IF YOU’VE NEVER done it before, meditation is full of surprises. What should be the easiest thing in the world — sitting and breathing — is, in fact, excruciatingly difficult. My back grew sore, my knees cramped up, and my stomach trapped pockets of tension like gas bubbles. All the while my attention slipped into some ugly corner of my mind. A nasty radio interview from seven months earlier kept hijacking my thoughts. I’d been ambushed by a right-wing talk-show host and his call-in cronies. Though I believed I had put the experience behind me, each time I assumed the sitting posture and began to breathe, fwoosh, there it was: the same shame and anger I’d felt that day. I found myself spinning out revenge fantasies and rehearsing alternate comebacks that would have redeemed my dignity. Most disturbing was noticing . . . noticing my mind doing this. By whose orders had it developed these thoughts? By its own whims, it seemed. Who was “I,” then? (And what did “I” and my mind have in common?) Cliché stoner talk, for sure; fodder for late-night college bull sessions. But, observed up close and personal for ten hours a day, it was unsettling.

An apprentice monk’s life is bound by routine and the walls of the monastery itself. We’d wake at 4 a.m. in darkness and silence. There was no Internet, no phone, no radio, no tv, no movies, and no venturing off the grounds. The main temple — where relics were housed, rituals held, pilgrimages made, and favors granted — occupied the summit of the hill. With its stunning views, golden stupa, and carved roof gables, it drew the tourists. Just below the summit, spread along and down the hillside, were the monks’ quarters and meditation halls. Visitors might not notice our accommodations at all, yet it was impossible for us not to be aware of their presence. We’d know they were on-site as soon as we heard the clanging bells: a set of ancient bronze bells, oxidized by the elements, were displayed alongside one of the monastery buildings, and a plaque informed visitors that they could ring the bells if they wished. The random and cacophonous clanging, like human-powered wind chimes, enveloped our daily meditations. The bells would start with the arrival of the first tourists at 9 a.m. and wouldn’t fall completely silent until the temple was closed to visitors at 6 p.m.

It was hard not to view the tourists with a certain condescension. They were just passing through, while we were here day after day. And we were working, even if our job description was “Do nothing.” What were they doing besides taking pictures and banging on bells?

Of course, this was high hypocrisy on my part. Had I not behaved just like them in a string of temples from Tokyo to Bangkok: admiring the architecture, peeking into hidden nooks and crannies, and observing the monks at work and leisure? Here at Doi Suthep it was I who was in the fishbowl. I was the freak in the religious theme park, an exotic farang — foreigner — in his white robes. After a month of being a tourist, I’d finally put down anchor, only to become part of a tourist attraction.

One evening, after the tourists had left and the bells had gone quiet, I ascended to the temple and walked along its checkered marble patio. It was a glorious night: the stars above, the lights of Chiang Mai below, the rhythmic chanting of the monks filling the air. Liking . . . liking, I thought to myself, trying to notice my enjoyment without actually enjoying it. I fell into a conversation with three Thai monks who were in residence at Doi Suthep. Here were true-to-life Buddhist monks, draped in saffron, committed to the spiritual path, seasoned by years of meditation. I asked them how they had come here and how meditation had changed their lives.

“Vipassana,” said one, “saved me from drink and migraines.” The second said, “Vipassana can make you rich. It can make you a better person, and more serious about work and family.” The third remained behind after the other two had strolled off. He was younger than the others and had come to Doi Suthep as a boy. In broken English, he asked if I could help him get to the U.S.

THOUGH MEALTIMES WERE supposed to be silent, they were social occasions of a sort. At breakfast my first morning, a female apprentice with a ponytail handed me a plate and smiled. At the next meal, I helped her get a few slippery slices of mango into her bowl. “Thanks,” she said quietly. Given the isolation in which we spent most of our days, these felt like significant conversations. A few meals later Daniel, a skinny young man who seemed always to be smiling, took it upon himself to welcome me. Daniel had been in Thailand for five months and was to be ordained in a week or so. He said he’d been practicing meditation for years back home in Wisconsin, yet he looked barely out of his teens.

One of the ten precepts we had all vowed to uphold was to refrain from taking meals after noon. Our 11 a.m. lunch was therefore our last meal of the day. One morning at 11:50 I found myself sitting in the sunlit courtyard, looking at the remaining food on my plate the way a sailor might look at land before setting sail on a long ocean voyage. One bench over sat Silent Tim, a dour-looking monk who never spoke a word. Hannes, a new arrival from Austria, was sitting on the grass not far away. Dessert that day included a fruit I’d never seen before. Its white and pink flesh was flecked with tiny black seeds, and it melted in my mouth with a taste and texture somewhere between watermelon and mango.

“Do you know what this is?” I asked Hannes.

“Dragon fruit,” he whispered back.

Hannes was in his early thirties and handsome, with the air of someone bemused by the universe: not quite sure what it was all about, but not overly concerned about it either. I liked him immediately.

“What does dragon fruit look like before it’s cut up?”

“Like one of those spiked medieval clubs,” he answered. “Ironic, yah?”

“Ah, glasshoppah,” I whispered back, “irony of nature is gateway to wisdom.”

He placed his hands together and bowed. “We must all be like dee suttuhl dlagon fluit.” 

“ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT the practice?” Phra Sam asked at my daily reporting session.

“May I meditate in the garden?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“If I wear socks, must they also be white?”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Why do you have us focus on just the rising and falling of the abdomen and not the full path of the breath?”

“Because that’s how we do it here.”

OK, fine. “When meditating, how do I relax while also exerting a focused effort?”

“Ah, that is the question.” Phra Sam seemed pleased. This was more what he had in mind. “It takes mindfulness, patience, and time,” he said. “Now, I have a question for you: When you’re walking, are the left and right foot separate, or one?”

Finally, the Vipassana equivalent of a Zen koan. I said nothing, just bowed my head in the wisest way I knew how and let my silence speak for itself.

Phra Sam arched his eyebrows. “Separate or one?” he asked again.

Mu, I wanted to say, a Japanese word that means neither yes nor no. I waited for him to hit me with a big stick. “Well, both, I guess. Sort of.”

“One ends in the mind before the other begins, yes?”

“Uh, ok.” I had no idea what he was driving at, and he didn’t seem particularly happy with me either.

“So, separate or one?”

“Um, I’m not trying to be difficult, but . . .”

“Fine,” he said. “Do twenty minutes: twenty minutes walking, twenty minutes sitting.” The reporting session was over, the recruit dismissed.

As I headed back to the upper meditation hall, a mournful temple dog stared out from a shaded doorstep. I noticed how ragged the garden was: its pond thick with algae; the elephant sculpture weathered, the cracks in its concrete head filled with mortar. I felt homeless. What is this place? I thought. What am I doing here? A throng of saffron-clad child monks, their classes over for the day, were playing ping-pong. An elderly nun was sweeping the concrete pathways, wielding two short-handled brooms, one in each hand, as if they were swords. 

A Good Deal. A Great Gift. Give The Sun as a holiday gift and save up to 30%.

PRINT

E-MAIL

SHARE

PDF

WRITE TO THE EDITOR

SUBSCRIBE