Ding ding ding ding dingdingdingdingding..... Ding ding ding ding dingdingdingdingding......
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| The monastery bell. Small. But mighty. |
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.
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| The path from the dorms to the main meditation hall. ...in the daytime. |
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.
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| My Tai Chi instructor. He wore this shirt EVERY day. ...I probably shouldn't be one to talk. |
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:
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.
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.
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.
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| 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.
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| 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! |
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 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.
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.
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