The Greatest Insight to Lead Me Nowhere

I have recently spent 10 days in a Theravada Buddhist meditation retreat in southern Thailand.  This has been quite the interesting learning experience and finally there is some understanding of all that went through my head in 10 days of silence.  This is a long one and I have chosen to not add pictures, cause that is not what this all is about.  But I will post some soon at my picasa site so check there in a day or two.  First of all let me talk about the retreat in general.

About the Retreat

It is a 10 day silent meditation retreat.  Basically that means 10 days to meditate without distractions of any sort other than nature and yourself.  It is silent, so no talking or really interacting at all with anyone.  That is how it was for the men anyway, it seems that women become pretty good at communicating even if no talking is allowed.  But men and women are separated in dorms, meals, and even meditate on different sides of the meditation halls.  On day 0 when you register, you get rid of any external items that can stimulate you, such as iPods, cameras, books, cards, or writing.  This afternoon there was also a weird saying goodbye to Nico, because even though we were going to be in the same place we were not even going look at each other or anything for the next 10 days.  Our schedule went something like this:

4:00 – wakeup
4:30 – morning reading (by a participant)
4:45 – group sitting meditation
5:15 – mindfulness through movement (Yoga)
7:00 – Ajahn Poe’s (head monk) morning talk, group sitting meditation
8:00 – breakfast and chores and free time
10:00 – Dhamma talk, group sitting meditation
11:00 – walking meditation
11:45 – group sitting meditation
12:30 – lunch and free time (nap)
2:30 – Dhamma talk, group sitting meditation
3:30 – walking meditation
4:15 – group sitting meditation
5:00 – chanting
6:00 – tea and hot spring
7:30 – group sitting meditation
8:00 – group walking meditation
8:30 – group sitting meditation
9:00 – head back to dorms
9:30 – lights out

Surprisingly you get used to the whole getting up at 4am thing and eating only two meals a day.  (The food was so good though that I think in those two meals I took in way more calories than I had been with three meals).  Each dorm room was about an 8’x8’ concrete cell, with a concrete platform and straw mat to sleep on and a wooden pillow is provided.  They made a joke about sleeping with the wooden pillow because that is what the Buddha did, but it really was not all that bad.  Although, I think I might have been the only one to use it.  I also did have some roommates.  The first night I walk into my room to find two very large spiders on the floor that I gently escorted out.  Then I look up to see a foot long gecko hanging out in the upper corner looking at me.  He didn’t move at all, so I left him alone.  Of course the next day the spiders were back, along with the gecko’s two female friends and there was even a wasp that was making a home in the other corner of the room.  It was actually nice to have some friends there and during the 10 days I even began to see some of their daily habits.

Originally I came into this without many expectations other than that it was going to be physically and mentally a challenge.   Luckily the physical part was not too much of a problem.  They introduced us to all sorts of sitting positions and even if you were too uncomfortable you could do standing meditation.  Mixed with the walking meditation, I certainly had muscle aches and pains, but at least they rotated around my body and never got too bad.

Mentally, it was tough in a different way than I originally thought.  I actually did not get too bored, even though you don’t really do anything all day other than sit there and concentrate.  Some people do get very bored, or listless, or angry, or frustrated, but I ended up just kinda going with it cause it is what I was there to do.  I did found it really daunting though.  After a couple days I had a hard time imagining doing this for another 8 days.  Your brain just gets tired and you want to relax it and let it think about whatever, but you really need to stay focused.  I took it one day at a time (or even one meal at a time) and made my way through the 10 days.

We started out with 42 participants (a small group for there) and ended up with 33 by the last day.  So it is a very difficult thing for some people that they just cant stand being there any longer and have to leave.  I found it interesting that they said around day 3 or so is the hardest.  That is when people get through the basic emotions and really have to face themselves and their problems that they have always run away from by occupying themselves with something else (such as TV, music, shopping, or friends) when it comes up.  I guess I am lucky that I am mentally in a good place and seem to take things head on.  Cause I never felt anything like some of the others that many days led them to tears.

I mentioned in the schedule above that a couple times a day there were talks.  These were on things like meditation instruction in the beginning and then on Dhamma in general.  Basically they were about the different parts of Buddhism and how it says you should live your life.  They were really interesting… when I could understand them.  Thankfully everything was in English, but some of the Thai monks have such a strong accent that I could not understand half of what they were saying.

