Having returned to a base diet of two bowls of sliced pork and fish ball noodle soup supplemented by handfuls of sticky rice, som tom (papaya salad), and various curries, we're in Chiang Mai taking care of a few logistics before we head off to Lumbini. We just came back from Wat Tam Doi Tone, a beautiful monastery in the hills nearby with three caves, a gorgeous meditation hall, a serene if snakey jungle, and a lovable abbot named Phra Ajahn Navee Piyatassi who had this tendency to appear suddenly out of nowhere.
One day I was lost in vain thoughts about my upcoming sure-to-be bestseller "The Awakened Programmer" while sweeping one of the paths near the big cave. "Daniel." I jumped, not having noticed him standing with a smile a few feet away. "Daniel, what are you doing?"
A few days into our 10 day intensive retreat I whispered something to Juliann during our Ovaltine break. The next day, while on my way to the cave Phra Ajahn, standing under a Bodhi tree called me over.
"Daniel, is your intensive retreat over?"
"No, bhante. Why?"
"You were talking to Juliann..."
"Uhhh..."
"Please try to be mindful."
And then he asked me to help him turn on the sprinklers, a gesture which quickly dispelled my embarrassment. A very gracious "not-soul".
A very quiet place indeed. Just Juliann and me, three monks, Phra Ajahn, and one mae chee (nun). And, of course, the inimitable Nong Am (left), the deft and lighthearted chef extraordinaire who served up no less than six dishes each day for the three consecutive weeks without ever serving the same dish twice. After ten days Juliann and I began our apprenticeship in Thai cookery with her, learning the fundamentals of chopping a hundred different kinds of vegetables I had never seen before. Here was an okra that was at once a cucumber and a chili. There a kiwi-like potato with black lanquered seeds. And over there a starfruit, shrunken and yet elongated that tasted like lettuce. Names? You're asking too much!
Breakfast, lunch and dinner were served all at once at 9am. No solid food after noon. Ovaltine at 6am and 4:30pm. One group meditation at 7pm. Sweeping and cooking from 6:30 to 8:30 am. Other than that, we were on our own. No bells, gongs, meditation schedule or formal interviews. No planned talks. Wide open, vast, and, at times, unsettling Quiet. From the meal until the evening sit I rarely saw anyone at all. Just bright stars, fireflies, shy bright green snakes, the crackling of dry leaves falling to the ground, the drip-dropping of the morning dew, a praying mantis perched on the teak balcony of the hall, threatening an invisible enemy with her spiked forearms. The airy touch of invisible bat wings, so close yet never making contact. The inner movies about pasts that shouldn't have been, futures that might still be, remake after remake each with a new twist, the audience held in painful suspense ("Don't go in that room!" or "Keep running - you'll make it out this time!") In other words, the seemingly endless current of sensation, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness, arising and passing away, not controllable, devoid of any "self".
The first night while alone in the big meditation hall I was struck by a fearsome rogue wave of loneliness - that's right, I'm talking Edvard Munchian proportions - and I felt truly sorry that earlier that day I had pooh-poohed Juliann's tearful worrying about practicing in such an empty forest. At times it is dismaying to recognize how much of a jerk I continue to be despite all the effort to grow up. Alack, old habits die hard.
For the first ten days, Juliann had the entire lower hall to herself, while I sat and walked alone upstairs among the great pillars of antique teak.
My brother reminded me in a recent letter about a saying of some sage that it is better not to speak unless it improves upon silence. And as I see little improvement, I must stop here. Tomorrow we'll begin our journey to Lumbini. May you all have a happy New Year. And of course, keep remembering that all conditioned phenomena are impermanent and subject to decay, which is to say inherently incapable of giving any lasting satisfaction.
