitches. They were going to clean me up and then stitch me up. Cool, sounds about right.

Remember that liquid bandage stuff we poured on my leg? Yea, turns out that doing that was a TERRIBLE idea (I dunno, maybe it wasn't, maybe it staved off infection, but who knows?) because they had to remove it before they could do anything else. And the whole point of it is that it's a band-aid, so it... sticks to you. That was for sure one of the most painful parts of this entire ordeal because it felt like they were pulling open all of my wounds again. After excruciatingly removing the liquid bandage, a nurse shaved around my cuts and then the doctor came back to start the suturing. He started with the worst bite first.

CHOMP CHOMP

He injected me with some lidocaine, a local anesthetic. I can't really remember if or when I've ever had something like that but I was surprised as how effective it was. I could feel the poking and prodding, but i only felt the pain in the areas that weren't drugged up. Which was still pretty painful. After he finished on the first bite, he moved onto the second one, again with lidocaine beforehand. On the third one he decided not to use lidocaine and that thing hurt worst than anything so far. After doing just one stitch I told him that I couldn't feel my arms (which was true and was totally weirding me out) he was like, "...i'm going to give you some more lidocaine." THANK YOU. Also... seriously?! Did you not think it was a good idea to start with the anesthetic on my animal bite? He finished up with the stitches after about an hour or so. They only other time I've had stitches was when I fell down the stairs as a little kid and split my lip open. I was too young to remember any of it. So I really had no idea if this guy was doing a good job or not. The rest of the hospital staff didn't seem to care too much, given their propensity for taking photos. But one of them assured me as she assisted the doctor who was suturing that was doing "like a cosmetic surgery" on my leg. Meaning that the technique he was using was meant to minimize the scarring. (When I got my stitches out a couple weeks later, I found out from that nurse that this was indeed true. Thanks, doc!). There was a fourth bite higher up on my leg, but the doctor said it was too light to need stitches. I reluctantly agreed with him. At the time, he counted 45 stitches but when I got them out a few weeks later, we counted 42.

When he was finished, they wrapped up my leg and told me to go back to the hotel, take a shower, and come back so they could rewrap my leg because it can't get wet. Luckily my hotel was very close by because everything is very close by.

My surf instructor has been waiting out in the waiting room the whole time, which must have been about two or three hours. He came back in with my daypack, which thankfully he had been carting around this whole time. Still shirtless because his shirt was soaked my my blood. He told me that earlier he had to go across the street and took some cash from my wallet to buy the razors and bandages the nurses needed for my leg. Welcome to medical care on the islands!

Here's what I looked like all stitched up:

I got down from the bed and very gingerly started to walk. No wheelchair was there for me. My surf instructor was like "come on guys!" and so they brought me one. Then they wheeled me about 3 meters to the exit of the hospital and that was as far as that wheelchair ride went. I could actually walk just fine, I just couldn't bend my leg for fear of my stitches coming out.

I would be remiss if I didn't give a very heartfelt thank you to all of the hospital staff. For as much grief as I've given them thus far, the truth of the matter is that without them, who knows what would have happened to my leg, and for that I'm very, very grateful. 

My instructor had been waiting for me the whole time, like two or three hours, and he went with me back to my hotel. He also had gotten me some Gatorade and food. What a champ. When we got outside of the hospital, his girlfriend (who was the other scuba instructor from yesterday) was there. And she brought food for me! Amazing. We hopped in a taxi and we drove the one minute to my hotel. The two of them helped me up the stairs to my room. When we got there, the woman at the counter was like, "what happened?" and I said, "shark" and she was like ".....seriously???" Up in my room, they left me with my food and said they'd come by later. Of course, being me, I just had logistics on my mind. I needed to get my dive log signed so I asked him to sign it from yesterday. He said he would take it, stamp it, and bring it back later so that he could also collect the tupperware.

After they left, I very carefully got into the shower and got all the sand off me. That was maybe one of the most painful showers of my life. I then very carefully dressed because I didn't want to mess up my clothes. You know, with my own blood. That was leaking from my body.

SO thoughtful. So delicious.

I was STARVING at this point and so glad to have that food and it was SO good. I ate then got ready and headed out the door. Downstairs, I asked them to call me a taxi. Then the WHOLE FAMILY running this place, like... a dozen of them were crowded around me asking me questions about what had happened. The taxi came and took me back to the hospital. I waited for just a few minutes, and then they took me in and rewrapped my leg.

Waiting outside of the hospital
for my leg to get re-wrapped

As I was sitting on the same hospital bed as before, I was wondering why the bed felt wet and I figured they must have just put a new paper sheet over it, so it was probably still wet from when I was there before in my soaking board shorts. Nope, turns out the Gatorade bottle I had in my backpack wasn't properly closed so it was very slowly leaking out. Onto everything in my backpack. Onto me. Only my clothes, Onto that bed. Onto the floor. Great.

I got out of the hospital about 15 minutes later, having received an injection in my lower back for the pain. I headed to a pharmacy across the street to pick up the antibiotic and the painkiller the doc prescribed to me. I then decided I wanted ice cream. So I got ice cream from the little shop down the street. It turns out they didn't have chocolate, just vanilla. Worst. But still ice cream. Today is just not my day.

