There were several rules at the Buddhist monastery meditational retreat
that weren’t overly intimidating for me. The prohibition from eating after 12
noon was fine. I’ve never been a big eater, and I had a stash of cashews hidden
in my duffel if a real emergency presented itself. The rule against sleeping
past 4 am, which under normal circumstances would have been nothing short of
devastating, also proved to be no problem thanks to a conveniently-timed case
of jet lag, having just stepped off the plane in northern Thailand after 30
hours of travel from the States. (It would take three days for my body to catch
on to my little time-zone con, and it countered with a vengeance, creating a
somewhat awkward situation for me in which I awoke, sprawled out and
disoriented, in the temple library where I had been meditating.) The spartan
accommodations were also acceptable. As long as I’m lying down, it doesn’t much matter
that all I’ve got is a wooden board and a few blankets.
The heavily rice-based
diet proved to be an excellent binding antidote to the somewhat unclean toilet
situation, and the numerous insects with whom I shared my humble room for the
most part were of the non-biting variety. There are those who, upon viewing me
clad in my requisite loose white clothing, sitting within my small,
white-bricked room, might find a compelling comparison to an individual locked away in a
padded cell, but I was on my way to meditational enlightenment, a state in
which, I have heard, one no longer cares about or even notices such trivial
aspects of life as the opinions of others.
My first day I was told there are three precepts to Buddhist meditational
practice: suffering, impermanence, and nonself. I was able to experience the
first of these with relative ease and surprising swiftness. Sitting
cross-legged, emptying my mind of all except the words rising and falling to the soft
movement of my breath, I naively smiled at first. I had somehow gotten the
mistaken notion that this might be fun. All I had to do was sit for fifteen minutes
without moving or thinking. My watch was set to beep when the time was up.
Ten minutes later, sweat trickling down my neck, my back aching for some kind of
support, a few choice words other than rising and falling had
enthusiastically joined the chant in my mind, most of them directed at my watch, which I was
suddenly convinced must be broken. How was I going to endure the prescribed
eight hours of meditation a day? Four days, my planned stay, suddenly stretched
like an eternity.
Fortunately, sitting meditation is balanced with the slightly less
uncomfortable but painstakingly slow walking meditation, done to the chant of Right
go forth, Left go forth. A novice such as myself crosses a room in
approximately ten minutes using such a technique, whereas the more experienced folk can
take hours to go several feet. By my second day I had modified the walking
mantra to Go Leanne, Go Leanne, which admittedly did not promote the sense of
nonself I was apparently striving to achieve.
As if meditational trauma weren’t enough, another challenge was slowly
seeping its insidious effects upon my being in such a quiet and methodic manner
that it took me a while to recognize what was happening to me. I was
desperately missing language. I was not to write, not to read, and speaking was
strongly discouraged. Had I been able to talk with my fellow beginning meditators, I
felt I could more gracefully face the mounting loathing I felt for my
meditation pillow. I longed to ask if any of them were sneaking cashews nightly. But
the wisdom of Buddha stated I should walk my path alone. In any event, the
others moved about with expressions of either earnest seriousness, thinly-veiled
misery, or, in the case of some of the students who had been studying longer,
detached bliss, none of which invited discussion. My most reliable companion
was one of the many monastery dogs. She liked to come into my room, tail waggi
ng, with a dead leaf playfully hanging from her mouth. It is possible this dog
genuinely enjoyed my company, but I suspected she was simply taking advantage
of my need for companionship in order to enjoy the cool tile floor of my room.
I quickly realized her raging case of fleas made her a less-than-ideal
solution to my problem. Reluctantly, I began shooing her away.
I turned to the monks for guidance. Sitting across from one in the
meditation office, I said, “I have too much energy.”
“Energy? Energy good!”
I tried to explain my case as simply as I could. “No, I mean I don’t want
to sit ever again. I want to run and run and run some more.”
The monk offered me a look of understanding and compassion as he said,
“Ah yes. Meditation, it is like marriage, yes?”
I felt I was in the presence of wisdom. I leaned in expectantly to better
hear my soft-spoken sage.
He continued, “You are single. You say, ‘Oh, I am so lonely.’ You are
married. You call up your wife. You say, ‘Hi honey. How are you. Good good. Is ok
ay if I the lunch today?” With a pleased smile, the monk leaned back in his
chair and asked me, “You understand?” Like I said, I was missing language.
I tried to focus on the positive, and there were many experiences that I
could point to to convince myself I was having a good time.
