Three Days With a Monk in Total Silence

On Wednesday evening I boarded a small bus with about fifteen other people and we drove to massive compound flanked by mountains and sand dunes for a three day introduction to Dhamma (Dharma) i.e. Buddhist meditation.

This is the top of a sand dune at the meditation centre - people come up here to reflect and meditate. 

The whole retreat, including all sessions and lessons, was led by a Californian monk who found Buddhism when, after being in the Vietnam war, he went travelling and found himself in jail in Afghanistan for possession of drugs. He told us that he once sat naked on an anthill in Sri Lanka on purpose and meditated on it; the ants were biting him "everywhere" and he was also being bitten alive by mosquitoes however he wanted to get underneath the pain and gain life insight so he stayed like that for hours!

Our daily schedule.

We were asked to maintain complete silence throughout the three days - even in our rooms; I wasn't sure whether everyone would be secretly chatting away as soon as the monk left but they didn't. Each day's schedule lasted for sixteen long hours and started at sunrise which is at 5.15am when a bell would chime indicating that we had to get up and meet the monk. We started with yoga (yoga is used before meditation to relax the body and get the mind in tune with it) followed by sitting mediation then breakfast and the rest of the day continued in this pattern with sitting/standing/walking/lying meditation, a bit of chanting, relaxation, talks on Buddhism and anecdotes from the monk's long life as well as Q&A sessions where we'd write down our questions and put them in a bowl for the monk to answer. Each time a new lesson/session started the monk would chime the bell and we'd follow him. All these sessions took place in a variety of places on the complex: the meditation hall, outside, in a cave, on a hill, in a Burmese temple. My favourite session was the daily, two-hour, afternoon yoga session outside under the shade of apricot trees.

The higher building is the mediation hall and the building on the left is the female dorm.

A photo of the monk as we followed him up to class!

Inside the meditation hall.

I'd love to be able to add meditation to my skills repertoire but unfortunately I found it really hard and quite frustrating at times because I started to lose concentration and I always got chronic dead-leg syndrome! The monk spent a lot of time teaching us how to clear our minds and the most important theme was to be present in the moment and not to think about the past, future or zone out in any way (this can be applied to so many parts of your everyday life and was actually really useful). Meditation is something that can take years to learn and so frustration at the start is inevitable until you can tame your "drunken monkey brain" (yes, that's the term the monk actually used - are you recognising a theme here?) He explained the Buddha's teachings of Dhamma meditation which utilises science to relax the mind and nervous system by concentrating on yourself and your breathing and posture. We were told to do everything mindfully for example we all had to feel every step whilst walking anywhere which meant we all moved extremely slowly (even on the way to the loo!) and we ate in slow motion too!

The cave we mediated in!

Some awkward things that I found funny:


-at the start the coordinator lady kept telling us to be careful on the stairs because they are very very 'Steve'


-while we were meditating (bear in mind we were all sitting there in silence with our eyes closed, quite seriously trying to concentrate for long periods of time) a random cat came in to the meditation hall and crawled onto mine and another girls lap and then climbed all over the monk whilst meowing really loudly (he was not impressed - it wouldn't go away)


-about an hour after the cat came in a bat flew in to the hall, right down the middle of us!


-a lot of people took the walking slow thing quite seriously which meant when it was time for food the whole campus looked like a zombie apocalypse


-sharing three days in close proximity to fifteen (and a room with two) people that you have never spoken to - we didn't know each other's names or even the language we spoke. We had to indicate whether or not to turn off the light/close the window with little hums!


-I felt bad not being able to say thank you to the man collecting our plates and pouring us tea as we weren't allowed to speak so I gave a lot of thumbs up which he seemed to find hilarious!

'Reflection' gardens.

At the end of the last day we were finally able to speak to each other and we went round sharing our experiences; everyone was honest and some people were quite emotional. It's a really surreal thing not speaking to people for so long and then hearing them talk about their inner thoughts. It was a very slow, relaxing few days and the silence was actually very welcome because India is so loud and busy! Whilst I can't really take meditation (and certainly not a new found religion) away from this retreat I have enjoyed learning to take things at a slower pace. In conclusion: I am not a monk but I do have a monkey brain.

We were each presented with a white scarf by the monk to wish us happiness in our futures.