Getting wrapped

The doctor was very explicit that I needed to take it easy. So any rational human being with an ounce of common sense would have gone straight back to the hotel immediately following their shark attack. The thing is... common sense is not something I brought much of with me on this trip. I had put off getting gifts for my family the whole three-ish weeks I was here and I couldn't very well return home without getting them something from the Galapagos, right? (They would be mortified to know this was true, so I haven't told them this, until now I guess). So instead of heading back to my hotel, I decided to take the five-minute walk down the street to where the stores were. Well, what is normally five minutes. In my current condition, it was more like 15. Of course, I couldn't just get what I found at the first store. I was looking for a very particular shirt for myself. What was this shirt, you ask? It was four Galapagos animals crossing the street a la the Beatles' Abbey Road cover. Obviously. So I went to another shop. And another. And another. About an hour later I finally found everything I needed, so this time I was smart enough to take a taxi back to the hotel.

I survived a shark attack and all I got was this lousy shirt

When I got into the lobby, the woman there told me that the minister of tourism for the island had called looking for me. What?! So she called him back for me and told me that he was on his way here. I was in no rush to be anywhere, so I waited down in the lobby. About 10 minutes later, the dude showed up and introduced himself. He just wanted to make sure everything was okay and to see if I needed anything, I told him I was going to the airport tomorrow and he said he would arrange for my ride in the morning. Amazing! We chatted for a few minutes and then he was on his way. 

After that very sweet woman at the reception came and chatted with me and asked me all about what had happened. She said if there was anything at all that I needed, to just let her know. She was so sympathetic.

About 20 minutes later and much to my surprise, the Mexican couple that was with us earlier walked through the door! They found out where I was staying and came to check on me. Amazing. We chatted for a while and debriefed. They're so cool. The dude showed me some pictures he took of me and was going to send me (one of which is in this post). They invited me to come visit them anytime I'm in Mexico city. We said our goodbyes and they were on their way.

'Tis but a scratch

Later in the evening, a researcher for the Galapagos National Parks who specializes in sharks came by the hotel. He has heard about my shark attack and wanted to ask me a few questions about it, which I was very happy to do. They want to get as much data on this stuff as possible. We sat in a little lobby area and then moved to my hotel room so I could pull up the photos from earlier in the day. He was super nice and asked me to share my photos with him, which I told him I would send to him. I showed him some of the photos and he explained a little more clearly what probably happened. Based on the size of my bites, he said the shark was probably about 1.5 meters in length. This whole time, I was thinking it was the worst bites first, then progressively lighter, but he explained it was probably the other way around. The first two were probably not actually bits, but instead the shark ramming into me with his mouth. Their teeth are super sharp, so it left what looks like bite marks. As the shark got more scared and frustrated, it started to bite, first a light one, then a harder one, before it finally found its way around my leg. I'm assuming that beating against my leg I mentioned earlier was probably the shark's incredibly powerful tail fin smacking me as it swam past.

What a crazy day. I packed up my room a bit and worked on the blog to document all of this before heading to bed. I need to go to the hospital tomorrow morning before my flight so they can re-rewrap my bandage again. I can get my stitches out in eight days.

I'm so happy to be alive.

Meditation Retreat Days 6-8: I Think I'm Getting Somewhere

I woke up on Day 6 with a lot of sadness about BE leaving. It turns out I haven't made that much progress with the whole "letting go of attachments" things as I had thought. Which sucks. That morning after breakfast, VW (the quirky, German volunteer organizer) gave a talk to the group and made a remark about how he had to kick one of the girls out for talking. Huh. Maybe she didn't decide to leave after all. Somehow this makes me feel a little... less sad about it. On the guys' side, everyone has been so respectful of the rules and really good about not breaking the silence. Apparently, that hasn't been the case on the womens' side because this isn't the first time VW has made mention of issues in the womens' dorm.

Around day 7 after lunch while I was washing my dishes, I accidentally dropped my plate into the water and splashed the guy next to me in the face. I felt so bad about it, and I couldn't even say sorry. He was already clearly having a rough time here and he just had this look of "...ugh, this too?" on his face. He kind of looks like the main guy from the show The Shield, but a little bit stockier, so picture that guy making that face and that's what I was seeing. Oh well. Later that afternoon we were in the hot springs together, just the two of us, and I'm pretty sure he peed in it right as he got out, so... yea. As it turns out, the next day he ended up leaving the retreat. I like to think that if anything, I helped him reach a decision he was going to make anyway.

Antsy guy from our morning Tai Chi sessions is getting antsier by the day. Whereas before I found him to be incredibly distraction, disrespectful, and annoying, I've now come to feel a lot of sympathy for him. Can you imagine how difficult this whole experience must be for him? Eight days later, he still can't sit still for a second. He must be struggling so much right now. As an aside, one time I was walking through the streets of San Francisco with my friend KC (the same friend who had done this retreat a few years ago) and we passed a homeless person on the street, who was very clearly on a lot of drugs. As we passed, the person either said some inaudible phrase or just made some really awful noise and I remember not really giving it much more thought until my friend KC remarked, "that person must be in so much pain." Just those few words were such a reality check. This wasn't just some homeless person like the many others we had surely passed already on our walk. This was a person. Period. A living, breathing, thinking, feeling human being. Anyway, I digress. I really, truly want antsy guy to make it through the 10 days, he's fought so hard for so long already.

On a completely unrelated side note, the night sky here is beautiful and has a lot of stars to see. Having said that, to be honest, I was expecting to see more. When I was a kid, I visited Guyana and remember the sky being flooded with stars. I've never seen anything like that since. I chalked that up to the fact that Guyana wasn't very developed, so there wasn't much light pollution (or any pollution for that matter) to get in the way. So I was expecting the same thing from this random place in the middle of nowhere Thailand, but I guess not.

