THE RAINS RETREAT

Meditating before a shrine at Wat Ram Poeng.

Bye bye beach

It was Rob who convinced me, though he never even said "You should do this meditation course." Rob was one of those rare humans - an engaged listener, and a speaker of few but powerful words. He promised nothing - no flashing lights, no guarantee of Enlightenment, or anything approaching it. Just a month in the temple, practising vipassana (insight) meditation.

It sounded tough: early morning starts and a rigid schedule of practice; no tv or radio, no phone or fax, no music or books to distract me. But I was struck by the aura of warmth and equanimity that emanated from this young Englishman who had entered the Thai monkhood with his entire being. After an hour in his compact guti (monk's residence), I had dropped my plan to spend a month on a beach in favour of practising meditation.

Bye bye hair

So it was that I arrived at Wat Ram Poeng, tucked at the base of Doi Suthep to the west of Chiang Mai, one rainy day in July. In the small guti assigned to me I showered and changed into the thin white shirt and trousers I had purchased for my stay.

A young Scottish monk called Steve took on the task of shaving my head - not a necessity, but I felt it would make me less likely to consider escaping the temple before the end of the course. The blade skimmed across my scalp; locks of lank, greying hair fell into my lap, and I shuddered as I glanced in the mirror at the pallid dome above my eyes. Would it ever grow again?

The inititiation

At the opening ceremony in front of a small shrine by the temple walls, I offered eleven lotus flowers, eleven orange candles and eleven incense sticks to Lung Po, the portly and ageing meditation teacher. I sat on my heels, supported by knees and toes, my clammy palms pressed together in front of my chest, as Lung Po chanted Pali verses for an interminable period.

I went through discomfort, numbness and excruciating pain before I could finally relax. How on earth would I manage to sit still for hours on end attempting to meditate? But it was too late to back out now. The teacher had graciously accepted my request to share his knowledge and I had sworn myself to the eight basic precepts of Buddhism which would govern my life for the next few weeks.

The rules

The precepts were no killing, no stealing, no lying, no sex, no drugs, no entertainment, no soft bed and no food after midday. It was only the last one that bothered me; I had visions of my rumbling stomach spoiling any concentration I might achieve.

I comforted myself with the knowledge that I was not alone. I had entered the temple on Khao Pansa day, the beginning of the Rains Retreat, when many Thai laymen ordain into the monkhood for short periods, and monks do not leave the temple unnecessarily for three months (from July to October). It is a time to turn inward, to contemplate the Buddha's teachings and practise meditation; in short, to develop the spirit.

Meeting the monkey mind

Deep in meditation...or dreaming of Koh Samui?

I sat in a half lotus in my guti staring at the blank wall. The instructions seemed simple enough, "Follow the rising of the breath, then the falling. Keep the mind on the body. If thoughts arise, stop them gently and return to the breath." Starting was alright, but within a few breaths my mind would be wandering down some nostalgic path of the past or flitting off into fantasies of the future.

What was worse, minutes might have passed before I snapped back into the present moment and my forgotten breath. Out of six hours assigned by my teacher, to be divided between sitting and walking meditation in twenty minute sessions, I probably spent less than half an hour fully in the present.

Lung Po was hardly surprised by my revelation at our daily meeting. A sliver of a grin appeared on his lips. "We call it the monkey mind," he said, "because it refuses to be still. Keep trying. Be patient. Today eight hours, in thirty minute sessions. Next!" If Rob was a man of few words, Lung Po was a man of even fewer.

Dreaming of the beach

Back in my bare guti, I planned out my next day around sixteen sessions of meditation and wondered about the wisdom of my actions. If I had gone to Koh Samui instead, I would now be lounging on a beach, perhaps supping a beer while being massaged and listening to the gentle swish of waves breaking on the sand.

A foreign monk (not Rob) practising walking meditation at Ram Poeng.

Stepping out

I fared somewhat better with walking meditation. The simple fact that my body was in motion helped me to keep my mind on its movements, and I could follow 'left goes thus' and 'right goes thus' for at least a dozen steps before my mind would take off on one of its mad and unnecessary excursions.

I quickly got irritated with myself. After all, I had chosen a time to do the course when my life was surprisingly free of personal problems, but my mind still constantly wriggled away from the task in hand. It followed patterns in tree branches, thoughts of friends in faraway lands and how to keep the ants away from the meagre supplies in my room.

