Try everything once - my time in the monastery

This is a long one.  You've been warned.

So I wasn't actually going to write this post until tomorrow, but there are two things right now I can be doing, and I don't feel like packing.  Procrastination, it followed me out of university, it seems.  I've got the room to myself tonight, so the AC is cranked, the dubstep is playing, and I'm just chilling out after dinner. 

This might be a little discombobulated, I purposefully didn't write anything about my stay here until the end, because we do the same thing every day, and I hate being redundant and monotonous.  It just wouldn't do to tell you I've done the same routine everyday. 

My schedule was thus:

• Wake up at 04:30.  Chanting from 05:30-06:00
• Breakfast at 07:15.
• Ch'i Kong at 08:30 --> Ch'i Kong is a type of slow moving exercise that is supposed to harness your Chi ...if you believe in that kind of thing.
• Lecture: 09:00-11:00
• Lunch 11:15
• Lecture 14:00-16:00
• Community time 17:00 --> we work in the garden raking leaves, or digging compost ditches, etc.
• Dinner 17:30 for those only following 5 precepts (us)
• Chanting from 19:00-20:00

Most nights, I was asleep by 9pm.

Now that I've started this, I'm not really sure what to write.  Venerable Dhammananda has an international newsletter that she publishes quarterly, about women's buddhist issues, and she asked Anne and I (my australian roommate for the week) to write articles that she wishes to publish in her newsletter.  In Thailand two weeks, and already a (potentially) published author.  Not bad, eh?  Here, I'll share my article with you, and perhaps that will inspire me to add things.  I had so much to say earlier, but now that I'm sitting down and doing it, my brain is kaput.  It's been a long week.

We start the morning with chanting. 

Sitting before the Buddha on the second floor of the temple, the sun not yet raised above the horizon, we chant in an ancient language called Pali, the language during the time of the Buddha.  We praise the Buddha, and give the offering of flowers, incense, and candles.  I admire the bhikkhunis and the laypeople that have discipline: sitting in the respected position, unmoving and rigid, their straight backs towering towards the sky.  My knees ache, the small space between my shoulders burns, and my mind wanders.  I’ve never mastered the ability to sit still.  We meditate for a short amount of time only; even this, I cannot do. 

Breakfast and lunch, at first, were very strange to me.  Coming from Canada, the concept of serving another human being food (outside of a low-paying, minimum wage job) is hardly heard of.  Shoes off, we serve the bhikkhunis, starting with rice.  My comfort level with this has increased over my week here – I even look forward to it.  The very last in the line of seated bhikkhunis, Samaneri  Dhammapunni always says “Good luck to you”, and this gladdens my heart to hear.  

We serve ourselves, and I try to take a little of everything, everyday – relishing the different flavours and textures on my tongue.  Food in Thailand is so different from food at home, the flavours delight me – spicy and sweet and bitter, fruits and soups, noodles, and always rice.  Very quickly, I got sick of the rice – try as I might, I’ll never get the hang of rice as a breakfast food.  The fruit is my favourite: so many of them I’ll never find at home, and those that I can taste so much better here, in this tropical clime.   

For four hours a day, we are subjected to outstanding lectures.  Venerable Dhammananda is a strong public speaker, and while I did come here with a spiritual interest in Buddhism, I confess the majority of it was academic.  Some of the topics we’ve discussed have included the life of the Buddha, the history of Thailand as it relates to Buddhism, and the lineage of the bhikkhunis.  I have to plead some ignorance at this point:  until my time here, in Songdhammakalyani Monastery, I knew very little about the Theravada school of Buddhism, and nothing at all of the struggle the bhikkhunis have had over the centuries.  It never occurred to me to question why there were not many female monks in Thailand. 

It brings me fierce pleasure and pride (two un-Buddhist things, I know) to see these women fight for their ability to practice the Dhamma and to be on an equal level with the male monks, bhikkhus.  Against adversity, this temple has risen, and each step these women have taken has been a fight.  But I think this fight is a necessary one; women are just as entitled as men to follow their spiritual calling, to follow the Buddha and practice Buddhism as decreed by him, and to be bhikkhuni.

The bhikkhunis here, the women here, continue to surprise and delight me.  I admire their constant kindness, their warmth, strength, and intelligence.  I will be honest and exclaim that I had very little idea what to expect coming to a monastery.  Traveling Thailand, I knew it was something I wanted to do, and I am very glad that I did.  Nothing about staying here has disappointed me and the entire experience of Living Buddhism has been a delight.  From the early morning chanting, to Noi and her thrice daily exclamation of “let’s eat”, my time here has been nourishing for the soul.

