Somewhere between Zen and Miserable, 21 days in a Buddhist Monastery (part. 2)

Somewhere between Zen and Miserable, 21 days in a Buddhist Monastery (part. 2)

The point of meditation is to help us be happy. To help us be more joyous, relaxed and content in our own lives. To do this we need to learn how to look into ourselves for this happiness not to always have to seek it around us. The three basic concepts during this insight meditation retreat we spend our time working with through walking and sitting meditation are Suffering, impermanence and non-existence. I would learn to become good friends with these ideas at metaphorical gun point, especially suffering and impermanence. Suffering came to hang out with me as of day one. My lower back and the insides of my legs hurt so bad after 5 hours of meditation walking and sitting. Day two when I moved up to eight hours, I knew I was in for a good round of suffering, and this first day is when I sat down with my first teacher, Lady monk Picany Acut-yaknee (one of the three lady monks of the monastery). After prostrating(bowing) to the Buddha and then to both Picany and her assistant translator Meche Canlot-yaknee, I found myself looking at a human being that was shining loving kindness.

Picany literally radiated happiness with the most beautiful smile, and I knew that I was blessed to sit with her as a teacher. Our first few meetings would be only five minutes and she would ask “Doran how are you?” and each day I would say “I’m suffering my back hurts the insides of my left thigh hurts and my brain runs all the time”. She would respond to this with a big smile and “good, good very good, your becoming friends with suffering.” Somehow this answer would leave me confused, frustrated yet inspired for my next day of meditation. However as the meditation grew in time, meditating 9 hours, 25 minutes sitting 25 minutes walking, meditating 9 hours 30 minutes sitting 30 minutes walking, my suffering only grew. My body was so sore my brain running as I sat and walked. About day five when I sat with her she asked “Doran how are you?” I respond “I am suffering and doubtful, I want my meditation to be better and at the next level but its not”. And she left a beautiful pause, smiled, and responded “see things as they are, not as how you wish them to be”, this response floored me as if someone had thrown back the window curtains to reveal the sun to the dark room where I had been living. This one simple phrase had described not only how I looked at meditation but the way I had looked at so much of my life, always wanting it to be something else instead of seeing things honestly and beautifully just as they were. I left this meeting so inspired for the next day

However that exuberance did not last long, because Day Eight was when I hit the wall of my mind. I had my worst day of meditation, I was tired, restless my meditation all felt all bad, with only a few glimpses of quietness in my brain. When I sat down with Picany, I was close to tears and filled with such doubt I was going to ask if I should just leave, because I didn’t think I was getting anything from it. She could see my discomfort, and when I told her about my bad meditation she smiled a gentle smile paused to put the right words into English, she then responded “Have you ever notice that human beings are very much like trees? Trees and Humans both need many things to grow. Look at yourself as a tree, Like a tree needs water to grow (good meditation) It also needs dirt and manure. Dirt and manure are not clean they are dirty (bad meditation), so bad meditation is just as important as good meditation, so good meditation, bad meditation doesn’t matter they both help you grow. This was such a beautiful shift of perspective to the entire way I was looking at the situation. I had spent so much time trying to achieve something through my meditation without realizing that the process of the meditation and training my perspective was the important part. She ended our meeting by handing me some crackers and a yogurt drink and said “for your suffering”, never have I so much enjoyed crackers and yogurt in my entire life.

On day ten I was told that my new teacher would be Ajan Suphan, the Abbott of the Monastery that had returned from a tour of other Monasteries and enjoyed meeting with foreign students and work on his English. I said goodbye to Picany and went to the abbot’s office to meet Ajan. Now Ajan truly smiled with a heart of tender love and kindness but his smile also had this hint of playfulness and when you sat before him and felt his presence you were not surprised in the slightest that he was an Abbott. As the days went on he started me down the path to the end of the Program. Each day he would end our meeting with the saying “talk less, eat less, sleep less, know more”.

By day 15 I was meditating somewhat successfully 12 hours a day 1 hour walking, 1 hour sitting, and less successfully trying to sleep only 5 or 4 hours a night, sleep and food are two of my most beloved things, and only two meals a day 4 hours sleep and trying to meditation 12 hours, that is a form of torture, but in the end all it was doing was testing my limits and preparing me for determination. On day 18, I sat down with Ajan and he announced with very little warning that I would be starting the end of the program called determination.