It was really interesting having Nico there with me.  We talked beforehand about how we agree that we are not going to look at each other or try to contact each other and also what to do if one of us leaves.  That first afternoon was very strange as if we were dragging out a goodbye, when we still had a few hours before the silence but we decided to have our last hugs and get it over with.  But on day 3 I guess I looked miserable (even though I felt fine) and Nico was worried.  I was able to sense that she wanted to contact me in some way.  After tea that evening she came up to me with a note she had written.  It said something about asking how I was and then something else.  I just gave a big thumbs up and continued on my way really trying to not have any contact with anyone.  Then of course all the next day I was worried about her and was thinking about that interaction constantly.  What else did she have written there, was she alright?  I would have been way better off just taking the time to see what she wanted and gotten over it.  This was a bit of a lesson in the “middle way” and maybe I was being too strict with my practice.  After that I would at least look up and smile at her and she would do the same.  It was not until the following morning that I saw her doing the morning reading that I knew for sure things were good and I could stop thinking about it.

So what is meditation?  Basically all you do is follow your breath and keep your focus there without letting your mind wander.  Feel how it feels on nose and in the navel to breathe in and out and mentally follow it between the two.  I had started to do a little bit of meditation with Nico in New Zealand and then I could barely get one breath before my mind was somewhere else.  It is especially difficult to concentrate when you have everything in the world going on around you.  But during this retreat there were times that I could actually have my mind clear and think only about my breathing for even a couple minutes at a time.  Later on I realized that I should also be doing some insight meditation (contemplating things) as well as the concentration meditation.  The concentration that I had so far developed was really neat in that it led me to have such clear thinking.  We learned about Anapanasati, which is 16 steps to attain on the path to Nibbana (nirvana).  Unfortunately without being able to speak and get further input, I am not sure if I was still on step 1, or if I was up to step 9 by the time the retreat ended.  Once Nico told me that people spend their entire lives trying to attain Nirvana, I figured that I was probably on step 1.

One of the other rules in this place that they ask you to keep is to “not take away any breath”.  This means don’t kill anything… even mosquitoes.  I would actually blow away mosquitoes that were biting me.  This definitely was a bit of a hindrance while meditating though.  Sometimes I was good and just let them bite, but man I don’t think I will ever get used to that.

On the last night we all had a chance to get up in front of everyone to share any insights that we had.  I am really nervous about speaking in front of people and so after thinking about it a whole bunch that day, I made myself go first.  This way I could get it over with and then actually listen to what other people had to say.  Of course once I get up there, my mind goes blank and only about half of what I planned to say came out, but according to Nico I still made some sense.  What I said up there is a small portion of what I will write about below.

Then finally on day 11, after the morning reading and meditation, the silence was broken.  We had some time to finally meet all the people that we had been going through this with and seeing for the past 10 days.  It was really interesting to feel like you know someone without ever having spoken to them before.  Another funny thing is hearing them talk.  You make assumptions about where people are from based on their looks and mannerisms.  The biggest discrepancy was from this guy who had very brown skin, looked Indian, and could sit for hours.  When he spoke, though, Jon had the most American accent you can imagine complete with the volume of an American.  Apparently he grew up in the US, but his whole family is Indian and he’s been meditating his whole life.  Anyway, we also took a tour of the Suan Mokkh main monastery before parting our ways and continuing on our journeys.

About My Insight

A very good question now, and what I have been thinking about since the retreat, is what have I gotten from this experience?  There is also the greatest insight that I realized, at least its how I feel at the moment, which is all about the “middle way”.

Let me explain a few things first:
The middle way – You are not meant to be too strict and also not too loose in your meditation practice.  One monk told us of a time when he meditated for about 20 days straight with no sleep.  And another that drank only coconut milk for 18 days until he almost died.  This is not the middle way.  And in general, by the nature of trying to get yourself to attain Nirvana you will never get there because you are hanging onto your ego.

Dependant Origination – “Contact” is when one of your senses or mind notices something which then causes a feeling.
Ignorance gives rise to contact
Contact gives rise to feeling
Feeling gives rise to craving
Craving gives rise to attachment
Attachment gives rise to becoming
Becoming gives rise to birth
Birth gives rise to suffering
Suffering gives rise to ignorance
It is ignorant contact that leads us through this endless cycle of suffering.  Wisdom in contact will still give rise to feeling, but there will be no craving and thus no suffering.

