Day 99! Wow, almost to day 100! But I guess I can’t be thinking about that while I’m currently learning to live in the present 😉 Here’s my schedule for today:

6.00-6.20 | Walking Meditation

6.20-7.00 | Meditation

7.30-8.30 | Breakfast

8.30-9.30 | Freetime

9.30-11.30 | Benefits of Meditation

11.30-12.30 | Lunch

13.30-14.30 | Self-Meditation (Sit & Walk)

14.30-16.30 | Q & A

16.30-17.00 | Gardening

17.00-18.30 | Free Time

18.30-20.30 | Meditation

21.00 | Bedtime/Lights Out

5:30am rolled around again and the symphony of alarms got us all up and ready for the day!

After brushing my teeth, it was time to set out into the dark, cool morning and start day 2 with a walking meditation at the retreats fire pit.

Today wasn’t an official silent day, so myself and a few others were wearing a lanyard to let the others around us know we were continuing the silent portion of the retreat.

The walking meditation was a lot better than I had expected. Around the fire pit there was a walking path with small rocks embedded into it. We took our shoes off and started walking in circles, focusing on our steps and our breath.

I wasn’t expecting this to do much, but 30 minutes flew by in an instant. Using a mantra of pickup, place, step, I was able to keep my mind clear and focused. I’ve never walked more intentionally and even the subtle jabs of the rocks didn’t bother me!

Right after we finished walking, we dove straight into a seated meditation. The Australian monk told us that walking meditation can create an even better seated meditation and he was very much correct! Because I had already warmed up my body and prepared myself to clear my mind, I quickly got into the flow of meditating.

Before I knew it, the meditation session was over. I was feeling relaxed, with a cleared mind, and ready to take on the day!

We had around 20 minutes to kill before breakfast. So I found a furry friend to hang out with and watch the sunrise as we waited for the breakfast bell to ring.

I completely forgot to take a picture of what I ate, I was pretty hungry. But today’s breakfast was Pad See Ew, stew, vegetables, and Thai cantaloupe. I made sure to fill up to prepare for the long day ahead.

After breakfast was free time. I spent my time reading and relaxing in the dorm. It was still fairly chilly out, so it was nice to have the blankets and comfort of my “bed.”

Reading was a good way to relax, but it was time for the next part of the day! The benefits of meditation section was a 3 hour session where we listened to the Australian monk’s story of how meditation (and Buddhism) changed his life.

The monk dove into how his life was filled with lack of purpose and confusion on why we are here, why we exist. He dove into how he was very depressed growing up and turned over every stone he could think of to try and “fix” this problem. His last ditch effort was trying a meditation retreat and he told us about how an injury of his miraculously healed itself while meditating. It was quite the story and very interesting to hear him recount it.

This is what pushed him to become a monk and what ultimately helped save his life. While he was studying and meditating, he had a number of people pass away in his life. This led him to tell us about how meditating built up a system for him to be ready for when suffering occurred.

Through his life story, anecdotes arose that I thought were helpful, but I of course didn’t mesh with it all.

What I took away from the talk:

• Meditation is the act of finding neutrality when it comes to craving and aversion.
• Everyone suffers. Don’t compare your suffering to someone else’s, we react to everything differently.
• Coping through meditation allows you to healthily work through suffering and to accept reality.
• Stop focusing on the things we don’t want in our life, don’t put energy into it. Focus on the things we like/want.
• Rejoice in our merits, don’t get stuck thinking about what we don’t like or where we’re not at.
• If we’re not feeling valuable, maybe we’re in the wrong place.
• Even with meditation, or even enlightenment, bad things still happen to you but you stop perceiving it as suffering.
• You have to do something about your life if you’re not enjoying it or suffering now.

This last bullet point is something I’ve been exploring recently. With quitting my job and moving across the world, I’ve been trying to figure out how to live a life I truly enjoy. Something the monk added to this bullet that I agree with whole heatedly (for when going through changes in your life) is, “the people that matter, they don’t mind. And the people that mind, they don’t matter.”

This has held very true in my life with many people not reaching out anymore. But the ones in my life that matter have reached out week after week to keep our connection alive. And to that, I’m very thankful to all of you that are in my life!

I did say I didn’t jive with all he said… the biggest thing is he spoke about how he wanted freedom from society’s grasps and wanted to do what he wanted to do. But he chose to join a “dogmatic” religion, which to me, goes against that entirely. But more on that later in the day!

After a deep 3 hours, it was time for lunch!

It was interesting. Since I wasn’t speaking to anyone, I was having troubles rationalizing my thoughts after such an intense session. I ended up doing a lot of thinking about everything that just was said to us. This is the experience I wanted from the silence portion of this retreat, but it was definitely difficult.