Now for determination you are confined to your room except to meet with you teacher, not allowed to speak to anyone and not allowed to lay down to sleep. Your two meals are brought to your room as is water, and if you want to sleep you have to do so sitting up. I semi resigned to the fact that more suffering was coming received my instructions for day one. Now to assume I actually made it throw three days without sleep? No way, I slept at least two to three hours a night. The point is to test and push your limits and the hours I did sleep were seating leaning against the wall or seated and waking up face first on the floor, so not quite what you would call restful. Day one you sat with suffering, more walking meditation then sitting, and day two you sat with impermanence counting your seated breaths on a strand of mala beads. Not sense the sleep deprivation of college have I been so tired, so exhausted, but this all proved a purpose. When I went each day to sit with Ajan he would say “how are you?” and my response was “ I am so tired my body and mind are exhausted.” He would respond “but how does your heart feel” and in truth my heart felt soft, open and raw. Going into day three I assumed it would be the hardest, and I was so tired I didn’t know if I would make it. For day three Ajan told me “today sit with happiness, because that is the point of all of this, we do not put you through these things to make you miserable, you put yourself through these things because you want to be happy.” I in my tiredness aks” how do I sit with happiness?” he responded “sit with your heart.”

I went back and tiredly sat down to meditate and had one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. All the work and testing and the tiredness had stripped away the barriers around the heart and left it naked and open. Despite my exhaustion I sat for 20 minutes just smiling. I didn’t feel my tired body or my running mind, I just felt the warmth of my heart like rays of sunshine washing over me, in truth I felt like I was floating because I hardly felt my mind or body at all, of course thoughts came back, and I had to let go of the experience but what a beautiful feeling. Once I had that I knew there was no going back and that my spiritual path had truly begun. I went to my closing ceremony in tears of happiness for the experience that had come to me. After the closing Ceremony you are allowed to ask for advice for the future and I asked” how do I remember these things? It is easier to stay connected like this at a monastery, but how out in the real world, with work, relationships, and difficulties do you remember all this?” and Ajan reached for his cell phone (because all monks have cell phones that they use to stay in touch with other monks friends and family) and pretended as if he was answering a call, but then shaking his phone as if broken he looked at me and said” like a cell phone you must remember to charge your batteries, because if you don’t charge your batteries how do you stay connected with the world?” I sat there in semi disbelief that this Abbot had just not only cracked a joke but made a life lesson out of a cell phone, what a teacher. What a beautiful simple message he was saying to me “meditate, and take time to rest and sit with yourself and continue to open your perspective, because this will help keep you feeling alive and happy”. Leaving the monastery I felt like I was entering the world with a little secret tucked into my pocket and having just witnessed one of the most beautiful and difficult experiences I had encountered so far in my young life.

Somewhere between Zen and Miserable, 21 days in a Buddhist Monastery (part. 1)

This is Part 1 of 2 of my time at a Buddhist Monastery when I was in Thailand in 2011, it is both hilarious that (A)I  actually did this and (B) crazy that I am planning to do it again sometime next year.

Now trying to explaining this in written words does not truly do it justice, so if you want the fullest explanation of my spiritual experience you will have to sit down with me over a cup of tea. Here is my best attempt to describe one of the most incredible and difficult experiences of my life, this may be a long blog more likely two and I will break it down as easily as I can. 

To begin with I will start with some details: This was a 21 day(use to be 26) mindfulness of breathing Vipassana-Meditation Course in English at the Northern Insight Meditation Center WAT RAMPOENG (TAPOTARAM) Buddhist Monastery In Chiang Mia, in the North of Thailand. http://www.palikanon.com/vipassana/tapotaram/tapotaram.htm for a basic outline on the meditation and place, and a clear look at info in better words than mine, if you read this link you can skip a lot of blog one which is more the details. I will get to my experiences more in blog two, this was just to lay it out in order for my own sake.