Knowledge – there are three levels of knowledge and all are needed to truly understand something.  The first is learning, like when you read books or hear talks on something.  The second is reasoning.  This is when you know all about it and can philosophize.  The third is experience.  A good example of this is sugar.  If you’ve never had sugar before, people can tell you what it tastes like, but you can never truly understand until you taste some and experience it for yourself.  As an aside, I think that all school teachers and professors should understand this concept, I bet it would revolutionize how we are taught in school.

 Selfishness – All things are impermanent, unsatisfying, and not self (there is no “me” and no “my”).  This not self concept is very difficult to swallow, and I have done some learning and reasoning about it, but you only truly experience it once you reach Nirvana.

Buddhism recognizes that there are four noble truths.  A noble truth is something that is universally true irregardless of the time or the place or who it applies to.  These are:
1. There exists Dukka (suffering)
2. The cause of Dukka is Selfishness
3. Nirvana is the end of Dukka
4. To get to Nirvana follow the 8 fold path.
Basically Buddhism says that everyone suffers and that no happiness that we know it is true happiness.  The only way to be truly happy is to follow the teachings of Buddhism to the extreme – Nirvana.  Buddhism as a religion is really the only one that claims to end all suffering in this lifetime.  All other religions are also moral codes, but they seem to more deal with those unanswerable questions that humans have pondered forever like why are we here, and what happens when you die?  On that subject, Buddhism simply explains that everything is a flow of events, and it all depends on previous conditions.

It seems that in Theravada Buddhism we all suffer.  We all want to be truly happy, which means we all should strive for Nirvana.  Since you need to do a whole lot of meditation with a clear mind, the only way to actually reach Nirvana is to free yourself from worldly attachments and devote your life to meditation.  You can do this by becoming a monk.  The monks in Thailand all live in monasteries.  They rely on the goodwill of the population to provide food and in return they run some community events as well as being the spiritual leaders of the community.  In being a monk, you can devote your life to meditation and spiritual development.  Now let me briefly list the 8 trainings that all monks (and us for 10 days) live by:

1. Intend not to take away any breath.
2. Intend not to take away what is not given.
3. Intend to keep my mind and body free from sexual activity.
4. Intend not to harm others by speech.
5. Intend not to harm my consciousness with substances that intoxicate and lead to carelessness.
6. Intend not to eat before dawn and after noon each day.
7. Intend not to sing, dance, play, listen to music, watch shows, wear garlands, ornaments or beautify myself.
8. Intend not to sleep or sit on luxurious beds and seats.

So far, I’ve determined that I suffer and should work on my meditation to get to Nirvana to reach true happiness and release myself from this suffering.  When I thought about what it means to be a monk and to reach Nirvana, I began to question if that is what I really wanted.  Be free from attachments… does that mean that I wont ever play ultimate again?  Then I wont be attached to trying to win, and winning is impermanent and unsatisfying, so why should I want that in the first place.  Also to be free from attachments means no girlfriend or starting a family – sorry Nico.  Once you reach Nirvana, you will be truly happy and fundamentally not interested with these impermanent worldly pleasures.  You come to see music for what it is, an unharmonious conglomerate of sounds.  I clearly will not want to listen to music or play the piano anymore.

A metaphor that I came up with about Nirvana is this:  Imagine a garden of Eden plopped down next to your house.  If you choose to enter it, you can never leave.  While in there, everything is perfect, you have no worries or obligations or anything like that for the rest of your life.  But in entering the garden you leave everything behind.  No music, sports, family, or friends, even though all of that still exists all around you.

Really, why do I want this again?  Is being truly happy and at peace with myself and the world worth giving up all that I currently hold dear?  Maybe some people would say yes, but I don’t see it.  I am not trying to say that Buddhism is incorrect, and maybe if I did give it all up to reach Nirvana I’d be happy about it later.  But I don’t think that is a personal experiment I care to take up.  And then I also wonder how things would work if everyone decided to become monks and nuns.  Who would comprise the community that donates food, who would study medicine to take care of the sick?

