So today all I have to do is move my bag to the new GH and then head off to Wat Suan Dok to embark on my two days of mediation. I’ve got about an hour to wait before I need to be there and I can’t quite believe how nervous I’m feeling about this, it’s crazy. Even on the tuk tuk drive there I’m thinking to myself what am I doing, what if I don’t like it?! It is only 2 days though – how hard can it be??
So anyway, I arrive at the wat and find the area marked ‘Monk Chat’ and along with about 20 others from all nationalities we sign up, pay our donation and get issued with our white tops and trousers.
To start with we had an introduction into Buddhism and meditation and a chance to introduce ourselves, the only other person from the UK was from Brighton! There were a lot of people from America and what really made me smile was when a girl behind me double checked on what Monk Chai had just said about no talking. Apparently we’re not allowed to talk from the start of dinner until after breakfast the next morning! Ok so that might be a bit of a challenge.
After our introductions we headed out by truck to the meditation centre, about 17km out of town, to embark on our course.
The Buddhist Study Center
The centre is very calm and peaceful, if you can ignore the fireworks nearby in preparation for the forthcoming festival, and has a really nice feel to it. We’re sharing 2 people to a room and I’m sharing with Amanda, the New Yorker who asked the talking question. And as we change into our white clothes we both confess how nervous we were feeling about doing this course which made it all so much better straight away. It was nice to hear someone else say it.
The retreat
The rest of the day was spent teaching us more about the Buddhist way of life, how to behave when visiting temples and how to show respect to the Buddha, then we started to practice meditation, sitting, standing, walking and laying meditation. The laying meditation was just before bed and I’m sure half of us fell asleep in the middle of it, the thing is it was then time for bed and for some reason I just couldn’t sleep. My roommate had no problem and I kept looking across at her envious. 3am was the last time I looked at my watch, fine if you’re not up till 10 or something but we were up at 5am!
Do I look like I'm on my way to enlightenment? ;-) By the way the trousers were so not fitted!! I haven't really put on a couple of stone since I last saw you all!
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