This large monastery has a population of: 
50-70 regular monks 
3 lady monks 
40ish boy monks (boys ages 8-18) 
80ish nuns 
Between 60-150 Thai students (depending on the time and Buddhist holidays, part of Thai Buddhist religion says you should spend some time each year at a monastery) 
Between 20-60 foreign students 

Upon entering this monastery you must agree to stay at least 10 days, and if you leave earlier you must inform the instructing monk as an opening and closing ceremony are part of the ritual and it is very disrespectful to leave without seeing your teacher. The first instructions I received from my instructing monk Phra Chan Bodin, (he was the toughie Instructor in the good monk/bad monk relationship, and a funny, short guy with difficult to understand english). His rules were: no leaving the grounds, you must wear white, no talking unless asking questions to your teacher, instructor or a few other students and talking must be minimal, no looking, no touching, no books, no electronics, walking slow, eating slow, “knowing, knowing, knowing.” These three words I would hear in my dreams as I would be reprimanded various times in the first few confusing days for breaking one of these rules, generally for walking fast, talking or looking. Upon reading the guide on the course he asked me and the two other English speaking students beginning with me at the time (one Richard from Georgia, and other Collin from Singapore) if we really want to do this? “This is no joke, this is serious” he said “you and yourself and no one else” now I found out at a later time when whispering to some other students and seeing a few myself that this is as far as many foreigners get within the course. Many politely say thank you and that they are probably not ready or this is probably not for them. I believe even this shows amazing bravery that your willing to come in and see what the hell these crazy people do for such a long time as even 10 days. Because in truth, it is impossible to look at this experience and not see it at least decently crazy. I have had 5 year’s experience dabbling in meditation and I arrived thinking in the front of my brain that I would do the 10 day course. However the back of my brain and my heart knew I would be there for 21 days or die trying in the attempt.( I truly felt like the dying part regularly during this experience). However even the few three day retreats and my 7 days at an Ashram did not prepare truly for this experience. 

A regular day looks like this for me: 
4am: Wake up to Gongs 
4-6am: Meditation, walking and sitting 
6:30-7am: Breakfast, meals in silence, prayers said before each meal and prostrating( bowing three times before and after to the Buddha statue in the room for respect) 
7:00-7:30am: Raking 
7:30-1030: Showering(cold water only), cleaning of room and balcony, and meditation walking and sitting. 
9:30am: Usual meeting with your teacher, time changes daily. 10:30-11: Lunch with prayers and prostration 
11-11:30: Raking aka whisper time with a few other students about our misery 
12:30pm: Last chance to eat for the day (you were allowed to get snacks and sweets from the small store on grounds), after this time you may still drink soy milks or other drinks for energy. 
12:30-5: Meditation walking and sitting, either on the grounds, in your room or on your balcony, in the Library, and Temple as long as there was no other function or chanting going on in either. 
5-5:30pm: Energy drink meal (usually a thin warm soup, pumpkin or fruit of the sort) 
5:30-10pm: Walking or sitting meditation 
10pm: Bed time 

Now day one was with our instructor and on day two we would meet with our teacher (the good monk in the good monk/bad monk relationship) and once a day with our teacher every day. We would meditation 5 hours, walking 15 minutes, sitting 15 minutes in succession with an occasional bathroom break. Day one was difficult but manageable. Day two is when it began to get tough It was 8 hours meditation, 20 minutes walking 20 sitting. This would grow an hour more and 5 minutes more walking and sitting each day until we were meditating 12 hours a day (or trying to) and walking one hour sitting one hour.  This is when it started to feel like I had made a terrible mistake

The Five Finger Death Punch for depression and happier living

Some of the best advice that was given to me during the two and a half years I suffered from clinical depression as a teenager I received from my therapist at the time, he told me about" The Five" which I have renamed "The Five Finger Death Punch for depression and to live a happier life", for dramatic effect. They are for the most part so simple and so common sense that of course human beings often struggle to do at least one or all five of them.

For anyone who has lived in depression, it is the equivalent of living in a dark tunnel with no sign of the light at the end and the walls are so cramped and the ceiling so low its suffocating.  You exist each day in these blinders of sadness, and reality really does not connect into your brain where you are trapped. Everything bad that happens seems to be life personally putting its boot on your chest and pushing only you deeper in. You take the world so personally, when it is the exact opposite of personal.  Sleep seems to be the only respite from this, but may people suffering from depression also suffer from anxiety and insomnia as I also did, so getting to that place of rest is an even harder.  Also you lack energy, or enthusiasm for anything, the simplest things seem to take everything from you.
Within the first session my therapist told me was this:

 1. Clean Your Room:
Most people in the depth of sadness have a living space that represents that inner sadness, there room is a mess. So start there, clean your room, nothing is more important.  Turn off your phone, turn your computer off, lock the door and clean your room/slash space. If the whole house has gotten run down along with you just start with your room, the place you sleep.  Clean the hell out of it, change your sheets, do your laundry and make it a sanctuary, a holy place where you can rest at night.  Actually if you are not depressed do this also, even if the rest of the house is a destruction zone make this place your base, the place you return.  When it is clean, then you can start to venture out into the jungles of the rest of your living space, the destruction zone of the living room, to the sink hole of the kitchen and finally the pits of hell that is the bathroom.  When this space is clean then, you give yourself a base to start from, a sacred spot.  Even if you live in the most inhospitable basement nook, which I have lived in, treat that place as sacred, as holy, as the Sistine Chapel of your life.

