Monk-eying Around

OK, so titles aren't my strong point. I never professed to be a creative individual - give me a topic and I can write factually about it, but ask me to come up with something by myself... that's a different story.

So you're all intrigued as to what this title means. I won't keep you in suspense for much longer.

South East Asia has a strong Buddhist culture - this is documented by the dozens and dozens of photos I've taken of the various temples. The monastic tradition is still very strong here - its an honour for families in Laos, Thailand and Cambodia to send their oldest child to be ordained as a Buddhist monk. Its a common sight to see lines of young monks queuing up to collect alms in the morning (see my Laos blog for pictures). I've always been fascinated by Buddhism, and I have a lot of respect for the religion (as I do for most of the other world religions). I studied Buddhism for GCSE religious studies, and even though I haven't extended this study recently, I always welcomed the opportunity to learn more about it.

Anyway, looking through the Lonely Planet, I happened to stumble across something called "Monk Chat". What this "Monk Chat" lacks in name, it makes up for in substance - it offered foreigners the experience of spending two days at a meditation retreat in Chiang Mai, being instructed by some of the Buddhist monks. This program ran once a week, and I wanted to indulge my fascination. Initially, I had attempted to visit this retreat two weeks ago, but I was thwarted by the small matter of a Buddhist festival. No problem - I just decided to visit the retreat on my return.

So what did it consist of? The program was labelled as an introduction to meditation so it was intended to provide us with the basics and give us a taste of what meditation involved. So I arrived at the temple on the afternoon of the first day - and the temple itself was stunning. We were provided with a two hour talk on Buddhism, what the main precepts were and how meditation fits in to Buddhism. Much of it was what I had learnt at GCSE, but bearing in mind that that was almost 7 years ago now (I feel old!), it was nice to gain a refresher.

From there, we were taken by minibus to the retreat. The journey was about half an hour in total. and the retreat was a stunning location in the Chiang Mai countryside. It was completely deserted, and us 20 participants were the only occupants. It was there that we were informed that we were expected to maintain complete silence for the duration of the retreat!! We were given a surprisingly tasty dinner but everyone was very disconcerted by their inability to talk to the person sitting opposite them.

From there, we were given our first class. Sitting meditation, of the concentration meditation variety. This lasted for an hour, and its surprising how difficult it was to concentrate on the stimulus offered to us (in this case, the noise provided by a ringing bowl). The monk said that initially our minds would be 'like a monkey', and that was a fitting description - the mind jumped from thought to thought to thought. This was proceeded by the slightly strange "walking meditation", and the sleep inducing "lying down meditation". After an extensive session, we were released at 9pm (still maintaining complete silence), and were in bed by 10pm.

The next morning, we had the pleasure of a 5am start. This was followed by some counting meditation and yoga at 5:30, and to be fair, this actually managed to wake us up.

After this, we were instructed to practise some more of our sitting down meditation. At 7:30 we did something quite different, and were given the task of offering alms to the monks. In the Buddhist monastic tradition, monks do not cook or provide food for themselves; instead, this is provided to the monks by the local lay community. This means that the monks have more time in which to practice meditation and chanting (not burdened by the need to prepare food). The way that one of the monks put it was that 'the lay community look after our bodies, and we look after their minds - providing advice and counsel when needed'. This was followed by a well deserved breakfast for ourselves.

At 9am, we were finally granted permission to speak again - during a very interesting Discussion Session with some of the monks. It was very informative, and they answered many questions that the participants had about meditation and Buddhism. From there, we had another couple of hours of meditation practice, before lunch, and then the bus back to the temple. A very intense and interesting 24 hours.


So what did I think of this?

If anything, it has heightened my respect for Buddhism and for the South East Asian way of life. I like the way that the monks and lay community work in harmony together.

My respect for Buddhism has also increased. It strikes me as a very pragmatic religion, labelling itself as "The Middle Path" between excess and ascetism. In contrast to many of the other world religions, it forgoes talk of creators, gods, and much of the ceremony associated with religion, and instead is focussed on improving oneself as a person. The five precepts of Buddhism are to refrain from taking life, from stealing, from commiting sexual misconduct, from lying, and from taking intoxicants. Elementary yet useful. In place of a god, they follow the teachings of the Buddha, but it is just that - the teachings - Buddha is not revered as a god, and in fact, his teachings are more important than he is. This means that the Buddhist religion is free from the stories, and colourful gods of Hinduism, or from the devotion to one god of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. The monks are free to leave and join the order as they please (obviously not frivously) - as Buddhism feels that life is centered around impermanence.

There are elements of the religion that I disagree with too. My main uncertainty is the Buddhist attitude towards vegetarianism. The monks told me that ideally, they would eat vegetarian food, but that in reality, they will eat meat if it is given by those offering alms. The reason for this is that the monks do not wish to cause extra trouble for those preparing the food, and will just eat the same dishes that the family do. This is at odds with their principle of not killing, and I brought this argument up at length with the monk.

And the meditation? It was interesting. The concept behind it is to attain total focus on one thing, and it is infinitely harder than it looks. I feel that it would be very useful in day to day life - it would heighten one's skills of concentration. However, I was barely able to attain even a few seconds of total concentration - its something that requires years of training.

Before I end this blog, I don't want people to be afraid that I've suddenly gained religion or spirituality. I'm still a devout agnostic! It was an eye-opening experience though, and definitely an incredible opportunity.

By the way, this whole programme was run on donation - food, accomodation and all.

Hope everyone is well,

Nihal