A wonderful thing happened around day 7 or 8: my back stopped hurting. I guess once you sit upright for long enough, you build up much stronger back muscles. It made it a LOT easier to concentrate and to sit still for a much longer period of time when my back wasn't hurting. It's really hard to keep your concentration if you are shifting positions every three minutes but now I can go for a good half an hour in the same position with no problem at all.

I was also able to repeat that rolling sensation on my chest a few times over the course of days 6-8. But another crazy thing started happening too. During his first talk way back on Day 1 or 2, VW mentioned a whole bunch of benefits of meditation, most of which I wrote off as total BS. Things like curing cancer and diabetes and a whole host of other medical ailments. Cancer? Seriously? You're telling me that I can just think my way into getting rid of those pesky genetic mutations causing uncontrolled cellular replication? Right. BUT, one thing happened that totally blew my mind. One time after I was able to maintain my focus for a good 15 or 20 minutes, I opened my eyes and I kid you not, I started seeing more clearly. Not in the figurative "the answer is right in front of me!" sense, but in the physical "I can literally see the world more sharply" sense. As if I had just put on a new contacts prescription for the first time and hadn't realized how fuzzy things had been until now. The scientist in me wants to be completely skeptical and can think of a million other reasons as to why this might have happened. Maybe it was a coincidence. Maybe I was just more aware of my surroundings because I more mentally focused. Maybe my eyes had time to rest so my eye muscles weren't tired and were able to focus better. I can't say exactly what the cause was but regardless... I saw more clearly. It only lasted for a few seconds before things went back to normal, but man, it's awesome when your body can surprise you in a good way. And I was able to repeat it a few times over days 6-8. And it wasn't just because I was closing my eyes for a while, because other times when I've kept my eyes closed but haven't been able to focus, there wasn't an improvement in my vision. In fact, things are usually blurrier when I first open my eyes when that happens. Just... crazy. These positive externalities are an interesting and pleasant side effect, but the real joy is that they seem to be physical manifestations of what is happening in my head, namely that I'm actually making some progress on clearing my mind. Which is awesome.

STAY TUNED for the next installment!

Meditation Retreat Day 5: Breakthrough and Sadness

Day 5 was an interesting day on many, many fronts. First off, after lunch I headed back out to the hot spring for a little R&R. As I was walking out there, I saw there was only one other dude in there and right as I got to the hot spring, he jumped out of the water and looked liked he had just seen a ghost. When he saw me approaching, he shook his head and wagged his finger to very strongly warn me against going into the water. I assume he saw a cobra (we had been warned that there is the occasional cobra here) but I wouldn't be able to know for sure until after the retreat because he had no way of verbalizing it to me. Luckily there are two hot springs, so I went into the other one instead. I'm so curious! I hope he makes it all the way through the 10 days so I can find out what he saw. And for his own personal growth, etc. etc. obviously...

Up until this point, I've been really struggling with the meditation. I just feel like I haven't been able to clear my head at all. But something totally unexpected happened on Day 5 that really turned things around for me. It was the afternoon meditation session, the last one before our evening hot chocolate time. I finally got to a point where I was able to concentrate for more than a few minutes. As usual, I started with my deep breathing. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Deeeeep breath in. Deeeeep breath out. And after about 10 minutes of this, I started to feel this sensation, as if someone was rolling a really long pencil across my chest. The sensation stayed in the same spot, but as I continued to breathe and continued to focus, it because more and more intense. What was this?! I wanted more. I continued to breathe, continued to focus, and allowed my mind to explore how this sensation felt. And then, just like when you're having the most amazing dream ever, the chime sounded, dragging us out of our meditative state and telling us it was time for hot chocolate. It's pretty safe to say this is probably the only time in my life I would have preferred to postpone hot chocolate. Nevertheless, I finally felt like I was finally getting somewhere with my meditation.

This evening there was a table with some small books and pamphlets that were available for us to read if we wanted to. You may recall that we aren't allowed to read anything while we are here. This is the one exception. These are all about Anapanasati, our meditation method. So during/after hot chocolate, I started reading one of the small booklets that went into more detail about the different steps to the method. The first few steps are all about different forms of breathing and what the book refers to as "knowing your breath." This basically means understanding the full sensation of the breath, not just on your nose, but on how your whole body moves with each breath, how your chest or stomach expands and contracts, the sensation at the very beginning and end of each breath, how your mind feels, and everything in between. The first step is doing that with deep breathing. The next step is doing that with quick, shallow breaths. Which seems counter-intuitive because usually that kind of breathing is associated more with panic than with calm. It's also apparently why this method has a lot of critics. The third step is that eventually, your body turns that quick breath back into a normal breathing pace.

After that, things get a little more complicated, but the gist of it is that you're supposed to see an image with your "mind's eye." Something like a simple geometric shape or a star or something like that. When that happens, you shift your focus away from your breath into that image, and then use your mind to manipulate the image however you'd like. Move it. Stretch it. Zoom in on it. Whatever. The point is that you're focused enough that you can do whatever you want with the image. At that point, you reach the first stage of what some of the monks here have referred to as a euphoric sensation, basking in the glow of your mental accomplishment. When my friend KC told me about her experience at the retreat, I remember her telling me about a time where she experienced something euphoric, so I assume this is what she was talking about.

That evening as I was leaving the dining hall after hot chocolate, I saw my friend BE talking to someone in the office and I thought to myself, "...oh no." And then I saw her walking side-by-side with another girl from the retreat and that's when I knew that she had decided to leave. Though she and I didn't talk at all during the retreat, it still made me kind of sad to see her go. It was nice to have a friend here. As I was walking to the evening session at 7pm, I saw her sitting on the steps so I walked a little out of my way so I could walk past her. It turns out I was right because she gestured to me that she was leaving. We waved goodbye to each other from afar. And that was it. I debated going back and giving her a proper goodbye, but I think she got it and it was better this way anyway. Looking back, I'm glad I didn't let myself take me away from the meditation session. After all, that's the whole reason I'm here, right?