Attached to texture and sound

Trying to stop my mind roaming, I became hypersensitive to the different surfaces on which I walked barefoot. The laterite stone around the chedi, pitted and pocked, created a new sensation with each step. The concrete slabs around the main temple were warm in the evening and cool in the morning.

I tried to look at these surfaces without attachment, either positive or negative, but the beautiful swirling patterns and cool touch of the varnished teak floorboards in the library moved me such that I had to make the place personally out-of-bounds to avoid this lovely distraction. The same went for the temples when the monks or nuns were chanting. Though I understood none of the Pali words, the harmony of their voices enveloped me in a mood of reassurance and comfort.

'How's it going?' hang-ups

An unfamiliar atmosphere hung over the foreigners practising there. If we had been in Daret's or The Riverside, both travellers' haunts in town, we would most likely be letting our egos run rampant with tales of our exploits around the world, lubricated by liberal amounts of Mekong whisky. Speaking was not forbidden at Ram Poeng, as it is in many meditation centres, but it was strongly discouraged, especially any discussion of our practice.

"How's it going?" had suddenly become a loaded question, which most of us tried to avoid. As for me, I wasn't even sure of the answer. One hour would go well, when I could keep my mind reasonably focussed and body still, then the next I'd be restless and grumpy, taunting myself with images of Koh Samui.

Panic stations

By the end of the first week I was practising twelve hours a day in hour-long sessions. Each step of walking meditation was broken into three conscious movements (lifting, moving, and lowering the foot) and in sitting meditation I was learning to observe various 'touching points' on the body. By the end of the second week I was up to sixteen hours a day, just about every waking moment.

Still my mind found ways of wandering, on occasions only returning to the harsh bleep of my alarm clock which signalled the end of the session. By the end of the third week, Lung Po instructed me to prepare to enter 'Determination', the final phase of the course, and I panicked.

Determination

Though not much was spoken around the temple, everyone got to hear of 'Determination'. What we heard was so little and in such hushed tones that I imagined it to be a long and dangerous gauntlet for the psyche to run, and out of which one may or may not emerge unscathed.

Basically all it entailed was making the determination not to sleep for three days and nights, instead spending twenty four hours a day meditating, which meant being mindful during the eating of meals and ablutions as well as while sitting and walking.

Feeling as unprepared as a schoolkid for an exam, I threw my bed on its side to avoid the temptation to lie down on it. I wrote 'BE HERE NOW' on sheets of paper and plastered them at the ends of my guti where I would walk. I was not to shower or leave the room (my food would be brought to me), except to report to the teacher, for three days.

Modern mural showing the power of meditation to overcome desire.

Mind games

Strange things happen in bodies and minds pushed to their limits. At about two thirty on my first night, which was hot and sticky, I sat naked on the floor of my room being lulled by the purr of the fan. Apart from this whispering, an utter stillness prevailed and I was in grave danger of keeling over asleep during meditation.

Without thinking I moved to the corner of the room, put my crash helmet on my head and two socks on my hands, and resumed the half lotus posture. The shock of seeing myself dressed in such a weird outfit snapped me awake enough to see me through till dawn, when I came fully alive again.

A visitation

I needed no such tactic on the second night when I seemed to be tapped into by some unknown and powerful source of energy. We had been asked to recognize the moments in meditation when the head dropped forward. Apparently this indicated the arising and ceasing of physical phenomena, and offered the chance to glimpse through the illusory veil of reality.

Not much hope for me, I guessed, based on my limited spells of concentration. However, as my sessions continued, I became aware of a tangible force gripping my scalp, thrusting my head not only downwards (sometimes cricking the bones in my neck), but also sideways and backwards. Lung Po had given me specific instructions not to sit against a wall to practise on this day, and I later found out that this was because he knew I may be susceptible to such forces, and unwittingly knock myself out.

'How's it going?' again

By the time I completed 'Determination', I had become so detached from the outside world that re-entering it was like learning life all over again. My first walk outside the temple - to the market - took hours as I acknowledged six stages to each step. On my first evening back in Chiang Mai, I was sitting in a rooftop restaurant overlooking Tha Pae Gate, where I had arranged to meet a friend.

In front of me was a steak with all the trimmings, at its side a cool beer; but somehow they didn't interest me. My eyes roamed across the neon lights around the square and on to the sunset flaring behind Doi Suthep. Somewhere between me and the sunset lay Wat Ram Poeng, nestled in the shadows. My friend arrived and interrupted my musings. "So, how's it going?" he asked. I smiled and turned up my palms in a gesture of helplessness. It was a question I could no longer answer.