While Trevor was having a look around the Jagatsukh, I was exploring my mind at a meditation retreat. Suan Mokk - a forest monastery in Surat Thani province - offers a 10-day session with instruction in English. I'd been looking at it ever since I decided not to go to India, but was a little intimidated. My last attempts at meditation were part of my college yoga class, and mostly I just fell asleep every time. The instructor would come by and gently nudge me, saying "work on staying awake." The online description of this retreat sounded pretty rough: two meals a day, a 10-day vow of silence, wooden pillows... it probably wouldn't fit into my schedule anyway, I thought. School prep, visiting friends, etc. No time. Two days before the start date, my calendar magically cleared, so I set off for Surat, feeling very uncertain about the whole thing.

Schedule for days 1-8:

04:00 *** Rise & Shine
04:30 *** Reading
04:45 Sitting meditation
05:15 Yoga / Exercise
07:00 *** Morning Talk & Sitting meditation
08:00 Breakfast & Chores
10:00 *** Dhamma Talk
11:00 Walking or Standing meditation
11:45 Sitting meditation
12:30 *** Lunch & Chores
14:30 *** Meditation Instruction & Sitting Meditation
15:30 Walking or Standing meditation
16:15 Sitting meditation
17:00 *** Chanting & Loving Kindness Meditation
18:00 Tea & Hot spring
19:30 *** Sitting meditation
20:15 Group walking meditation followed by Sitting meditation
21:00 *** Bedtime Goodnight ...
22:00 LIGHTS OUT
(*** signifies that the Large Bell will be rung just before the activity begins.)

The living conditions are, well, monastic. Suan Mokk International, where the retreats are held, is a couple kilometers from the monastery itself, on very pleasant semi-forested grounds, with several large ponds. The rooms are little concrete cells (and I mean that in the nicest possible way) with a concrete shelf built in as a bed. You get a straw mat, a blanket, a mosquito net, a lantern (candle) and a wooden pillow. Two meals a day - very plain, wholesome vegetarian food - and tea or Milo (sort of like hot chocolate) at dinner time. Men and women have separate sides of the dining and meditation halls, as well as separate hot springs. The hot springs are in secluded natural settings, and are a welcome relief after evening tea, loosening up those tired back muscles just in time for one last stretch of sessions. Almost all of the sitting meditation sessions are in a large hall with a sand floor and no walls, leaving us open nature - leafy green views, birdsong, and mosquitoes. We picked our meditation spots on orientation day, and spent every session on our very own burlap sack, 2'x2' cushion, and two pillows to support us in our chosen posture(s).

The type of meditation taught at Suan Mokk is called Anapanasiti, or mindfulness with breathing, as it was taught by Ajarn Buddhadasa - the monk who founded the monastery. There's quite a bit more about that on their website, but from the beginner's perspective, you basically concentrate on your breathing, following it in-and-out-and-in-and-out-and-in-and-out while trying not to think about the future, or the past, or anything at all except your breath. Try it for five minutes, I dare you. You quickly find that the mind is a very, very busy place. The biggest challenge is trying to convince your wayward brain that breathing is more interesting than thinking about that movie you saw last month with that actress... what's her name again? -- oh, right, meditating-- in---out---in---out -- oooooh! I have a whole Ziploc baggie full of Easter candy waiting for me back in the apartment! Yippee! -- shoot. supposed to be meditating-- in---out---in---out---in - Buddhist nuns don't really look much like nuns at home. That whole shaved head business. "The hills are alive..." -- no... meditation time-- in---out---in---out -- and the bell rings. The first few days were mostly 45-minute sessions of that. I might have given up fairly early on, except for the extremely patient and well-timed instruction offered by all of the fantastic folks who volunteer their time to staff the retreat.

Aside from the afternoon chanting session and optional interviews with instructors for those of us having trouble with the meditation, most of us kept the silence for the entire 10 days. In a lot of ways, this was a relief. It was nice to focus on the reason for being there, rather than having to be social. And the retreat wasn't easy - I think we were all sore, and frustrated, and not used to living in a monastic setting. I think a lot of what we might have said would have been venting our difficulties, and not exactly conducive to our purpose there. Silence was also a great help in "being mindful", which was a major focus of the retreat. The idea is that one should stay in the present moment all the time, and be aware of where you are and what you're doing. So again, less thinking and fewer mental distractions. Trying to keep your actions silent as well as your voice is a great way of becoming much more aware of every motion you make. Working on staying mindful all the time is really difficult, but helped create a frame of mind much more conducive to meditation.