CONTINUE ON to Meditation Retreat Days 6-8: I Think I'm Getting Somewhere

Meditation Retreat Days 2-4: Silence is Easy. Meditation is Not.

The next three days got progressively more and more difficult. But by the end of Day 4, I felt like I hadn't made any progress. I couldn't focus for more than a minute or two at a time, despite the insane number of hours we had dedicated to meditation. My back was aching. I couldn't sit still. And the mosquitoes. Oh man, those mosquitoes. If you can't get your mind to sit still, try doing so with the ominous buzz of a mosquito constantly in your ear, just waiting to suck your blood at any second. With the amount of prophylactic bug spray and bug cream I absorbed on my skin, you would think my blood would be poisonous to mosquitoes at this point, but try telling that to the countless mosquitoes for whom I was breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a mid-afternoon snack.

VW had told me in my initial interview on registration day that people hit "rock bottom" around day 3 or 4, though everyone is different. Something really rubbed me the wrong way about how he so cavalierly used the phrase "rock bottom." When I picture someone who has hit rock bottom, I think more about someone who is addicted to meth sleeping in a box on the streets, only eight teeth left to their name, having just sold their last cd (Sublime's 40 oz. to Freedom) for their sixth hit of the day... and it's only 11am. Not someone who is having a rough time at a meditation retreat. I never really felt like I hit "rock bottom" at this place: it was hard, yes, and it got harder, yes, but at no point was I ever like, "I need to get out of this place, this is the worst possible thing that could happen."

We had the opportunity to schedule a brief "chat" with one of the monks if we felt like we were struggling in particular. It was hard to admit that I might be struggling more than other people, but this wasn't a time to be proud, this was a time to make sure I got everything I possibly could out of this retreat. So during one of the meditation sessions in Day 4, I headed over to the dining hall and sat down with the Tai Chi instructor to talk about why I was having a hard time. The chat was... less than inspiring. It basically amounted to me telling him something along the lines of "I'm having trouble concentrating" and him telling me that "you're having trouble concentrating because you're unable to clear your mind." Thanks, guy. So that was kind of a bust. But to be fair, what was I expecting, really? Some magical answer that was going to make everything okay? Nope. This isn't going to be easy, and I definitely get it and I'm ready to get back out there.

Every day there are a few more empty spaces in the meditation hall in the morning. Fewer people at Tai Chi. Fewer people at meals. People who for one reason or another have decided to leave. As sad as this is to say... you can kind of tell who is going to drop out next. There is certainly a spectrum of calmness here. Some people are SO zen, it's incredible. And others are so antsy, it's amazing they've made it this far. Still though, it's sad to see a new empty coconut sack on the ground where a person used to sit. Despite all the time we've spent together, I'll never really know who that person is because... well, I probably never looked them in the face to begin with, even if they were sitting right next to me.

The silence has been a really interesting facet of this whole experience. It has turned out to be easier than I thought it would be to maintain. I don't really feel the urge to speak at all. I'm pretty committed to trying to clear my mind while I'm here and, rules aside, you just can't do that if you're talking to people. But it goes beyond just talking. Pretty much all non-essential communication like hand gestures or greetings are all gone. All physical contact of any sort was completely gone. And for me, I wanted to avoid even the temptation to interact with other people, so I made it a practice to not look at anyone whenever possible. This usually meant keeping my gaze at the ground. And I religiously avoided looking over at the women's side of the meditation hall (or any other halls for that matter) because no good could come of that. The interesting thing about not looking at people is that I felt like each day I would stumble upon someone "new" who I had NEVER seen before, but not because they were actually new, just because I didn't look at anyone's face. Sometimes I would come close to slipping up, like if I almost bumped into someone or something and would instinctively want to say "sorry" but I never actually did say anything. Normally, this kind of behavior would be seen as completely anti-social, but everyone here totally gets it and many of them did the same. Some people would smile if you happened to catch each other's gaze, but only briefly before you both looked away. Some people would give no facial expressions whatsoever. I went back and forth between the two. But everyone understands. There's no judgement, no hard feelings.

My friends FL and BE are both still here, though I can tell BE is struggling. About once a day we'll catch each other's eye and give each other a sort of knowing smile. She's the only one I'll let myself keep eye contact with for more than a second, but even at that, it's a maybe three- or four-second indulgence before I break myself away. It's comforting to have a friend here. Which is probably a bad thing.

In the afternoon on Day 4, I finally tried out the hot spring. There are a handful of natural hot springs around the grounds, two for men and one for women. They are here to help us relax and we are free to use them during any of our breaks, but up until this point, I pretty much always just went back to bed and slept more. Most people go either after breakfast or after hot chocolate when it's not so hot outside, but I opted to go after lunch so there happened to be no one else around. It was actually really nice. Like a giant, stone hot tub. And hot but not too hot. Very relaxing.

Tai Chi in the mornings has been interesting. I've been looking forward to these sessions if for no other reason than they help me wake up a little bit in the morning. I had always thought of Tai Chi as this really cool martial art, but this was far different than I had pictured. There were a lot of funny names for the moves we performed and it felt more like a dance than anything. But then one day our instructor showed us what we were actually learning. It was sort of the equivalent to how you learn that F=ma in high school physics and you're like "ok, I get it, this isn't rocket science" and then someone is like, "and here's how we apply this to get rockets into outer space" and you're like, "WHOAAAAAAA, THAT'S what I was learning?!" He gave us a little demonstration of what Tai Chi looks like at full speed and I'm pretty sure he actually flew at a couple of points in the demonstration. It was one of the coolest things I'd seen... ever.

