For 10 days during my spiritual journey through Asia I went silent. There were 10 days of no speaking, no writing, no reading, (ideally) no thinking. 10 days/240 hours/14,400 minutes of living and being in the Present.
It was the time spent in my (first) retreat at the International Dharma Hermitage in Suan Mokk, near Chaia in the South of Thailand. This was the culmination of my first Dharma travel (one of many that I hope to do in the future). It was a series of intense experiences, a time spent in an environment created to encourage, nurture and sometime enforce the training and taming of one’s mind. A time spent in a place with nothing to do apart from practicing meditation, nowhere to go and nobody to talk to (except for Theravada monks and the lay supervisors, either during very short interviews or for serious emergencies, like scorpions in your room).
Wat Suan Mokkh (the Theravada Buddhist monastery to which the hermitage belongs) is an important spiritual destination in Thailand, as it is the place created by and closely linked with the life and teachings of one of Theravada Buddhism’s most important figures of the 20th century, Ajahn Buddhadasa (aka Buddhadasa Bikkhu).
I arrived at the Wat Suan Mokk in the afternoon of Oct. 30th after talking a 1 hour flight from Bangkok to Surat Thani, and then taxi from the airport to the Wat (for 500 Baht).
I entered the gates of the monastery with very mixed feelings, and timidly made my way towards the Information Point, hidden among the huge trees that cover the whole 60 hectares of the monastic compound. There I signed my name in a ledger and then I’ve been told how to get to one of the laymen’s dormitories.
This proved to be a building with two floors, and I entered the ground-floor’s huge hall. It looked very similar with the zendo from Sogen Ji Zen monastery, basically an alley in the middle, and two slabs of concrete that ran for the entire length of the hall, of about 20 meters.
In one corner there were two metal boxes (one with mosquito nets, the other one with blankets), and besides them there were bamboo mats and… wooden pillows. I picked up one of each, and then set up my bedsit for the night. Luckily, I had with me the air mattress, which was to become my closest friend for the following 12 nights, together with the ear-plugs.
Knowing that there will be no dinner served, I went back in front of the monastery where there are plenty of food stalls, and bought some dried bananas, salted peanuts and water. I then wondered around a bit, waiting for the 6.30pm chanting. By that point, I was getting seriously worried how, and especially if, I will be able to live like this for almost two weeks, as the conditions at the hermitage where going to be similar.
After chanting, I took the courage to go to the loo, which is, like the “showers”, somewhere into the woods, a tiny concrete cabin with no windows, plenty of spider webs and designed to be used sitting in squat position, or “Asian style” (you can barely see it in the photo below, taken the following morning at around 5.30am). By 9.00pm I was already in “bed”, and soon the lights were switched off.
Next day at 3.58am the lights were switched back on, and at 4.00am the bell started, calling the monks to the morning chanting. It was pretty cold “inside”, outside was pouring with rain and my head and neck hurt from the wooden pillow. I got up, took the dreaded journey to the toilet (to the above mentioned challenges I had to add the mud that formed overnight), and then went searching for the place where the morning chanting was going to take place at 4.30.
After following the elusive figures of some monks in the distance through the forest, I lost them, waited for 15 minutes at the info point, and then returned wet, cold and disappointed to the dorm. By now I was fully awake, so I set up a meditation place in an empty spot facing a window on the concrete bed and I started meditating.
Slowly the cold was gone (usually when one is actually meditating the body gets warm, as it relaxes together with the blood vessels, and so it warms up) and I felt very good. It was very quiet (apart from the noises made by some of my 5 fellow bed-mates, who didn’t bother to wake up at 4 o’clock), the noise made by the rain was soothing and I sat for about 45minutes.
By now it was about 5.30, still early and dark and raining outside, so I tried to get back to sleep, without success. I finally gave up trying and started packing my stuff at about 6.30, and then left for the hermitage.
The International Dharma Hermitage (IDH) is located at about 2 kilometers from the main monastery, among a forest of coconut trees, at the base of a hill covered in jungle vegetation. It took me about 20 minutes to get there, and I was the second one to arrive for registration.
It is very important to keep in mind by those who want to go there that it is essential to follow to the letter the instructions given on the IDH’s webpage (go to http://www.suanmokkh-idh.org/suanmokkh-idh.html). There isn’t the possibility to pre-register, and registration is done on a first come-first registered basis (plus, if you arrive early, you can pick up what chores you want to do, otherwise you will be allocated one of the less pleasurable ones).
