A short intro, it's hard! Buddha created vipassana and it's more than bringing your mind at ease as Samatha meditation or yoga does. Samatha is the first step of vipassana but when you learn and excell the first level you will learn about your body and how to control it. You will live and think in the now and not the future nor past which Buddha states useless. Our mind is always full of thoughts and vipassana helps you to stop these thoughts and get a clear mind.
The temple is surrounded by mountains and in the middle of the jungle. The closest town in atleast 30 kilometers away. And the nearest road around 2 kilometer away. Other words, total silence of civilization. We got to the monastery by hitch hiking. Our first time, it was a blast haha. After 15 minutes and no success we were almost about to give up (really: no patience at all!). Somehow our Thai sighn was unreadable and we didn't even know if our hotel owner wrote the correct name. Anyway, after waiting for around 20 minutes until a family stopped with a brand new pick-up truck and threw us in the back. We just imagined how this guy was giving his children lessons not to do this in the future haha. He drove like a complete maniac through the mountains. What is 4 hours by bus he did in 90 minutes.. But we got a free ride haha. And he even dropped us off right in front of the temple.
Arriving at the temple and being amazed by its beauty we read the rules and agenda for everyday. But at first sight it looked like a rehab or psychological clinic, everyone is dressed in white clothes, silent and a bit out of the ordinary. See picture below, we were in for a fun time... We got our own little Kuti, a small hut (men and women separate!). No beds, you had to sleep so .... Somber.... Like the monks straight on the floor. Still. The bungalows were new and quite nice. In the morning we had breakfast at 6:30 after giving the monks their rice. A very nice buddies routine. And no talking haha, Nina wanted to leave after a day. Silence does her no good (and she had to fight with cockroaches in her room the night before). Everyone there took the whole thing very serious and nobody was Ever talking to each other. After we got our morning meditation, we both liked this one most. No bugs, cold and not so tired yet. We started with the walking meditation, walk slow with feet and breathing in sync. Breathing in, buuuuuu, and left foot up. Breathing out, doooooo, right foot down. This is everything that is supposed to be in your mind. Quite hard as the mind drifts of a lot to see the waterfall at the right, the big lizard on the left and so on. Which is ok, if you won't go into details, know it's there and go on, no details is key! Next: sitting meditation. Sitting Crosslegged for 40 minutes with the eyes closed and breathing in sync with buuuuuu doooo again. Very very hard, as I (Tom) can't sit like that with stupid painful knees and such. After that comes the laying meditation. Which seems to be the hardest since you hear people snore peacefully after 10 minutes. But ohh so nice.
This went on for a couple of days until I thought my knees would not take it no more. And then in the evening meditation I had a breakthrough! I was not only able to sit for 40 minutes straight. But also to forget the pain in the knees, feel at ease, putting thoughts out and concentrate on a single thing I wanted to feel the body part by part. Which was working, somehow. After this I could always sit this way, turn off the pain and go away.
After 5 days we had enough, Nina had a few cockroaches as roommates (which she couldn't get rid of) and I had 2 huge, huge lizards. First time I saw one in my room I thought huh I don't have this color of towel, until I saw the towel had eyes. But better than the snake an other girl had in front of her Kuti. Reminder: the middle of the real jungle!
We hitchhiked back to Pai, which now took a lot longer and more than 1 ride. But fun! Up to the next: Laos.
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