 |
| Every day is trick-or-treat for the monks of Wat Rampoeng |
Buddhist temple Wat Rampoeng, on the outskirts of Chiang
Mai, offers meditation retreats of up to 26 days where white-clad spiritual
seekers can immerse themselves in mindfulness training to guide them in their
quest for higher planes of personal insight. By the way, everywhere it says
“insight,” please read “zombification.” And, for all instances of
“mindfulness,” you can substitute “self-lobotomy.”
 |
| Intending to mock, intending to mock ... |
Early Saturday morning Lian and I get into costume and call
for a Red Car to transport us to our 10-day reprogramming. We stop first at
the sidewalk flower stalls beside the Mae Ping River for our requisite temple
offerings of 11 lotus blossoms, 11 yellow candles and 11 sticks of incense each.
Thirty minutes later, toting double-armfuls of luggage and swag, we present our
matching white selves at the foliaged entrance to Wat Rampoeng.
 |
| Shopping for temple offerings |
Lian and I are promptly separated – she is led off with the
other Thai women visitors for religious instruction and meditation, while I
hike up to the far end of the temple grounds to check in at the foreign office.
After processing, the dour little teacher-monk on duty shows me to my modest
private room, which he condescendingly demonstrates how to clean, as though
I’d never seen a broom or mop before.
Back at the foreign office entrance, where other farang
students are now waiting inside, our relationship goes south in a hurry.
“You have timer?” he asks. (Meditation
exercises are self-timed.) I produce my iPhone and am about to point out its
stopwatch function when he cuts me off.
“No phone. I keep,” he demands, palm extended. I explain
that it’s in Airplane Mode and cannot function as a telephone in Thailand and
that it’s a clock now, darn it, a clock. I hand it over to show him.
“What is this?” he says, holding it up.
“An iPhone,” I reply.
“Aha! Phone!” he says, pivoting on a bare heel and
disappearing into his office.
I gape in astonishment. “The son of a bitch just stole my
cell phone!” I sputter to myself, following right behind him. “Give it back now.”
“No phone! Do you read rules?” he shouts back. Well, as a
matter of fact I did, and here is what it says: “Please switch off mobile
phones during the course.” Nothing about confiscation. I pick up the rulebook on his desk and shove the
page under his nose – but now we are WAY beyond debating the letter of the law.
“You want me teach you, no phone!” he hisses. “Or else you
can stay in your room and teach yourself.” I consider the prospect of
explaining to Lian how I got myself banished from a Buddhist meditation retreat
on the very first morning. So I relent.
The other students, who watch this exchange in horror, meekly surrender their mobile devices
like good little lambies. And then we all march off to begin our mental
tranquility training.
---
Covering perhaps 20 acres, Wat Rampoeng comprises a temple
or two, library, meditation exercise room, dining hall, and lots of housing for
monks and visitors alike, all built around an immense and ancient stone
stupa. I should mention, participating in the retreat is entirely on a donation
basis – you pay what you feel it’s worth and what you can afford.
It really is a calming and beautiful setting, and I should
be enjoying this … except that the whole proposition seems designed to deny or
suppress everything that humans are engineered to like and do:
* We are sexual creatures, so they impose gender separation. And no touching!
* We are social animals, so chit-chat is discouraged. Even in the dining hall silence is strictly enforced, lest anyone's mindfulness process be disturbed.
* We are blessed with tastebuds, so the mealtme prayer admonishes that our food is not for enjoyment or fun, only to sustain our bodies for a while longer. (So why do they bother adding salt and spices? Good question!)
* We value individual expression, so we must wear only white, even in the room, even in bed. And white is SO NOT my color.
* We crave intellectual engagement, so naturally they prohibit diversions of any kind: no reading, writing, music, none of it.
* We appreciate visual beauty, so our mindfulness exercises call for the eyes to be closed or cast downward.
Throw in low-level hunger and sleep deprivation – no meals
past noon, no sleeping before 10 p.m., and a 4 a.m. wake-up bell – and you’ve
got a population primed for mind control.
But I promised to give meditation a fair shot, so I go along
with the program.
---
“Standing, standing …” the teacher-monk directs in a low
monotone as we all stand side by side, barefoot on mossy garden stones on this
lovely Monday morning. This is the walking exercise, but we are not yet walking.
“Intending to walk, intending to walk …” he continues
slowly. “Now walking, walking …”
We move forward in deliberate half-steps. “Right goes thus,
left goes thus, right goes thus, left goes thus …”
Midway across the garden we stop, with deliberation.
