Day 45 Meditation retreat 2/14/14

2/14/14
The day we left for the meditation retreat was the day we said goodbye to our roommate tokay and checked out of our apartment. We ate a small breakfast, exchanged some money, and caught a sangtao ride up the mountain to Doi Suthep. The temple was one that we had been to before. We came across it a couple of weeks ago when the woman who didn't understand English, drove us there instead of the lake. We were familiar with the area, and knew that the walk to the temple was preceded by the longest flight of stairs I have ever seen. We made the treacherous climb with our backpacking backpacks filled with camping gear. They must have weighed 70lbs each. All of the tourists walking along side us, stared at us in disbelief. Everyone walking the stairs was huffing and puffing with exhaustion and here we were charging up the flight with four backpacks, a tent, and two sleeping bags. When we reached the top, a man who worked there saw all of our luggage and knew we were there for the meditation retreat. He pointed us in the direction of the office. We were greeted by a very cheerful monk. We followed him to the left of the temple and down more stairs, through houses, and into the jungle, where we came across a large building. He ushered us inside and then made his way back up to the temple. A few minutes later we were greeted by a small Thai man in all white. He had us fill out some paperwork and then told us that we would meet downstairs in thirty minutes to go over the rules. Thirty minutes later, we met with the small Thai man and another couple who were also checking in. They were a European couple in their thirties. The Thai man was hard to understand. He talked very quietly; almost in a whisper, and had a heavy accent. I had to stretch across the table and slyly cusp my ear to make out what he was saying. He started off with the rules: no talking, no eating after noon, no writing, no reading, no technology use, no touching anyone, you must wear all white, and guys and girls sleep separately. He then showed us a few meditations that we were to do daily. One was a walking meditation that requires you to stand with your eyes close and repeat "Standing, standing, standing", followed by opening your eyes and saying "intending to walk, intending to walk", then, "walking, walking, walking", as you take baby steps forward looking six feet in front of you on the ground. The second meditation is a sitting one, in which we sit Indian style with our hands in our lap, right over left, and breathe in from the nose and out from the nose while repeating "rising, falling, rising, falling". Each meditation is to be done for fifteen minutes. After the meditation demonstration we were  given schedules of daily activities and room keys. The layout of the meditation center was interesting. There was a large three story building. The bottom floor was the kitchen, the second was the check in office as well as a large open area, and the third was an empty room for meditating. Past the three story building were four two story buildings, each of them were dorm style housing. The first two were for women, and the last two were for men. There was a steep path that led down to the dorms, and on the other side of the path was a small temple. Inside was a statue of Buddha and a stack of meditation mats. Above the buildings was a dirt trail nature trail. From the trail you  had an incredible view of the jungle, and through the trees, off the mountainside you could see the view of Chiang mai. My dorm room was a medium size empty room with just a small twin bed. The bathrooms were community bathrooms and were at the end of the building. They had a few tiolets, two showers, and three sinks. After unpacking my things I looked at the schedule. The daily schedule was: 5am wake up,5:30am dhamma talk, 7am breakfast,8am individual meditation,11am lunch, 12 individual meditation,2pm report to monk, 2:30 individual meditation, 6pm evening chant, 7pm individual meditation, and 9pm bedtime. After getting settled into my room it was almost five o'clock and the next activity wasnt until 6pm, so I decided to walk around a bit. I walked down the nature path and around the grounds of the retreat. There were a good amount of people there; about twenty other meditators, an even mix of guys and girls, most of whom were in their thirties and forties. At 6pm we gathered on the second floor of the large building where the chant was to take place. Once there we were told that it was a special holiday; national Buddha day, and that we would be conducting today's chant at the top temple of Doi Suthep. So we all walked to the top of the large temple where we came in. There were hundreds of people there. Many of which were Thai, and some tourists. We were all given laminated cards with phonetically written pronunciations of a chant. In addition we were each given a rose, two candles, and incense. The monk who checked us in instructed us to follow the crown clockwise around the large pagoda which stood in the center of the temple. We walked around the pagoda three times chanting. After the third time we stopped and placed our rose in a basket, and lit the candle. From here we were invited to stay and join a second chant, or head back to the retreat. Ryan and I were the only ones to go back to the retreat. We walked silently at first remembering the rules, but after passing by all the other mediators and hearing them talk to one another we decided to whisper. Ryan and I went on a night walk down the nature trial. After our walk we made our way back to our dorms to sleep for the night.