A touch of culture

Wat Suan Mokkh is a Buddhist Monastery in the south of Thailand. It is located 7km from the small town of Chaiya. Inside the monastery grounds it is like being a million miles away from the rest of Thailand. I’m not sure if it’s a good or a bad thing not having my camera here. On one hand if I had it I would have a zillion photos to show you, and on the other maybe it’s better not to take pictures in such a special place. Either way I wish I had some!

I decided to go to the monastery to do my first ever meditation retreat. Ten days of no talking, vegetarian food, lots of spiritual development, character building, mind clarifying... I hoped. It took me two full days of traveling to get from Hanoi, Vietnam to Chaiya, Thailand. This involved two taxis, one flight, two buses, ten hours on a train, two tuks-tuks and a motorbike. A grand and meaningful trip towards a meditation adventure.

I stayed in the monastery for a night before the retreat commenced. The rooms were simple and lovely. Bare concrete floors, open windows, a wooden bench to sleep on and a carved wooden pillow. Although it sounds strange it was refreshingly peaceful for me to be in a room like this, a room with no pretences and with nature wandering in and out all day. The following day I left the main monastery for the International retreat an adjoining property. The rooms there were much the same if not simpler. No electricity during the day, and a single light bulb for a few hours in the evening. There were no showers as such but instead several ponds in the sixty room compound. We were shown how to shower in public wearing a sarong and how to maintain dignity and conservative behavior while doing so. It was pretty fun!

 

There were one hundred and sixteen international guests at the retreat, more men than women, and a surprisingly large number of adolescents, this was particularly amazing for me. To organize the functioning of such a large group there were lots and lots of rules. Too many rules to remember them all, but some were:

 

-          Never lay down outside of your room

-          Never point your feet forward when sitting

-          Not putting toilet paper in the toilet

-          Not speaking

-          Not paying attention to the activities of others

-          Remembering not to move until the Monks have finished speaking

-          No thinking about sex, no sex, and no ‘giving yourself sex’

-          No eating after 1pm or before 8am

-          Attendance at all scheduled activities

 

Entering the retreat was quite a significant cultural experience, particularly because our hosts were open in explaining appropriate cultural behavior. They are very used to foreigners and our ways, and unlike most people I have met traveling who are happy to let me get away with being culturally ignorant, they took pleasure in telling us how insulting certain behaviours are. It left me feeling way out of my depth and very far from home.