24 December 2022

The rules of silence did not stop one of my room mates snoring during the night.

I was awake and sitting quietly on my bed when the gentle reverberation of the gong rang through the courtyard outside. I felt relatively well rested and walked out into the cold morning and admired the night sky while others tried to eke out a few more minutes of rest before the day’s start.

As the meditation hall filled for the first session of the day it was clear that for many this was serious business; quite a few wore the traditional wrap around longyi robe of Burma and were able to sit motionless throughout the classes.  For me, as I tried to focus on the feeling of my breath under my nose, things were much more amateurish. My mind was either snapshots images – it reminded me of the beginning of the old Thunderbirds television programmes where they preview parts of the programme in short scenes – or an extended narrative.   Rarely does my mind seem clear.

Afterward the teacher gave us our first ‘discourse’, effectively a sermon focused on the life of Buddha or Buddhist philosophy with a link into meditation in some way.  Although my aim here was to learn to meditate I guess the pagoda outside should have been a clue that there would be some element of Buddhism drawn in.  The session ended with some (untranslated) words in Bali from the teacher – some sort of veneration I guess – followed by a response with hands clasped but those who knew what they were doing while the rest of us looked on bemused.

We worked through the routine of the day: meditation periods and a hearty breakfast and lunch - plenty of excellent vegetarian food on offer - and grabbing short periods of sleep in between when the programme allowed.  My morning was better than the fidgety and distracted experience from last night and I felt maybe things were making sense until the afternoon where my sore back proved a major distraction.

During a break I packed away my ipad that I had brought as an alarm but, with the gong, I clearly did not need. Likewise with a small earphone radio I had brought ‘just in case’.  Already I was feeling that they would be an intrusion, drawing the outside world into this bubble of peace and tranquillity in which I now found myself. I had a similar feeling about the notebook in which I write this diary but with such a repetitive programme over a relatively long period writing things contemporaneously is going to be the only way to capture the daily progression of my thoughts.  I feel it is more a distraction than an intrusion so I will continue to make my notes as the days go by, albeit surreptitiously behind the privacy curtains of my bunk bed. 

In the final session of the evening I adopted a position with my back against the wall and that made a lot of difference to how I felt physically.  One hour is still a long time to sit and meditate but it was much easier now.  It was a long day, made more so by some of the meditation sessions that seemed to drag on more than others.