This was around day 7 when I was truly beginning to doubt this whole meditation thing and was about to totally lose interest in being there.  I felt that Buddhism itself is quite egotistical to say that no one experiences true happiness, and also that it would be a very selfish thing to do to remove yourself from those that rely and depend on you to seek your own happiness.  Where is the “not self” which is such a crucial part of the teachings?

Luckily very soon after in the next meditation session something occurred to me.  The “middle way” does not just apply to how strict or not you are with meditation, but also for how you should live your life.  Nirvana is not something that I should strive for.  Maybe I should just try to be a good person.  If you don’t take all those teachings and trainings too seriously, Buddhism has a really great moral code to live your life by.  Not only that but I had recognized that I do have much better concentration and mindfulness through all the meditation.  I cannot control what sorts of things happen to me in my life, and I cannot control my immediate feelings, but I can approach them as best I can with a mindfulness that will prevent me to give rise to suffering.  And I do realize that I will never be perfect at it.

Now I think that I am already pretty in control of my emotions and reactions to whatever life brings me.  I am also usually aware when my sense of “self” becomes quite strong and leads to ignorant contact and suffering.  So basically all of this has just gone to reinforce how I already live my life and the morals that I have.  Hence, how this great insight has left me right where I started.

The retreat was definitely not a waste of time though.  It was a great learning experience to first hand experience meditation and Buddhism.  In the few days since the retreat I have continued to meditate at least daily.  I also do have greater concentration and clearer thinking than I can ever remember having.  Who knows how long this will last, but such is life.

I would also like to say that all of the teachings about Buddhism that I have talked about here are identified with Theravada Buddhism, as opposed to Mahayana Buddhism which is more widely practiced in the west.  I learned from Nico after the retreat that Mahayana is much more focused on the general people, rather than the monastic life like Theravada.  Also not to say that Theravada is all bad, because in all practicality, almost all of Thailand is Theravada Buddhist and it is a great country filled with nice and practical citizens who comprise a thriving country and society.

I did though realize something about myself through all this, even if it is unrelated to this big insight I have gained.  I had kinda noticed this before, but never really thought it through.  I guess if you’ve managed to read through this whole blog post, I can let you in on what this is.  It is that I am in fact a proud person.  I don’t have pride in the “normal” sorts of things such as material possessions or how good of a job I have.  But it is more a pride in my own ways, especially because they are different than most people.  I do care what people think of me.  For example, way back in NZ there were thoughts of not continuing the trip and just coming home.  Everyone expected me to do this whole world trip for 18 months, and would they all think that I failed and couldn’t take it?  I guess sometimes I feel like I do things cause I think people would think less of me if I didn’t.  There was much more reason than that as to why I continued traveling, but the thought did cross my mind.  And all the talk about “I” and “me”, I clearly have an ego, and I understand that I am not going to get rid of that one.  I really liked to have Nico tell me later that I did well with talking when I shared my insight at the meditation retreat (cause I thought everyone was going to think I was mentally slow with how ridiculously slowly I felt I spoke).  Well, if you feel like fueling this ego, feel free to let me know what you think about all of this.

These sorts of meditation retreats exist all over the world, and even all over the US.  I certainly would recommend anyone to go to one and experience it for themselves.  One thing I do know is that what I have talked about is just my own experience which was quite different from everyone else's experience at the retreat.  Everyone got something out of it in their own way.

Gunung Agung

Originally the plan for the last week in Indonesia we were going to go work on someone's urban farm in Denpasar.  I think it was going to be something like what I was doing in NZ, although with much less work.  Unfortunately Nico got a bit of the travelers stomach bleh, and we decided to continue to hang out here in Ubud.  Then kinda on a whim I looked up about climbing Gunung Agung, the highest mountain in Bali.

We'd always been saying it would be cool with either of us to do different things for a bit if that is where the wind takes us, and so since Nico was feeling a little bit better, I went off on my own little adventure for a couple days.