“Stopping, stopping … now intending to turn, intending to turn … now turning,
turning … now intending to walk, intending to walk … now walking, walking …”
Then we do the standing exercise, which consists of, uh, standing. That's it. We stand there with our eyes closed for 15 minutes envisioning our
own breathing. “Rising, falling …” goes the teacher. Then it’s back to the
walking exercise.
We do this for two hours, until the 10:30 lunch bell. And then again, on our own, into the afternoon and night.
---
Every day the farang students report to his eminence the abbot
and/or his young translator, who records how many hours of exercise we put in,
answers questions, and generally makes sure we’re sticking with the program. The
universal complaint is the lotus position: “My legs are killing me!” The (to
me) shocking response: “Everyone’s legs hurt always. You must work through the
pain.” Or … change positions? But I guess if they can get us to accept the other indignities, hell, why not throw in a little agony?
Every day they ratchet up the target number of hours and the
complexity of the exercises. On Day 5, I am sad to report that I could not
put in my required 10 hours, only eight. (Really less than three.) The monk
smiles benignly and says: “You are not perfect and it's in the past now.”
Married friends, if ever your spouse catches you in bed with
someone else, I hope you'll think to use this line: “Honey, I am not perfect and
it’s in the past now.”
---
 |
| Girls-only section of the dining hall. |
My fellow white-boy meditators are a hoot, and I'm not the only one who thinks so.
“Why farang so serious?” Lian asks over coffee after
breakfast. (We consistently scandalize the congregation by talking in the
outdoor public area by the wat’s convenience store.) Slowly and oh-so
deliberately these western novitiate wanna-bes pace the grounds with heads
bowed and hands locked behind them, Prince Charles style. Working on the look.
A few of them are actually horrified by the most basic overtures of social courtesy. Leaving the dining hall one day, I hold the door for a hippie
chick-looking woman behind me. She visibly shivers in horror at my
gaucherie.
Has mindfulness training damaged these people or did they
arrive that way? Lian tells me about a woman she met who has been studying at
the temple for four months. “Is Level 6!” she marvels. “She hardly eat, don’t
shower, her mind is very calm. Why you smile?”
I smile because … really? “Hardly eat, don’t shower?” Isn’t
that what junkies do?
---
By Day 5, I am the Randle P. McMurphy of Wat Rampoeng.
The 4 a.m. wake-up bell tolls and I hear the
chirp-chirp of my next-door neighbor’s digital timer as he begins his day’s
mindfulness exercises. I roll over and go back to sleep until the 6:30
breakfast bell.
 |
| The room. |
Every once in a while I put in an appearance at the library
or the stupa courtyard for a little walking practice. I argle-bargle,
yabber-jabber my way through the spoken prayers at breakfast and lunch. But by
now I am spending most of my time in my cell – I mean, my room – napping,
writing blog notes and doing push-ups and crunches.
---
On Saturday morning after breakfast, Lian smiles weakly and
in a small voice concedes: “I think seven day enough.” Yesssss!!!
Before she changes her mind I race to the foreign office and
arrange for early release, which the abbot grants. But this is Buddha Day in
Thailand and the temple is bustling, so they cannot arrange a closing ceremony
for us until the next morning. No problem-o! I spend my final day scouring my
room and striding purposefully around the grounds, eyes up. Because it really
is a gorgeous place.
 |
| Happy Buddha Day |
As I am kicking back outside the library contemplating the retreat experience, up walks my old buddy the teacher-monk. “Abbot say you can go?” he asks. I nod.
He thrusts my iPhone at me and says: “Next time, TEN day!” A little prick to the end.
That night I am happy to join the monks and worshipers in their ceremonial candlelight walk around the stupa. If only the
rest of the retreat could have been this congenial.
---
Flash back to the very first day of walking practice, when I realize: “I
know this. This is like plowing the Island.”
The back 50 acres of my grandparents’ farm along the
McKenzie River we always called the Island. Every spring, back and forth the tractors
would go – plowing, disking, grooming the soil for planting. Later in the
summer would come driving the harvester. And you absolutely had to remain
focused and in the moment, keeping your speed just right, your tool on the line,
your work-side front wheel aligned just so. Even the “intending to turn,
intending to turn” part: you had to plan your turnaround ahead of time, and
know when to raise or drop your plow. You’d be surprised at how quickly the
time would go, and you actually accomplished something useful.
The moment I make that connection, I am ruined for the rest of this wankery.
But it gives me an idea for my farming friends:
rebrand your operation as an “Insight Retreat.” Take out an ad in the new age-y
magazines, get city folks to actually pay you for the “mindfulness therapy” of
driving tractor, setting irrigation, picking crops.
I will even provide a testimonial: it sure worked for me.