There's also another retreat participant who cannot for the life of him sit still during Tai Chi. Literally. He is constantly in motion. And is rarely doing whatever exercise the instructor is leading. And it's super distracting. I'm here to calm myself and you're making that really difficult. Come on, guy, get it together!

The Metta meditation is starting to get easier. I'm getting used to the concept of directing positive feelings toward myself. And I'm thinking less about who I need to direct positive feelings to when we're doing that for other people. I'm coming to realize that it's less important who specifically those feelings are directed to and more just the fact that I'm doing it. Also, Little Monk is HILARIOUS. Who knew monks could crack jokes like that?

Speaking of which, there's this English monk who is probably the funniest one of them all. He's super pessimistic (which is kind of ironic), tells it like it is, and it's really funny to hear him talk. You can tell that he "gets it" because, well, he's Western. He's a welcome change of pace from the rest of the Thai monks. I kind of feel like you need a guy like that at these retreats aimed at Westerners or there would be a cultural bridge that's missing.

I've noticed a big change in how I've been going about my daily chore of sweeping around the meditation hall. Whereas on the first day, I used two brooms and was making huge sweeping motions to blow the dirt and grass away, now I'm using one broom, much more calmly and mindfully. It's just as effective, takes less effort, and certainly more in-line with the whole ethos of this place. It wasn't really a conscious change, it just kind of happened.

The food here has been pretty consistent and in my opinion pretty good. It turns out that breakfast is basically the same thing every day: rice soup, bananas, cucumbers, lettuce, and palm-infused water. Lunch is pretty similar to the first day as well, with a curry or two, all of which I find to be really tasty. Thai people know how to make some goooooood curry.

A few days before coming to the retreat, I kind of re-injured my ankle again. I think what did it was when we spent an hour walking around Koh Phi Phi in flip flips and a huge backpack trying to find a hostel. Thank you, mysterious Norwegian girl. So while everyone else here is barefoot and wearing flip flops, I've been in shoes and socks because it feels way better on my ankle. It's annoying because I have to take off my shoes every time we enter any hall. Plus, out of 80 people, I'm the ONLY one wearing shoes. But whatever. I'm not here to impress anyone. If I need to wear shoes, I'm going to wear shoes. (...I definitely still feel a little self-conscious about it.)

When I got into my room at the end of night #2, I found a huge lizard crawling on the wall inside of my room. By huge I mean HUGE. Like... at least a foot long. We looked at each other for a minute and I made a mental pact with him that as long as he doesn't eat any of my stuff, we were cool. I'm pretty sure he understood. And to be fair, it was probably me who was in his room and not the other way around.

Six more days to go!

CONTINUE ON to Mediation Retreat Day 5: Breakthrough and Sadness

Meditation Retreat Day 1: A Day In The Life

Ding ding ding ding dingdingdingdingding..... Ding ding ding ding dingdingdingdingding......

The monastery bell. Small. But mighty.

The sound of a huge bell woke me up at 4am. It was a lot more pleasant than you might think. It's not a jarring bell; rather, it's soft, but still loud enough to wake everyone up from quite a distance. We have 30 minutes to get ready and make our way over to the main hall. It's pitch black outside. I'm pretty excited to start the day. Snoozing isn't really an option here, but you wouldn't want to anyway because you'd never get out of bed. Someone rings that bell for 15 minutes straight, through a series of loud bangs that each gently taper off with progressively smaller and smaller bangs. I'm pretty no fuss when it comes to sleeping arrangements so the wooden bed really wasn't all that bad for me. The wooden pillow wasn't the most comfortable (as you can probably imagine) but I'm not giving up on it yet.

The daily schedule over the course of the next eight days is as follows (Days 9 and 10 are slightly different):

4:00am 30 mins Wake up

4:30am 15 mins Morning Reading

4:45am 30 mins Sitting Meditation

5:15am 105 mins Morning exercise (yoga + tai chi)

7:00am 60 mins Buddhism talk

8:00am 120 mins Breakfast, chores, break time

10:00am 60 mins Buddhism talk

11:00am 45 mins Walking / standing meditation

11:45am 45 mins Sitting meditation

12:30pm 120 mins Lunch, break time

2:30pm 60 mins Meditation instruction and sitting meditation

3:30pm 45 mins Walking / standing meditation

4:15pm 45 mins Sitting meditation

5:00pm 60 mins Buddhist chanting and Loving Kindness meditation

6:00pm 90 mins Hot chocolate, break time

7:30pm 30 mins Sitting meditation

8:00pm 30 mins Group walking meditation

8:30pm 30 mins Sitting meditation

9:00pm 30 mins Go to bed

9:30pm Lights out

In case you were wondering, that's 7 hours of meditation, 5.5 hours of food/chore/break time, 2.25 hours of meditation talks, and 1.75 hours of exercise each day.

The path from the dorms to the main meditation hall.
...in the daytime.

After getting up, I followed the rest of the crowd over to the main meditation hall. Though it's pretty hot and humid all day long here, at this hour it's actually a little bit chilly, so I took my jacket with me. It's still completely dark outside, so I had my flashlight to guide the way. The sky is filled with stars, though to be honest, still not as many as I thought there would be, given that we're in the middle of nowhere. It's about a three-minute walk from the dorm to the meditation hall. When I got there, I found my spot and sat down on my bench + cushions.