As for things NOT conducive to meditation... Who knew the back had so may different individual places that could complain about sudden over-use? Thankfully, we did yoga for almost two hours every morning - led by Machee Aree (AKA The Bendy Nun). By the end of the retreat I could almost manage all of the various sitting meditation sessions without ending hunched over in a very non-meditative posture. It helped that I started making more progress on the staying-focused front after day three. I could really feel that I was getting somewhere in training my brain. I would recognize almost right away when my attention started to wander, and manage longer and longer stretches when that didn't happen. You eventually reach a certain level of concentration where you experience some really interesting physical and mental sensations... it actually feels like you've gotten lighter, and you get a sort of happy buzz. You no longer have to follow your breath as closely all the way from nose-tip to navel (the figurative end-point of the breath) in order to keep your attention from wandering. It's when you can consistently reach this level of focus that you can begin to cross over into "Insight meditation". Or so we were told. I'm a little hazy on exactly how all of that works, or exactly what to expect... I'm still working on that focusing bit, and figure I'll cross the Insight bridge when and if I come to it. My current challenge is staying focused and productive during those sessions that aren't going so well... gently bringing myself back as many times as necessary to the breathing without being critical of myself.

Day 7 was a landmark day for me. I hadn't slept much at all the night before, as I was scheduled to give the morning reading, and I was nervous. It went fine, and the rest of the day was maybe my best from a successful-meditation standpoint. In one session I was just reaching that point of lightening and lifting when the bell rang. The bell for the end of sessions wasn't the big monastery bell, but a little one the session leader/instructor would tap three times when the time was up. My whole body rang with the bell. It may have been the strangest thing I've ever felt. In the next session, I was really deeply focused when I felt a tap on my knee - my neighbor was pointing to the frog that was nestled in between one of my pillows and my leg. I didn't see any reason to shoo it away, so I went back to meditating, and at the finish of a very good session, she was still there.

Days 8 and 9 were harder. I was frustrated that my back still hurt, and if a session didn't go well, I'd feel like I'd totally failed... which was giving me some kind of weird meditation performance anxiety. Luckily, we had The Loving Kindness Lady. I never figured out her name, and I think she was a layperson, not a nun, but she gave a talk about the importance of loving kindness in meditation, and how it begins with loving (accepting, forgiving, etc.) yourself. Until you love yourself, you cannot love others. In our interview, she said that when I felt self-doubt, instead of trying to ignore or avoid it, I should turn toward it and say "hello good friend". She explained that these challenges and difficulties present us with our best opportunities to learn and grow. She also said that I should be using my successes and some loving kindness meditation to build up the positive energy in my heart, and draw on that strength when confronting challenges. I left the interview wondering how and when I'd let my positive feelings toward myself ebb to such a low point, and decided that cultivating some loving kindness toward myself should definitely be a higher priority.

All of the "Dhamma talk" sessions giving instruction on Buddhist teachings were really interesting as well, and a good compliment to the meditation practice. It took some adjusting to slow to the teaching pace and very different instructional style of monks whose first language is not English, but it was good to learn to slow down and listen. The teachings of the Buddha can be an enriching experience for anyone, regardless of their faith, and I appreciated the spirit of openness with which the talks were given. Personally I remain undecided on the self/no-self issue. I think my subconscious doesn't care for the idea... on about day 9 it staged a mini-rebellion, with a whole assortment of songs popping into my head that prominently featured the word "I". Perhaps most notably "I am the one and only / nobody I'd rather be / I am the one and only / You can't take that away from me..." I don't even know who sings it, and it may or may not have been an improvement over the Sound of Music medley I'd been trying to suppress all week.

To sum up a really long post, the retreat was by no means easy, but it's probably the best thing I've done for myself in a very long time. Setting up a regular meditation practice outside of a retreat setting is easier said than done, but we have been doing yoga regularly. And Trevor and I are thinking about going back together for another 10 days after the school term ends.

Labels: meditation retreat, Thailand