Posts filed under 'Chiang Mai'
This will be the last entry about the meditation, so don’t stress that I am about to go into another month-long babble about sitting and walking and talking to the head monk. I’ve gotta write this after the fact,’cause I got serious at the end and stopped writing about my experience.
What can I really say about a 28-day meditation course? Well, if you are going to really try to do all the meditating that they ask you to, then it’s not going to be easy. It’s a long time to go without news or conversation, but you can always leave whenever you want.
The last part of the 28-day course is called the ‘Determination.’ During the Determination you stay in your room for 3 days and 3 nights and you are meant to stay awake the entire time and meditate 24 hours/day. The purpose is challenge your mind and thus gain a much deeper understanding of certain concepts about Buddhism. You leave the room once a day to meet with the head monk (to make sure you haven’t fallen off the deep end mainly). Your 2 meals (breakfast and lunch) are delivered to your room by the kitchen staff at 6am each day. It is up to you to make sure that you eat your meals before noon and return the bowls outside your door for pick-up. Also, you are permitted to leave and do your walking meditations outside, but only from 11pm – 4am when everyone is asleep. You keep big water jugs in your room for drinking water.
During these 3 days, you will hopefully gain a much better understanding and let go of any false perceptions of what are known as the ‘three characteristics of phenomena.’ They are impermanence, suffering, and non-self. There is really no point in trying to explain them, because you can’t truly understand them unless you study Buddhism or actually try a long meditation. Plus you are really supposed to go into all this with a full-on trust in the teachings of Lord Buddha, not question anything in the future, and believe that what you are being taught is all you need for the present moment. That is why you aren’t supposed to read books about Buddhism while you are on a retreat. It’s Lord Buddha’s own form of ‘experiential education’ I guess.
So that’s what I did, 25 days of meditation and a 3-day Determination, and then it was back to the real world for me. Would I do it again? Definitely. I think it is a unique experience to be able to separate yourself from the world and focus on controlling your mind and your thoughts and emotions for a significant period of time. It can be much more challenging than any physical achievement. In fact, I think meditation will surely help anyone who is training for any kind of physical accomplishment. That is not so true the other way around. All I can really say is try it. Live in the present moment, recognize feelings and thoughts but don’t attach yourself to them, and you will begin to free yourself from suffering.
One last image from Wat Ram Poeng
October 16th, 2003
INVITATION
“It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to dream of meeting your hearts desire.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,
for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shriveled and closed from fear and further pain !
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,
without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own,
if you can dance with wildness
and let ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to be careful, realistic,
or to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself,
if you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,
and still stand on the edge of a lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon: Yes !
It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me
and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where, or what, or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from within
when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself
and if you truly love the company you keep
in the empty moments.”
-ORIAH, Mountain Dreamer
Indian Elder
October 15th, 2003
Day 21. It has taken me nearly 3 weeks to date, but today I finally feel like I have a true understanding of what it means to free your mind of suffering (the purpose of Insight meditation). I don’t know hoe to explain it that well, but I am sure that it takes longer than 10 days to experience enough emotions and to be able to acknowledge them over and over again and to see and feel what happens with the mind. There are so many different types of thoughts and emotions like fear, anxiety, boredom, doubt, envy, jealousy, greed, regret, love, hate, anger, impatience, pressure, guilt, planning, and remembering just to name a few, and ALL of them lead to suffering. This seems very obvious I know, but you gain a completely different awareness and understanding of your mind when you practice meditation for 12-14 hours/day and you experience for yourself a certain level of’nothingness’ or peace for lack of a better word, and you are able to free your mind of this suffereing. Wow, what a breakthrough. It is such a simple idea to just observe your feelings and not attach to them, but much more difficult to actually achieve in practice. Don’t worry folks, I’m not about to run off, shave my head, and become a nun now or anything!
Foreign Meditation Office
October 7th, 2003
Day 20. Oh yeah, only 6 more days to go…6 more days until a bed with a mattress, all the food I want, and any form of entertainment – music, movies, internet, newspapers, shopping – I can’t wait! Ok, I know, forget that and practice now otherwise I may never know the benefits of this. Phra Ajun Suphan say I should be practicing 12-14 hours/day and sleeping only 4 hours to prepare myself for the Determination (don’t want to think about that yet, will explain later). I can’t seem to manage on 4 hours as I seem to need 6 every night. I don’t really understand why you have to suffer to free yourself from suffering, but perhaps that is a secret only for the Enlightened ones. If I don’t practice hard now, I’ll never take the ‘mindfulness’ into the real world. So all of those ‘hindering’ pleasures will just have to wait. For now my only ‘pleasures’ are having enough food to nourish my body and having a cold orange slushy in the afternoons.
Meditation morning noon and night
October 6th, 2003
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