Right at 4:30am, a tiny bell was rung three times, and the Morning Reading began. The Morning Reading is when someone sitting on the stage in front of us reads a passage related to either meditation or Buddhism. The only light at this point is a small candle to allow the person reading to see. The reading was very short, only a few minutes, and after that we transitioned directly into our first meditation session.

The first morning meditation was really hard. It's dark out. My eyes are closed. And it's still around 4:45am. Plus I'm sitting down. Which of course means the bigger battle I was fighting wasn't to clear my mind, but to stay awake. I kept nodding off, which was both frustrating and a little embarrassing. Not a great start to the next 10 days.

My Tai Chi instructor. He wore this shirt EVERY day.
...I probably shouldn't be one to talk.

At 5:15am, the tiny bell was rung again three times, which signaled it was time to move onto our next activity, Yoga / Tai Chi. We walked over to another hall about two minutes away. When we arrived, we were greeted by a rather small Thai man who instructed us to grab a mat from the far side of the hall. The mats are pretty thin, just enough to give you an ever-so-small cushion from the cold, concrete floor. It turns out that the Thai man is our instructor. I'm not sure what his story is, but he reminds me a lot of the Dr. Seuss book Green Eggs and Ham. He doesn't use a lot of words. He repeats the five phrases he has over and over. But he very effectively gets the point across. The phrases "not too serious" and "with 'lil bit smile" said in a thick, Thai accent will be forever etched in my memory. We started our exercises with a stretching routine and then moved into the Tai Chi portion. I've never done Tai Chi before, but I've seen old Asian people do this in the park in front of City Hall in San Francisco. I never really understood what they were doing until now. Our instructor began by teaching us the first in a series of very, very slow moves, almost like a choreographed dance. Each move is controlled, precise, and deliberate. It reminded me a lot of when I took karate as a child, where we learned sets of moves called katas. Except here in Tai Chi, all of the moves flowed together in one fluid motion. I'm learning Tai Chi!

After almost two hours, it was time to head back to the main meditation hall for our first talk, given by VW, the same guy who interviewed me yesterday. It turns out he is not a monk, but a volunteer from Germany that helps run this retreat. He's been doing it for a while, apparently. VW spent the talk going over a few more logistics as well as giving us our first introduction to the meditation method used here, called Anapanasati, which is a word from the ancient language Pali (the language in which Buddhist scriptures were originally written), and translates roughly to "mindfulness with breathing" and it is exactly that. The method is rather simple (at least to start out): you focus on the physical sensation of breathing in and out. And nothing else. When thoughts come to your head, which they inevitably do, all you have to do is recognize that you are thinking about something, then put the thought aside and return your attention back to your breath.

In theory, this sounds simple enough. In practice, I think might actually be easier to travel back in time to prevent a post-apocalyptic future from ever happening. I found that I could focus for a few seconds at a time before my thoughts would wander off somewhere. Eventually I would notice, shelve my thought, and return my focus to my breathing. Only to catch myself thinking about something else 10 seconds later. Okay, three seconds later. But that's fine, though. A key part of all of this is that you can't get mad at yourself for having thoughts because that just makes it even harder to focus. The important part is just to recognize that you're having thoughts, and then put them aside to refocus on your breath.

To get a better sense of what I mean, I encourage you to try this very simple exercise right now. It'll only take a minute, I promise, but I think it'll give you a much better understanding of what it was like to be at this retreat. Ok, so set an alarm to go off in 1 minute (or try it without an alarm if you're reading this at your desk right now and don't want to disturb the people around you). Sit down and take about 10 seconds to just relax. Then start your timer and close your eyes (err... wait until you finish reading this paragraph though). Start breathing deeply, counting 1 2 3 4 5 breathing in, a split-second pause, then 1 2 3 4 5 breathing out, all through your nose. Focus just on the sensation of your breath on your nose. You'll have thoughts that pop into your head, maybe you'll hear noises around you, and your brain will inevitably start paying attention to these things. When that happens, recognize that your focus has shifted to that new thought, move that thought aside, and refocus your attention to your breath. Stick with it for the full minute until your alarm goes off (or if not using an alarm, until you feel about a minute has passed).

Ready... go.

How did that feel? Was it easy? Hard? (Of course it was hard, are you kidding me?!) Did you find yourself being inundated with thoughts completely unrelated to your breath? Did you find yourself getting frustrated that you kept thinking about other things? Did your brain feel like a million monkeys were on the inside trying to reproduce Shakespeare but only creating nonsense? Did you feel like stopping before the minute was over? Did one minute actually feel like five? Did you feel like you needed to get back to doing something "productive" before your brain exploded? Are you ready for me to stop asking leading questions?!

At 8am, the bell was rung signifying it was time for breakfast. We all headed over in silence the two minute walk to the dining hall (the same place where BE, FL, and I had slept a couple night earlier; as we all learned later, it's suuuuper taboo for people to sleep in public in Buddhist culture... whoops! Sorry, Buddhism! It was unintentional, I swear!). Just like the main meditation hall, men sit on one side, women on the other. There's a two rows of tables (...one for men, one for women) in the middle of the dining hall where the food has been set out for us. At the beginning of the line, we each take a bowl and a spoon. All of the meals during the retreat are vegetarian. Breakfast today consists of a thick, rice soup (which one of the monks later described as gruel), lettuce, cucumbers, and bananas. The beverage is hot water steeped in palm... hearts? leaves? unclear, some sort of palm-thing which gives it a very faint palm flavor.

