A Learning to Meditate story OR The Great Escape (or Where the heck is Steve Mcqueen and that Motorcycle when you need it? ) 

After Bangkok I went to
Ayutthaya for a couple days and caught the midnight train to Chiang

Mai. The next day I wanted to tour a couple of Wats, Wat U Mong and Wat
Ram Poeng. Great places and I learned when I was strolling the grounds
of Wat Ram Poeng that on Tuesday, the next day, there was a meditation
retreat that I could join. It was for 10 days and I have been rather
stressed out with a couple things involving a rich sociopath so I
thought meditation would be a good thing for me to learn.I did

not realize I was getting myself in for monk boot camp…seriously!

There
were 6 farang (foreigners and I mean the Caucasian ones) in the
place.The first 24 hours, we were to start with 15 min walking
meditation. For walking meditation, ideally to take step that is half

as long as your foot, takes at least 10 seconds or longer if you can do
it. Try it, it is difficult.

Walking meditation is immediately
followed by 15 minutes of sitting meditation, 15 minutes walking then

15 minutes sitting again. Then you may take a 10-20 minute break at
that point. Then you start all over.

Now all the other farang
could sit lotus and had obviously meditated for quite a while, I was

the only newbie of the group. However, at the end of 24 hours, I
reported to the abbot after doing 9 hours total hours of meditation,
feeling quite pleased with myself and he says ””not out of anger but
out of compassion, do 20 minutes each now.”

Great. Okay. So I did.

But
by the second night, due to the extreme heat I presume and the sitting
cross-legged and walking without shoes on stone, my feet and ankles had

swollen to the size normally only seen after a 17 hour flight.

Arg.I
was rather freaked out by that but persevered.

Thoughts of some
freakish tropical mosquito disfiguring disease came to mind but I kept
throwing those out of my head. Finally went to the abbot and he said no

more sitting cross legged for now and that in one or two days I should
be good again.Well that didn’t happen.

By the end of the 5th
day, when walking had become like walking on knives and feet were

looking like I had a good case of elephantitis (by this time I was
doing 35 minutes walking 35 sitting, 35 walking 35 sitting
straight-legged and my legs and feet were becoming more agonizingly
painful. Keep in mind that I was a beginner to all this only 5 days
before with the exception of a little cushy American-style intro to

mediation shortly before my trip.

Practice
started in our rooms at 4am til 6 when breakfast was served (no
latecomers served) then at 8 start the day of meditation, initially
under the monk’s watchful eyes and then to wherever we wanted to

meditate. I tried to stay in the shade as much as possible though even
the shade was hot enough to make your elbows sweat for goodness sake. I
never knew elbows sweated before

It was as if they created new rules on a daily basis..."hmmm, do you think we can tell these farang to meditate standing on their heads?"

One rule was that we farang
could not look at anyone in the face! We had to avert our eyes with a
45 degree glance (which is hard when everyone is a foot shorter and
looking up at you asking “Where you from?”) AND no conversation at all, 24/7 except to ask the monk meditation teacher a technique question or to report to the abbot!

I did learn a useful lesson they initiated this new rule. The beams outside the kitchen
were quite low and while walking to wash my lunch dishes and
frantically trying not to meet the friendly faces of people way shorter
than me and am practically looking straight down and suddenly my
forehead meets beam with a resounding “BONK!”I hadn’t ever truly
“seen stars” before but it was certainly a whole constellation going on
at that point.

The lesson I learned was “It is hard to avert one’s eyes and
watch out for low hanging beams!” 

I tried to share this little wisdom, a little bon mot

with the abbot, but something was evidently lost in the translation!

Lunch
was served at 1030 and that was it for food until 6am the next morning.
The last couple of days I didn’t even feel like eating breakfast and
skipped that altogether.

Time for reporting your meditation to
the abbot varied in the afternoon and then after that, you were to

meditate until 10pm. And absolutely no sleeping anytime between 4am and
10pm! I guess Richard, the guy from England, got busted for going to

bed early one night but I don’t know the full story behind that.

