Date: Wed, Apr 1, 1998 9:42 AM EDT
Yes. The monastary. Monks and meditating (pat-ti-bat) and mountains and remoteness. Six steps to stepping, in the Vipasana (insight) meditation school (as contrasted with the tranquility meditation): "Heel lifting... Toes lifting... foot moving... dropping... toes touching... heel touching..." Pacing, pacing, pacing, standing, pacing pacing pacing standing pacingpacingpacingstanding.... Constant awareness of all things is the focus. There is no control.
I tried this little experiment with myself as I was thinking freely (as encouraged; just be mindful of your thoughts, regardless of content): while standing, standing standing, I thought to intercept the intention to turn and resume pacing right before the intention became action. Every time the thought to turn crossed my mind, I asked myself: do I really intend to turn now? and every time the answer has to be no. I was caught in a strange loop. I was immobilized. I never turned. Even after my watch beeper signified the end of my session, I still questioned whether I intended to turn. The only way I was able to leave my standing position was when I abandoned my decision to intercept the intention. Intention and Action are One and the Same Thing.
Basically, the principle of vipanasa is to be aware of everything as it occurs NOW. Those buk-buk-buk-BuKAW! sounds are not chickens: Be Here Now: they are noises, interpreted as chickens. So, listen for the noise, observe the interpretation, watch the watching of the watching, Be Here Now.
Course, this gets you stuck in impossibility: the present moment is always one level higher, a meta-thought, than the level being observed. If you are listening, you are not watching yourself listen. If you are watching yourself listen, you are not watching yourself watching yourself listen. Etc. Perhaps the truly enlightened spring right out of this loop, and to do so would indeed be to understand the nature of awareness. Much of this is wrapped in religion, which I'd prefer to separate from meditation. Religion-wise, humans have a soul, immaterial, which can be reincarnated in the pursuit of perfection (the state of enlightenment or total awareness, or Being Here Now). Those who attain this perfection get a nice hunky-dorey afterlife, while the rest of us have to try again and again til we get it right. I suppose reward-punishment is a necessary element of any religion which hopes to survive through entering the brains of its followers. Still, I'm too much of an Occam's razorite to buy into that nonesense. I think there's something to the state of enlightenment, and I don't understand it yet.
I'm not cut out to be a monk. It's tough enough for me to sit still. I found the walking meditation much more suited to me. I was meditating about five hours a day and sleeping nine; the monks meditate twelve and sleep four.
Logistically, my Wat (monastary) was located several orders of magnitude away from population. Bangkok->Chiangmai->Chom Thong->local village->Wat Phra Gert, each about tenfold fewer people than the previous. Leaving about twelve, including me, at the wat. Amazing.
I had a cute little house on the side of a mountain, a decent bed, a toilet with scoop-flush, and shower. Two meals a day: 6:30 am and 11:30 am. Meditating on a full stomach is bad: you fall asleep. So I gorged near noon and lazed about til I was capable of thinking again, and then thought some more. At 9am my translator arrived from Chom Thong and interpreted my daily report to my teacher (ajahn), and returned his response. A big step forward occurred when I reported that I felt my feel seemed huge for a few minutes. This showed I really was concentrating and Being in the Present Moment. Well, it was interesting, but I've felt similar things before.
The food, contrary to my expectations, was not rice, though it was rice-based. We each had a bowl of rice which we garnished with beautiful and varied dishes shared by the table. Never before have I sampled so many foods I have never before sampled. And all wonderful. Spicy, salty, sour, sweet. Some made me tear (lhon-hot!) to the humor of the five others dining with me; these looked spicy: soups or curries or chopped vegetables and meats, glistening red or orange, or green with visible flecks of pepper-but all were palatable, if only with a ready supply of water. Salty things were generally dark brown or grey curries, or fish cooked dry and whole, eyes included (leftovers). Tart green mangoes dipped in sugar and pepper. I must rave about the food! True, authentic Thai cooking, limitless, free, and all passed my way with a smile, a nod, and an "Aroi!" (delicious). The lay people all saw I ate a lot (I think I may have overprepared for the missing meal, but oh well) and loved to pass me new things.
Speaking was allowed; though when meditating, of course, you were alone. During my free time I walked up the mountain to the temple being built on the top. I learned Thai from the woodcarvers and sculptors and painters and ChemPoxy applicators (Khem-Pok-SI) and witnessed the organic growth of the ornate that characterizes the SouthEast Asia aesthetic. It was amazing to behold. This glorious temple was to built in two years, for the paltry american sum of $50,000. That's a huge amount for the Thai. A typical plane ticket to the states costs as much as it does to feed a family for a year. The artisans took great pleasure in practicing their English, some good, some not so good, and we always laughed when saying my name which, in its closest Thai approximation (Sak!) means Mortar and Pestle (actually, just the crusher part; which is that?).
My Thai language ability really soared. I learned their script, and their tones, and can make a bumbling fool of myself with and native Thai, saying, "No understand all!" (Mai kow jai tuk). Great fun.
At dusk, when things cooled a bit, I went up to a flat spot on the top of the mountain and played footbag for an hour or so, making great progress. Until one frustrating meditation session I barely survived (fifty minutes pacing thinking of every step, and then another half hour of concentrating on sitting in the lotus position, breathing, posture, and contact points), after which I released frustration with a footbag session and reported as such the next morning. The master told me to halt his English lessons and cease footbag and to concentrate on the mind. Using the body as an escape would not teach me what I sought to learn.
I realized that meditation is merely thinking, and as I watched my thoughts I drifted from my discipline, a practice which was praised by the master as being in the present moment, I was free to watch my mind do its thing thinking. I thought of traveling, and family, and music, and math, and past, and future, and shoes and ships and ceiling wax... If I'm born for any meditation it would have to be vipasana; my mind is too active for anything else. The mind, says the master, is like a monkey, always jumping around from thing to thing. Meditation is to watch its movements. The stepping and breathing are training wheels, or rather a comfortable and known plush chair to which to return so that one doesn't get up and do something unmindfully when (if) one completes a thought.
Next time to Burma, to Rangoon, and the vipanasa center there. A month, really ascetic, no human contact but with the master. This was sort of a trial size. Eminently enjoyable, even if I didn't reach Nirvana.
Off to Uzbekistan! Probably no cybercafes there. After that, Dehli.
Peace and knowledge.
-xaq