We all take our food and sit down on our respective sides of the dining hall. Before anyone eats, however, we must all recite as a group the Food Reflection. Each of us is given a small, laminated card with the words printed on it. This is one of the few instances in which we'll speak over the course of the 10 days. Passing out the Food Reflection cards and leading the group in its recitation before each meal was another one of the chore options, so this is led by one of my fellow retreat participants. It hasn't even been that long since we've been silent, but it still feels weird to say words aloud. It feels like I'm taking my mind out of the silence mindset which feels... wrong. But this is part of the program so I'm going with it.

Food Reflection:

With wise reflection, I eat this food

Not for play, not for intoxication

Not for fattening, not for beautification

Only to maintain this body

To stay alive and healthy

To support the spiritual way of life

Thus, I let go of unpleasant feelings

And do not stir up new ones

Thereby, the process of life goes on

Blameless, at ease, and in peace

I ate this first meal particularly slowly, and really thought about what went into the food on my plate. I can't remember the exact chronology (whether this happened before the first meal or a later one), but one of the monks mentioned in their talk about being mindful of what food really contained. For example, a leaf of lettuce is not just a leaf of lettuce. It is the sun and the soil that helped the lettuce grow. It's the farmer who watered the lettuce every day. It's the parent's of the farmer who raised him to know how to grow lettuce. It's the chef who washed the lettuce and carefully arranged the leaves on a tray. One could go on and on about what went into creating this lettuce and what led it to be in my food bowl this morning. But the broader point is that lettuce isn't just lettuce. And knowing that, and really understanding that, completely changes the mindset with which you eat your food. Food doesn't get scarfed down here. It is respected and appreciated.

Despite not looking all that appealing, I found the rice soup (and everything else) to be pretty good. When I finished eating, I went to take my bowl, spoon, and cup to the back to wash them out. The washing process consists of five stages. First, any last remaining food scraps are dumped into a bucket. Second, you sponge clean the dish/spoon in one sink. Third, in the sink next to it, you pass your dish/spoon through the water to get the majority of the soak off. Fourth, your pass your dish/spoon through one last sink full of "clean" water to get the last soap off. Fifth, you put your dish/spoon on a rack upside down so it can air dry. You repeat this whole process for your cup in a different set of sinks. The whole thing takes about one minute from start to finish. Still kind of feels like I'm washing dishes with soapy water but... whatever. Clean enough.

The hall I swept every day. Also the water tank where we got water.

With my dish clean and my stomach full, I for the first time went to do my chore: sweeping the walkway surrounding one of the meditation halls. I walked over to the hall and found two small brooms propped up against the wall and went to work cleaning the stairs and the walkway around the hall. I worked with one broom in each hand and was swinging both pretty hard to get some help from the air currents as I swept. I did a very thorough job, that place was as clean as it was going to get by the time I was finished. We were told the chores were supposed to take only 15 minutes maximum but of course I sign up for the one chore that takes half an hour. Which is fine. The chores do help to keep the place running, but the point of them is not to put us to work; instead, it's to give us an opportunity to be mindful. As it turns out, I had actually done two people's jobs this morning because the front steps are the job of someone else. Which I didn't realize until after I was finished and I saw someone else cleaning the steps again. Whoops!

This first break of the day is two hours long, so even after eating breakfast and doing my chore, there was plenty of time left. I decided to use this time to catch up on sleep. I was exhausted and trying to meditation while falling asleep is useless. I headed back to the dorm, crawled under my mosquito net, and took a much-needed power nap. At 9:00 in the morning.

I was woken up by the big bell at 9:45am and headed back over to the main meditation hall. At 10:00am sharp, our first talk began. It was delivered by Ajahn Poh, the head monk at Suan Mokkh. He's very old and very well-respected. His command of the English language is somewhat... lacking, however. It was to the point that even with laser-focused attention, I couldn't for the life of me understand what he was saying. Throughout his talk, I kept hearing him repeat the phrase "beedin in, beedin ou" which took me waaaaay too long to figure out actually meant, "breathing in, breathing out." Needless to say, I did not get much out of his talks, which is a complete shame because he's the head monk, incredibly wise, and everyone there spoke so, so highly of him.

So these lines of ants are made of mostly of normal-sized
ants, but then every so often along comes a dude who is
like... 10 times a big! Crazy!

Ajahn Poh rang the tiny bell on the stage at 11am, signaling the end of his talk and the start of our first standing/walking meditation session. We could choose whichever one we wanted and I opted for walking. Whereas with the sitting meditation we are focusing on our breath, during walking meditation, the focus is on taking (very, very) slow, deliberate steps. The walking meditation had either a 3-part or 5-part method. The three-part method is 1) lift foot, 2) move foot forward, and 3) plant foot. Repeat. Complicated, I know. As you may have guessed, the 5-part technique is the same motion but broken out into 5 parts. We could choose either method, depending on our preference and I opted for the 3-part method because I found the 5-part one to be excessive. For walking meditation sessions, we were supposed to spread out on the grounds to wherever we would like, and find a 5-10 meter long straight path to follow that didn't cross anyone else's path. Along this path, we walked until we got to the end, turned around and walked back. Rinse and repeat. On the whole, I was not a huge fan of the walking meditation. I found myself being really easily distracted. Most of the paths are gravel or sand and there are ants everywhere and (nerd alert!) I'm fascinated by ants (...and pretty much anything alive, says my inner biologist). Plus the place is beautiful so there's a lot of nature to distract me.

The large bell was rung to signal all of us to return to the main meditation hall for our next sitting meditation session. More breathing. More thoughts constantly flowing through my brain.