The next three are part of that life thing that we all work with our wholes lives and I struggle with regularly.
2. Eat Well
3. Sleep Well
4. Exercise

I know, I know, these are talked about by every single doctor, health practitioner, yoga instructor, hair stylist, postal man and your mother till your sick to death of hearing it, but man are they important, and its all about making small gains in them.  Life is a zoo, its a zoo of work, relationships, family, children, bills, blah, blah, blah.   Most people barely have the time to cram caffeine in there face and not go to work naked let alone do these things, but start to do them.  Put more veggies in your diet and less sugar, watch one less episode of TrueLouieKimmyGameofCardsville on netflix and get a half an hour more sleep.  MOVE! Shake your body like its no body's business, its the most incredible tool we have in our entire lives so move it about, go for hikes, dance in your living room, stretch.  Don't work to look like some younger, thinner version of yourself just work to feel good in this fleshy thing you are trapped in during your human existence. You may not have time to join your local gym but move the damn thing if you want it to survive into your elderly years, it was not meant to be sedentary it was meant to do all sorts of stuff.  So whatever that means make time to make that happen, and get all those difficult things I listed above involved.  If you need to take your board meeting on a fricekn jog, make your children do yoga with you or take your bills hiking, just make it happen.

5. Do things that make you happy
This is a giant vague statement, but if you know the person you are then you should know the things that make you happy.  If you don't, go find out.  You owe it to yourself and everybody in your life.  If its art, music, theater, sports, carpentry, reading, running, biking, crossword puzzles, swimming, dancing, yoga, beer making, cooking, baking, astrology, astronomy, archeology, paleontology, or making Christmas tree ornament of cows out of tinsel , just do it.   Some people are lucky enough to do the things they love for their work but most are not.  If you can work towards doing work you love for your work, make it happen over time. Life is not that easy and quick that you can make it happen immediately, but damn you owe it to yourself to try.  If work is work and it allows you to live then fine, but hack out that time in your life to do this stuff, why else are you living??   What is the point of your existence if you are no doing things you love??  If your family and friends love you they want you to do them too, if you have kids get them involved in the things you love as well, share it. The masochist western society we live in want us to drown ourselves with over work and boob tube, but instead go exercising your brain working on teaching yourself wilderness survival skills, or learning to knit scarfs for cats. Study a style of African drum making, or look up that recipe for those vegan turnip beatloff cookies you have been dying to make.  I joke but just find those weird hobbies you love that tickle your heart and just do it man.

Bam that's it! Those are the five, but you may say "Dory, your dumb, there is so much more that goes into this" yes that's true, but if you do these things as your base, you will feel so much better about your life.  True is if your seriously depressed these simple things become monsters to deal with, but if you want to live you have to do them.  Only you will decide if you want to live, I came desperately close to the darkest cliff of my life in depression that almost killed me thirteen years ago, but I decided I wanted to live, I decided I wanted to fight, and these five became my weaponry with which to do it.

If you need even more help, go to therapy (which I highly recommend for everyone at some point if you need a non biased second opinion on things), meditation (which truly saved my life, and I will write more about down the line), medication (if you have an actual medical chemical deficiency and need the help)  are there as well as so many other therapy's, light therapy, yoga, Tai Chi, nature therapy, art therapy and so on and so forth.

But these are the five that should help death punch that depression into last year, I wouldn't be the silly happy person I am today without them.
  

Invite sadness to dinner

The secret of being truly happy comes with the concept of self knowledge.  To know happiness you have to know sadness.  Not anyone else's sadness but your own. I spent a few years riding the depression bus to Sadville as a teenager, and anyone who has known depression, death, injury, or excessive suffering actually have a pretty detailed map of there own sadness, now its about learning to read the damn thing, which gets tricky. You have to know your sadness insides and out.  You have to invite sadness to a three course Turkey dinner and get to know what your sadness is, where it was born, who it hangs out with, and what feeds it, and how you can ask it to leave once the meal is over.