>
Each morning I arose to the eerie sound of the collective howls of the
dogs as they responded to the deep clanging of the monastery wake-up bells. I
have never experienced such a primordial alarm, and it energized me immediately.
I was sampling new fruit at every meal. The prickly rambutan looked like
a red porcupine in fruit format, and the center was juicy and sweet. The
spicy, pear-like salee had such a surprising flavor I had to eat six slices in
order to decide I did not like it. The taste was reminiscent of autumnally-themed
potpourri.
I saw a perplexing ceremony one day in the temple. Through investigation
I discovered it was a ceremony to bring long life, and it was for a
16-year-old girl named Ung. Apparently Ung had gone to a fortune teller to find out what
she should do for school. The fortune teller instead told Ung she would be
dying shortly, and the very next day Ung’s mother had arranged this ceremony.
Ung, who had to remain at the monastery for seven days in serious mediation, did
not look happy. I empathized deeply.
The monastery itself was breathtaking. Lush vegetation twined its way
within and around the many elaborate statues, shrines, and temples, which seemed
to grow out of the very earth. Foreign and exotic tree frog and bird calls
intermingled with the chanting of the monks, and the scent of the jasmine flower
wreaths hanging from most statues, along with the copious amounts of burning
incense, all added up to instant aromatherapy. Of course, if my mediation
progressed as it should, I would no longer be noticing such things.
The end of the second day found me restlessly wandering the grounds
until, in desperation, I began another 15-minute round of walking meditation in the
library. Other students walked along the marble tile lines on the floor like
slow-motion swimmers doing laps in a pool. I picked a lane and joined in. To
the accompaniment of You go girl! You go girl! a lone tear began to slide down
my cheek. It was at this moment I acknowledged exactly how bad I was at
meditation. This was what you would call The Low Point.
In the wake of such a humbling fifteen minutes, I would like to say I had
an epiphany-a turn around in which I fully embraced the meditational
lifestyle and ascended to a higher level of existence. Alas, this would be a lie, and
I told enough of those as I recorded my number of minutes meditating each day.
There were, however, some exciting firsts: the first time I was truly
surprised when the beeper told me a meditational set was up, the first time I sat for
a full thirty minutes, and the first time I showered without leaving a patina
of dead ants on the bottoms of my feet.
My last day happened to be Buddha Day. It was the perfect balance of
boredom and beauty for my final night. That evening we all gathered to listen to
the head monk speak. Sitting cross-legged on the floor next to Ung and her
mother, I wondered how long he would talk. An hour later, I was more interested in
exactly how numb my legs could become. Could one actually lose a toe in such
a manner? Perhaps an entire foot? Even the Thai people sitting around me
looked bored, and presumably they could understand what the monk was saying. Ung
had long since left, although her mother sat listening earnestly, as if her
daughter’s very life depended on her attentiveness.
It was another four and a half hours before the monk finished, although
for some reason both the clock on the wall and my watch foolishly insisted only
one more hour had gone by. We all picked up bouquets of jasmine, roses, and
lotus flowers with incense and a yellow candle in the center and filed outside.
After lighting the candle and incense, we silently walked in a procession to
one of the larger shrines. Slowly, I walked with the others around the shrine
once, twice, three times, candle flames bobbing and flickering in the night,
crickets chirping a peaceful backdrop. I was honored to be a part of such a
quietly beautiful ceremony, and deeply grateful that all my toes seemed to be
working just fine.
As I left the monastery gates the next morning, I was glad I had come. A
small wave of nostalgia washed over me, but it was quickly replaced by an
image of me lying on the beach receiving a Thai massage, brightly-colored drink
with a paper umbrella off to the side. I was heading to the southern island of
Koh Samet.
The South China Sea waters were deliciously warm and soothing to my flea
bites, the massage did wonders for my meditationally-challenged back, and the
colorful drink had no mere umbrella; instead, it was garnished with a perfect,
blooming orchid that clearly stated that I was now in paradise. Lying in bed
that night, I barely had time to think to myself, Mattresses are good before I
drifted off to a luxurious ten-hour sleep.
Awakening the next morning, the call of the ocean waves lured me outside.
I found myself sitting cross-legged facing the water and knew what I had to
do. My watch’s beeper was set to a modest twenty minutes. I began. My mantra of
rising, falling cadenced perfectly with the lulling sound of the waves. The
salt-scented breeze rustled my hair slightly. I believe I may have smiled. And
I only peeked to check my watch once the whole time. Okay, twice.
by: Leanne Statland