Also... meditation is painful. I mean physically painful. We're supposed to sit still for the whole time. Which is fine. But we're also supposed to sit up straight the whole time. And if you are not used to kneeling or sitting in some form of the lotus position while also keeping a straight spine, you come to find that both your knees and your back start killing you. For those not familiar, the lotus position is one that you'll find often in yoga. The full lotus is where you cross both legs on top of the opposite thigh and is definitely not for beginners. The half lotus is where you cross one leg onto the opposite thigh and the quarter lotus is where you cross one leg on top of the opposite calf. I cycled through kneeling, quarter lotus, and when I was feeling adventurous, the half lotus. I'd have to switch positions every few minutes because... it hurt, which makes it really difficult to concentrate. I also felt bad for my neighbors because I felt like I was making so much noise every time I switched positions, which must be frustrating for them as well. And I can't even say sorry because we can't talk! In between all of my switching positions and body pains, I still managed to continue to nod off repeatedly. I guess my nap didn't help as much as I had wanted it to.

Lunchtime! Finally! The food is surprisingly good. We've got a couple of Thai curries, a vegetable platter of lettuce and cucumbers, and something sweet for dessert. The beverage is hot water, just like at breakfast. After lunch I headed back to my dorm for yet another much-needed power nap. I was awoken at 2:15pm by the big bell, telling me to head back to the main meditation hall for our next session. This session went even more in-depth on the meditation technique, followed by more walking meditation and then another sitting meditation session. Though I'm not a huge fan of the walking meditation, it does provide for a little variety in the day. Otherwise we're doing sitting meditation for waaaay too long for beginners.

At 5pm, we have our first Buddhist chanting / Loving Kindness meditation session. We are given the option not to participate and instead just do more individual meditation because they don't want to force people to do the chanting. Those who opted out stayed in the main meditation hall and everyone else headed down a 1-minute footpath to another hall. I too felt a little personally conflicted about doing religious chants for a religion that wasn't mine, but I wanted to experience everything this retreat had to offer, so I chose to join the chanting session, but to not say aloud anything that made me feel uncomfortable.

The Buddhism chanting was really interesting. The chants are in Pali, the language of the original texts of Buddhism. There are also basically three notes, so it has that "chant-y" sound to it as well. There's a non-trivial part of me that didn't want to chant because I didn't want to break the silence I had worked so hard to maintain, but I let that go because I knew all of this had a purpose to it.

The monk that led this session was from Russia and he was awesome. He was really funny and because he was from Russia, you got the sense that he sort of understood the challenges faced by Westerners in a way that the Thai monks really couldn't. It turns out he's not a full-fledged monk yet, but is in the process of becoming one, so they call him "little monk."

This meditation session ends with a few minutes of Loving Kindness meditation, or Metta meditation, which I find fascinating. Basically the idea is to spread love and good feelings. It's silent, but the Little Monk led us through it. First you start with yourself by giving love to yourself. What that means is basically thinking good thoughts about yourself and sending good vibes to yourself. Then you move on the someone you really love. And then to your parents. And then to someone neutral, like the person who gave you your change the last time you bought something. Then on to someone who has hurt you in the past.

This all turned out to be surprisingly much, much more difficult than I thought it would. I can't remember a time, pretty much ever, when I've looked inward and actively focused loving feelings on myself. It feels... weird. Unnatural. Selfish, almost. But I'm really glad I did it. Once I got past the initial weirdness of it, it did feel a little empowering and uplifting to say good things to myself about me. I admittedly had a difficult time trying to figure out who to direct my attention to for the "someone you love" part. I have a lot of love for a lot of people but... someone? I have to pick one person? It felt like I was being forced to broach a conversation I didn't want to have with myself. But the decision had to happen in an instant, because really, we were only doing each one of the steps of the Metta mediation was only for a few seconds so there wasn't enough time to ponder the complexities of my social web to find the "right" person each time. Hopefully this will get easier over time. I'm sure it will.

Metta meditation ended at 6pm when the Little Monk rang the little bell. We all walked our cushions back to our respective spots in the main meditation hall then headed over to the dining hall for "tea time" aka... hot chocolate time! Which I, of course, love because I'm actually five years old. Tea Time is 90 minutes, so my cup of hot chocolate was followed by, you guessed it, more sleep. I'm so tired.

In the evening, we started off with more silent meditation and then did our first group walking meditation. Unlike the individual walking meditation where we each have our own spot and walk very slowly, in the group walking meditation we all walk in a single-file line (gender-separated, of course) and you focus only on the person in front of you. We walk at a decently slow pace, but we are certainly walking. You keep a 0.5-meter distance so if your distance varies dramatically from that, it means you aren't focusing. We walked around a square lake on the grounds. I also wasn't a huge fan of this kind of meditation either because I again found myself getting distracted by things more easily. This time around it was the characteristics of the person in front of me, or being too conscious of how much space was between people, though none of that should have mattered to me. I will say that I did like it more than the individual walking meditation.

As a group, we made our way back to the main hall for one last bit of sitting meditation. This one feels a little bit different than the others. More calm. It's totally dark out again. A little bit cooler. Everyone is a little bit more tired than the rest of the sessions. But of course my head is still full of thoughts. I guess it's still only been one day. We headed back to the dorms at 9pm for bed. There is no socializing, no doing anything really, just getting ready for bed followed by sleep. I was exhausted and for sure ready to pass out in my bed. Today was definitely an adventure.

CONTINUE ON to Meditation Retreat Days 2-4: Silence is Easy. Meditation is Not.