And
did I mention the heat… the cicadas started singing well before sun-up,
never a good sign if one is hoping for a cooler day.

The woman up above, poor thing,
is dying from stomach cancer I guess and any chance of 6 hours of
unbroken sleep went out the window with every painful moan… I just
wanted to walk with my hands on my ears when I was mediating in my room
and as for sleeping, her painful cries haunted me even in my sleep.

For
shits and giggles, they placed the farang women by the (no walls)
kitchen where they were crashing pans and chopping food at 3am.

It was
difficult situation, and I was trying my hardest because I don’t want
to be a quitter at anything but between untranslatable answers to
meditation questions and the physical hardships and total lack of sleep I was getting toward being a wreck.

There were interesting experiences
meditating but I could not get answers to my questions, the meh tee po
teet (Buddhist nun) never seemed to get around to answering when
translating for the abbot. I wanted to know if what I was experiencing
while meditating was normal of if I was losing it, I have never done

hallucinogenic drugs but I was thinking these experiences must be
rather similar!

The walking mediation was where I ended up with some wild instances, light coming through a solid door one time and I remember feeling like I was slipping in between the floorboards, falling between the cracks so to speak.

Sitting meditation resulted in lightning in my head type stuff and I have no previous experience in meditation so being able to converse with someone would have been appreciated.

To finish the meditation formally you must have a

closing ceremony. It is very, very rude to not do that. So after coming
to the conclusion during one meditation that ””Pride must give way to

common sense”” I go with painful, painful feet from my room to the
office (you had to walk everywhere with the slowness of walking
meditation which was really starting to bug me, especially when out at
dusk and I just wanted to run screaming from the malarial or dengue
mosquitoes (or potential to be so in this area) to the safety of the my
room.

No matter how I tried to not worry about it, the worry about
mosquito disease was quite distressing to me and loomed large in my
mind.

I clear out my room and scrub the thing head to toe, drag
the linens (one slow step at a time) to the laundry, get my donation
ready based on a 10 day stay and give the German woman who started with

me some soy packets that we were allowed to add to the water in the 19
hours without food and explain that I cant walk anymore.

I tried to
give her a couple of packets of antibacterial handwipes that I hadn’t
opened yet and she, with a start, asks “Vat?!!” “Vat is zis?!” I was confused by her reaction but then realized that when she had read

the English words on the packet, she had read the “Kills Germs!” as
“Kills Germans!”  I tried explaining but she wanted no part of them.

The
other farang inmates had spoken with me the day earlier (and I was
dreading the monk coming along and finding them speaking with me, I
mean I was very worried) and expressed concern about the looks of my

feet and that it was obvious to them that walking was hurting me even
though as one said, “you totally look in the zone, you look totally
done in.”

It was funny that the men broke the no talking code first!
The man who reported after me came up and asked “How many times have
you thought of quitting?” And to be honest, and the end of the fourth

day, it hadn’t been a thought I had allowed myself to have.

Though
worried about being busted for talking, I felt like a convict in a
prison breaking the guards’ rules, I listened, volunteered little but
everything he said seemed hilariously funny and I was practically

howling (probably nearly with a dash of hysteria) with laughter at our
situation.

That evening, doing my 35 minutes walking, 35 sitting,

35 walking, 35 sitting then break, tears are streaming down my face
after 4 hours of this with the pain in my feet which is now affecting
my knees.

The woman is moaning in pain, I am so very exhausted I cant
do anymore and miserably sit in my little room just waiting for 10pm to
go to sleep.The next morning, from the very first step I take
getting out of my one inch mattress on a wood board, the painful stabs

to my feet makes my decision that I will finish the required hours and
finish after finishing day 5’s required meditation.

My next two days
would have no reporting but increased to 40 minutes and then 45 and

there is just no way I can do anymore. I am worried about getting on
the airplane and getting vein thrombosis. I am a total wreck by this

point.