 To know happiness you must become friends with sadness, but you cant just stop there.  Then you have to invite fear to to Tea.  You have to know your fear, ask it what it ate for breakfast, why it hangs out so often and which gym it goes to.  Becoming friends with fear is even more difficult as it turns out, because it never wants to just stay for tea it wants to stay for the afternoon and sometimes for a week.  It bought a house next door and will annoy you the rest of your life if you don't know its patterns well enough. The trouble is once you get to know these guys then you have to invite doubt for coffee, greed for aperitif, anger for brunch, jealously for crumpets and laziness for nap time and so on an so forth until you have lifted ever rug and flipped the couch of yourself so that nothing can hide anymore.

This takes time, patience, meditation and breath, but once you know all the difficult things about yourself and allow that they are human, part of you but not what makes you you, then you can invited happiness and love to move in.  The others will still visit, they will come and go, come and go, some more than others, but after they all leave again you are left with love and happiness.  The truth of the matter is they are all teachers, when you are willing to look at them that way.  If you spend enough time with them they can become difficult friends, if not liked then appreciated for what they give us. Doubt as my worst/best companion always keeps me on my toes, and makes sure I am not slacking on the work I do, but he leaves most often now after a short time when asked.

These are strange requests to become friends with happiness, and most people will spend there lives in this process.  When you learn to trust that once you invite love and happiness into your house that they will stay, they will become your foundation and build a home with you, then you are on the right path, but first you have to call up sadness and ask what it wants for dinner.

Smile like a Doofus

I smile to much, like way to much.  I walk around grinning like a doofus.  I smile at strangers, dogs, trees and lamp posts.  I smile when I'm happy. I smile when I'm sad.  I smile because maybe if I can make you smile, maybe that will make me feel better about my day to. Our society looks strangely on smiling, if you smile to much, show to much emotion, you are indeed weird. Western society loves the idea of everyone going around like a automaton, showing no emotion, not connecting, you do your own thing and ill do mine. The best example of this is any city in the United States.  You see the droves of everyone working so hard to not connect with anyone else, its crazy, yet smiling requires allot of bravery.  It would also be exhausting walking around the city smiling at every other human being, you would feel like a greeter to the penguin exhibit at the fucking zoo.

 It is also easier to smile because I am a male, if you are a female it is way harder to go around smiling all day because you smile at a blockhead the wrong way they immediately take that as cue to hit on you. I have heard this from so many of my female friends, and it makes so much sense to not smile and avoid harassment. If I was a female who lived in a city, I probably would go around not smiling wearing steel toed boots to kick dudes in the groin when they were being macho assholes.  I dream of a day where everyone can smile at everyone without fear. I dream of a day where everyone smiles from the heart, shares a heart felt connection with another human being for just a brief moment before going about the hustle and bustle of there day. I also dream of a day where if you don't smile that is ok too.  Sometimes your day blows, you don't want to smile, and then there is nothing worse when someone says to you "hey smile" when your thinking about how you would rather throw yourself off a cliff then pump out a fake little grin.  Maybe you don't have to smile at any human being that day.  In that case try smiling at your cat, your bookshelf, your spice rack.

In Buddhist countries such as Thailand, this is not the case.  Ok, yes not everyone smiles in Bangkok but the  majority of people smiling there seem to smile from the heart.  They show a little glimpse of there heart to strangers with no fear of it being stolen or hurt.  There is such bravery to smile that way, Buddhism tends to teach that type of bravery of the heart.  It is also far easier to smile at folks if you live in the country, because people know each other better, there is less fear, less worry. Smiling requires bravery, but when you start feeling that bravery it begins to change you.  I challenge you to smile at yourself for a minute in the mirror, you will feel like an idiot but I promise it will make you feel better about your day.  Or just upon waking in the morning, lie in bed for two minutes just smiling, see how this simple act of heart connection changes the way your day looks.

 Sometimes you also gotta fake it before you make it, so many people go around with that fake smile and yes there may be nothing worse sometimes. However meet that fake smile from someone you cant stand with a genuine empathetic smile, it might blow them away.  Smile at that ass hat in your office, kill him with kindness.  If you smile every day at someone who treats you poorly I am curious how long they can keep up being a jerk.  Try making this your mantra "I smile because I want to have a genuine positive connection with the world and universe" see what happens.  Worse comes to worse you can always go back to not smiling, I'm pretty sure that never killed anybody, but what have you got to lose?