The registration process is a serious matter, because they want to make sure that they can “weed off” those who have not a very serious commitment to spend the whole 10 days. You are first given to read a booklet which outlines very clearly that:
- the conditions offered are basic (private rooms with a concrete bed, bamboo mat, mosquito net, wooden pillow and a blanket, common washing and toilet facilities)
- that you are supposed to live with only two meals a day, no exception
- that you are supposed to obey the total silence rule (being allowed to speak only with the instructors or the monks involved in the programme)
- that you have to attend all the activities included in the programme
- that you will respect the dress code
- that you will not do any other activity (reading, laptops, mobiles etc.)
- that you will not go beyond the boundaries of the hermitage
- that you will live according to the * Buddhist precepts:
- not to kill any sentient being,
- not to steal,
- not to lie,
- not to engage in any kind of sexual-related activities,
- not to consume any intoxicants (including cigarettes and coffee),
- not to play music, sing, dance, laugh etc,
- not to wear perfume, jewellery or fancy clothes and
- not to stay or sleep on luxurious beds/seats.
After signing the registration form and paying the 2,000Baht tax for food & accommodation (that’s 50 Euros for 11 days!!!), I took the key to the room 254, the one that was to be my home for the following 11 nights.
The men’s dormitory is a square building, with an internal yard surrounded on all four sides by corridors with rooms. It looks similar to the living quarters from the catholic monasteries, and there is a gate that is locked every evening at 9.30pm.
My room was on one of the corners, and it looked, both outside and inside, like… a prison cell: hard wood door with a padlock on the outside, and a window with wooden shutters, heavy iron bars, but no mosquito net. There were no glass windows, and all the walls had holes in their upper parts, so basically you can hear what noises your neighbours were making (and the other way around).
The room itself is rather small (some 4×2 meters), at it consists of one concrete platform that serves as a bed and on which you have a bamboo mat and a wooden pillow, a lantern on which you can place a candle and… that’s about it. You get an orange sack which contains a mosquito net and a blanket and there are also a few coat-hangers which serve as one’s “dressing room”.
As for the rest of the amenities, there is one big washing area and about 8 toilet cubicles, plus four big water stone reservoirs on each corner of the courtyard, which are used for washing both oneself and one’s clothing. There is no running water, so for hygiene you use rain water from those reservoirs, and for drinking water you have to go to a place near meditation hall no.1 to get filtered water.
Setting up my room took me about 5 minutes, and after that I had plenty of time to ask myself if I am really up for this challenge. I have never realized until then (actually it started at the Sogen-ji monastery in Japan and I had a strong reminder the previous night at Wat Suan Mokkh) how dependent I was of the comfort which we take for granted in the West and we expect to find even in a 2 star hotel: a bed with a mattress, soft pillow, running water, shower with warm water.
I decided to take it one day at a time, and see on the way how I feel and it proved to be the right approach. Slowly, slowly I entered into the rhythm of the retreat, even though it was quite intensive (see for yourselves):
- 4.00am – wake-up bell
- 4.30am – morning reading in the meditation hall
- 4.45-5.15am – sitting meditation
- 5.15-6.45am – yoga
- 7.00-8.00am – Dharma teaching
- 8.00am – breakfast
- 8.30 – 10.00am – break & chores
- 10.00-11.00am – Dharma teaching
- 11.00-11.45am – walking meditation
- 11.45-12.30pm – sitting meditation
- 12.30pm-14.30 – lunch, chores & break
- 14.30-15.30 – Dharma teaching
- 15.30 – 16.15 – walking meditation
- 16.15-17.00 – sitting meditation
- 17.00-18.00 – chanting or sitting meditation
- 18.00-19.30 – tea & break
- 19.30-20.00 – sitting meditation
- 20.00-20.30 – walking meditation
- 20.30-21.00 – sitting meditation
- 21.00 – 21.30 – getting ready for bed
- 21.30 – lights off
In the following posts I’ll share some of the learnings and insights that I’ve got during these 240 hours of silence.
And, to add a bit of beauty to this rather austere blog-post, here is the link to a wonderful song by Jan Garbarek, appropriately named “One Goes There Alone” (also look at the photos, some of them are magnificent):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsr2eqNnrd4&feature=related
In the meantime, don’t forget:
Be present in the Present!