So I go and meditate in the monks office area while

waiting for him to come back. He was all a-twitter about some high monk
deciding to drop in and running around like a chicken with his head cut

off. I finally got him to stop and I respectfully requested a closing
ceremony, explaining I could not continue to cripple myself any further
with having a long plane trip at the end of this week. He would not do

the ceremony and herded me back to my room!

Now I am not one
to be intentionally rude and I was so culturally sensitive on my trip,
so while my brain was trying to figure out how to make this Thai monk

understand I DO NOT WANT TO BE HERE ANYMORE
and that I have crippled myself and can do no more. I go (painstakingly
slowly) back to my room, with him at my heels like a bloody sheepdog.

After a little bit, I say heck with that and go back to the office and
tell the teacher monk that I wished for a closing ceremony and that
this is what I must do.

Phra Chebodin then escorts me to the meh tee po

teet who says “fine, special dispensation, just meditate in your room
and don’t do the walking, you may stay here until you leave Chaing
Mai.”

Oh my god, I do not want to stay longer than the 10 days, I don’t
want to stay 10 days, I want to leave now and be granted the closing
ceremony like you are supposed to be given. I explained I needed cold

air, ice and the ability to put my feet up to get them to unswell.

I then found that meh tee po teet AND Phra Chebodin herding me back to my room and actually are waiting for me to put my backpack in the room!

I figured they weren’t going to leave me until I did, so I throw the
backpack back in the room, keeping my purse with passport and money
with me in case I have to run. They leave and I see the German woman

standing next door looking at me curiously.

She sidles over and
whispers surreptitiously “Vat are you still doing here? Vy are you
here?” She couldn’t believe they refused to do the ceremony and says,

after sneaking glances around, “I know a back way out!”“

So with
her running reconnaissance, and me trying to sneak along (try sneaking
along when you are a 5 9 blonde with a huge blue backpack on your back

in a Thai buddhist monastery!)

We make our way zig-zagging along with

her getting water for my water bottle (bless her for that), then she
would skitter ahead, looking, looking, looking and waving me forward! I
am feeling very obvious and am trying to sneak along to catch up with

her, never before have I felt so large and conspicuous!

We continue
in this manner, finally making our way to the main gate. Our timing was
good as many members of the monastery were excited about going to some
celebration for some high ranking Buddhist and their numbers were greatly reduced after 1pm. I was very,very relieved at this notion. I hand her the envelope with the baht donation and the key

to my room which was locked as if I was still walking around the
monastery, meditating in one of the temples or beautiful courtyards.

Now
there is one dirt road coming in and one going out, each a one-way
lane. Tara, the German woman, points me to the going out road and I

shake my head vigorously NO. She asks why and I say because there’s a
guy in orange and I am afraid of men in orange now!”

So she hugs me as I warn her she
can’t be on this side of the gate so she had better get back in before

she is found out and I traipse up the incoming lane. My heart was
feeling lighter and lighter with each step as I got further away and
closer to the highway.Now keep in mind I have absolutely no flipping idea of where the heck I am but I am out of there!I


I make my way to the main highway and see a Best Western, of all things, up the road and figure to
call a taxi from there.

I am happy, happy, happy to have escaped…when

I see a car with black-tinted windows pull up next to me, driving
alongside at my walking pace, and no matter how I ignore it, it drives
slowly along adjacent to me, mindless of being on a highway.

I move
away from the car’s door range distances and stop, looking over warily
in concern and confusion.The blackened passenger window slowly
glides down, down. and I see the beaming smiling face of the teacher
monk-Chebodin!

He has two other monks in the car and is wearing this

wide, and at this point to me,maniacal smile (It was like the face of
the Joker in the first Batman movie to me!) and is pointing at the back

seat saying “Get in,Get in. Get in car, we go!”Eeeeeeeeek!!! Hell no!

Needless to say I did NOT and told him there was no way and I was off to the hotel. but how bizarre was that!

So
despite my best intents to be a considerate and thoughtful, I am now
considered a rude, thoughtless farang who does not follow the rules of

politeness. I tried to do the right thing but I was denied an honorable
end to my retreat, so that is that. From there I went from the sacred
to the profane, but that, is another tale.