Luckily, I saw on the announcement board, of the canteen, that there was an optional “Tree Meditation” at 1pm. So I quickly scarfed down my food and walked to the meeting spot to help unwind my mind.

This meditation session was by far the best one yet… and it was the smallest group! The monk guiding us through this meditation decided to not announce it to everyone for this reason and only about 8 or 9 of us showed up.

I will say, this was by far the hippiest thing I’ve done while traveling. But I set aside this thought, bought in entirely, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

We started the session by placing our hands and one foot on the tree feeling its energy and breathing deep. We then transitioned to sitting with our backs to the tree and doing more meditation. The monk told us that the energy flows up and around the tree and that it’s beneficial to sit with our backs to it because our energy flows up our spine and around our body (a large donut surrounding a small donut).

What was crazy was this meditation was the deepest for me by far. I truly felt the trees energy and it made the visions I saw with my eyes closed more geared towards nature and the tree (its leaves, the intertwining of the roots below, etc.). I literally had chills from this and it wasn’t done yet.

We each took turns sitting in an alcove of the tree and meditating in there. And… it was pretty intense! I came out from my turn with an immense sense of calm and appreciation for the tree and the nature surrounding it. I’m not sure what went on during this meditation, but I loved it. I’m already a big fan of nature but this emphasized that to the max! I’m really glad I decided to come to this session.

The next session was a Q & A with the monk from Australia… and boy did we have questions for him. At first I decided to keep silent and listen to everyone ask their questions, I felt if my question didn’t come up, I’d ask, but I felt like someone would ask it (combined consciousness or whatever 😉).

Through the next 2 hours, the monk was pelted with questions. Some easy ones like “why do you shave your head?” To hard hitting ones that prodded him to question why he was doing what he was doing.

I jotted down some of my big takeaways from this session as well:

• The quest for nirvana is a circle of birth and learning until we hit a point where we’re not suffering any more and have learned all we can learn.
  • The monk claimed he of course didn’t know if Nirvana really existed but he trusts the Buddhist teachings since it has helped end a lot of suffering in his life.
• A Buddha is a self enlightened person, an Arahant is someone brought to enlightenment by a Buddha.
• To help keep self worth, rejoice in your merits (he said this earlier as well). It’s not egotistical, it’s healthy to do so.

The session went on for a while and I kept contemplating if I wanted to ask a question or not. I did have a number of questions to ask, but I wanted to keep being silent. Along with that, I wanted to practice not having to have my questions answered. But curiosity got the better of me and I thought, when will I have another opportunity to ask a monk a question.

Specifically, when will I have the chance to ask this monk this question…

I asked the monk where he was at in his journey for purpose and why we are here. To which he responded that he believed he had arrived at his purpose and figured out why he was here. He believes his purpose is to teach and help people through meditation, life stories, and Buddhism.

I decided to prod even deeper and asked about how organized religion meshed with his desire for freedom and to break free from societal norms. To which he responded that he’s not wedded to being a monk. If at some point he thinks that he’ll be able to help others without the robes then he’ll do that. But for now having the robes give him the freedoms and purpose he needs even though it’s with a “dogmatic” religion.

I was a little unsatisfied and felt it was all a bit… hypocritical. Earlier in the Q & A he responded to someone’s question about women being monks saying that in Theravada (the oldest form of Thai Buddhism that he practices) there’s no room for change in the practice, so women will have to be nuns (lower class) and can’t be monks. But then he goes on later to talk about how free he feels being a monk… and then later talks about how he has no place for singing, music, or movies all of which he used to love.

It just doesn’t seem like there’s room for creativity within Buddhism, or at least as a Buddhist monk. This is why I can’t say I fully mesh with Buddhism. But I will be taking away some major elements of it for my own life.

As I continue traveling, I plan to take bits and pieces of the different cultures and religions I learn about and implement them into my life. Hopefully, I’ll shape my world views and live a life that I find fulfilling.

After another intense session, it was time for a much needed break. I found a hidden hammock and relaxed in it while reading my book until it was time for the final session of the day.

It unfortunately started raining, so no meditation by the fire pit tonight. But I ended up having an incredible last meditation session of the day. Truly to the point where any discomfort I was feeling in my knees or back went away while I was meditating.

We finished off the session with a long talk from the Monk who runs the retreat. He talked about Buddhas 5 precepts and added 3 more for us to consider. One of which was why the monks fast after lunch! It allows for better meditation practices, better sleeping, and also deters the monks from participating in entertainment activities since they’ll have lower energy.

After that, it was time for much needed sleep! The fasting each night had given me a headache, but nothing meditation can’t help with!

Tomorrow morning we have self meditation BRIGHT and early at 5:30am… so it’s time for bed!

I thoroughly enjoyed today. It was super intense and I have a lot to think about. I’ll be curious to read your comments tomorrow evening when the retreat is finished and see your thoughts on what I’ve learned!

– Elie