Sorry Mom, I rented a motorbike, but I made it everywhere perfectly safely.  In the morning I got the motorbike, bought some snacks, and head off to Pura Besakih – the largest temple in Bali, and also the start point to climb Gunung Agung.  All it would take is a few trail markers to make this a perfectly safe mountain to climb on your own, but instead you need to hire a guide to not get lost on the trails around the mountian.  I get to the entrance of Pura Besakih and let the haggling begin.  You need to buy a pass to get in and that is where I told the guy that I was there to climb the mountain.  He starts off at 70 or 80 Euro.  For some reason everyone here thinks that you carry tons of Euro on you all the time.  I eventually got it down to 600,000 rupiah (about $65) for a guide and accommodation, which seems pretty steep to me but there really is no other option.  He took me to my room in a homestay and said to be back at 5 to meet the guide.

I wandered around Pura Besakih for a while.  It was another temple... It was cool though that there was some ceremony going on there.  So even though there were tons of tourists, there were even more Balinese people there actually using the temples.

I met up with my guide, and he took me to register at the police station, and said he'd meet me at my homestay at 11pm.  Yes, that is 11pm!  People here are a bit crazy and think that everyone only wants to see the sunrise, no matter what sort of activity you are doing.  Ok, I'll go with it, I've never hiked through the night before.  I try to get some sleep listening to the dogs barking and little kid crying, and finally get maybe 1 hour before my alarm goes off at 10:30.

10 minutes early he shows up and we are on our way.  After about 30 min of hiking we stop at the highest temple on the mountain to pray for good luck.  It was kinda cool to be involved in this, cause normally you cant go into the main parts of the temples.  With our headlamps on, we continue on through the forest.  Basically the trail goes right up the side of the mountain following a ridge.  (I didn't know the ridge part until the way down when I could actually see my surroundings).  The jungle gave way to a pine forest, and when that began to thin we stop.  He tells me that we are 1 hour from the top, but it was only 3:30 am!  He actually builds a big ol' fire and we dry out our boots and try to keep warm while it rained off and on.  He also pulls out some rice and egg and spicy fish thing for us to eat while waiting there.  He got a bit of sleep and I just kinda hunkered down and waited until 5am when we could go on our way again.

He was right on with the hour estimate to the top, and we got there just as it was beginning to get light.  Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy, but most of it was along the crater rim about 100m past the top.  It was really neat to watch the clouds pour over the mountain and then fall and disappear over the other side (like in this picture to the right).  Once it got light out I could see around and how beautiful it was.  Pura Besakih is at around 3000ft, and with the top over 10,000 feet, it was crazy being so far above anything else.  It is also twice as high as anything else nearby.  After about 20 min (before the sun actually even popped up) he was asking if I was ready to head down.  I had to tell him a few times, “not quite yet”.  I guess for him though he's been up there for sunrise over 100 times, so he just got up there and sat down and waited.

After about 45 minutes and the sun was up I finally was ready to head down.  It was kinda weird to be seeing the scenery for the first time on the way down.  On the way up, I was actually always on my guides heels and kinda wanting to go faster.  But on the way down, he practically ran.  It was fun and it sure kept my mind 100% engaged to go down so quickly.  I am a bit sad though that I didn't get too much time to look around and enjoy the scenery on the way down either.  We did make it all the way back down in just 2.5 hours though.  By the end, my quads were so spent and felt like jelly that it was hard to even just walk on flat surfaces.

He dropped me back off in front of Pura Besakih where I remember there being some lawn and trees, and I planned on sleeping for a couple hours before heading back to Ubud.  Surprisingly I was still quite awake and so sleeping was not going to happen.  Some locals there were looking at me when I was lying there and they invited me to sit with them on their platform.  It was cool to be able to chill and not be hassled to buy poscards and buy sarongs like every other white person there.  Then by about 10 am I was ready to hop back on the motorbike and go back to Ubud.

Gunung Agung - 2 hours after leaving the summit

Overall, this was a bit more expensive than most other things I've been doing, but sometimes it is well worth it and this is one of those times.  I got to learn to ride a motorbike (it had a small engine and was automatic and I probably never went over 30mph) but it was fun.  And this is probably the highest elevation gain and loss that I have ever hiked in one day.  Surprisingly it was far easier than I thought.  Adrenaline is wonderful and it kept me awake and alert all night long.  It wasn't until I was back in Ubud and sat down that I became exhausted and passed out for 3 hours, got up for some dinner and Nico kept me up until about 8:30 when I couldn't take it anymore and passed out for the next 11 hours.

For more pictures, check out my picasa site.