The grounds are brilliant; from the new guesthouse to the gorgeous Medicine Buddha temple, it is apparent that many years of care and love have gone into this monastery.  From the perspective of a Westerner, if you can get past the fire ants in the garden, the cold showers, and the hard beds, this is an almost-idyllic place to be.

I feel at peace here, and it is my sincere hope that the lineage of the bhikkhunis continues over the years, growing in numbers until every person, from layperson to monk, accepts them.

Sadhu.    

 I really can't stress the food enough.  Anne would laugh at me because every meal, I had comments on each food.  "What is this?  This is weird.  What's this weird thing?  This thing tastes odd" ...I've tried so many new things, things I don't know the names of, some that I do.  Things that look like foods we have at home, and things that are nothing even remotely similar to foods we have at home.  Some delicious, and some atrocious.  Many sweets, and many spices. 

 This is Anne.

The pineapple here is divine - and I learned how to carve them!  I don't have any photos, but I found this one on Google, and I need to show each and every one of you at home how to do it. 

It seriously makes eating pineapples way more fun.  After you cut the pineapple like this, you rub sea salt on your hands, and then rub the pineapple and cut it into chunks.  It's just a thing Thai's do.  Fruit carving is amazing...pineapple is the only one I learned though.  Speaking of, I've eaten SO much pineapple.

 We had a half-day off on Friday, and went to the market.  Those are giant piles of pineapples.  

Other fruits are amazing - there's one called jackfruit, which is spongy and yellow, and another called palmello, which is like a giant grapefruit, and then there's mangoes, papayas, bananas, guavas (they are huge and taste different than the little ones from home) ...and I've eaten tofu, and rice for breakfast (gross), and a soup called tom yam, which was amazing.  I eat something spicy at least once a day, and I had this soup/dessert once that was taro (like a yam) in a juice of coconut milk and palm sugar - it was sickenly sweet, but amazing.  The monastics here are strict vegetarian, and so I haven't had the slightest issue with trying new things.  Out on the streets, I'm much more conservative.  Everything has bloody fish in it. 

The chanting was enjoyable at first; by yesterday, I was beginning to hate it.  My knees are killing me from being cross-legged so much each day.  30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes in the evening, plus one hour today for meditation, plus an hour on Wan Pra for offering to Buddha, and today for offering to Buddha (on alms days).  Now, the second I sit with my knees bend, my left knee twinges and hurts and then gets swollen.  I think I'll be fine in a day or two - I wore my brace yesterday.

When I came here, I was really ill, but I'm better now.  I just finished my anti-biotics today, and I'm going to go find some pro-biotics at the mall in Bangkok tomorrow.  No more bronchitis, yay! 

 

One thing we've done which I didn't mention in that article (oh, and I'll explain the whole women's issue thing in a second) ...we went on the alms route, twice.  Once for Wan Pra, which is a Buddhist holiday that they have every full moon, half waning, half waxing, and new moon.  Once because they go every Sunday.  Some other monasteries go everyday, and that's how they get their food, but the Venerable Mother (Dhammananda) realizes that this is a poor area, and if they offer all their food, they will have no food themselves.  So we only take from them once a week, and once every half moon. 

The alms were really beautiful - women are never allowed to go with a monk on this, but because ours are bhikkhuni (and therefore female) ...we were allowed to go, and it was really special to be a part of that.  We walk single file, in relative silence - I think it is supposed to be total silence, but this is me we're talking about.  We'd walk, and when we stopped by a person, or a family, to do the offering, the person would offer rice, and other foods, which we'd put into a cart, and then the bhikkhunis would chant in pali and bless them, and we'd go onto the next person.  Then, when we get back to the monastery, that serves as our breakfast and lunch for the day.

I've really learned a lot while I've been here - the history of the Buddha and of Buddhism fascinated me.  And I learned so much about the issue with the bhikkhunis that I didn't even know existed.  Like I said in my article (I hope I get mailed a copy of that issue!), it never occurred to me to question why there aren't really any female monks.  The very first female monk was in Buddha's time, but they died out fairly quickly because nobody wanted them, and today, there are only 35 fully ordained female monks (bhikkhunis) in Thailand.  Venerable Dhammananda's mother was the very first Thai woman to be ordained, and she had to go to Taiwan to do it.  In 2015, Ven. Dhammananda will be able to GIVE ordination to women (you must be a monk for 12 years to give precepts to someone else) ...and she will be the first woman in Thailand able to do this.  Both Anne and myself want to come back here in 2015 to witness it, because it's a huge thing for women's rights in Thailand.

 

I'm not much of a feminist myself, being too apathetic about any one thing to bother protesting, but it's a good thing, I think, for other women to be out there, fighting for their rights, even if that is a poor wording of the concept.  The Buddha allowed women to be ordained as well as men, and it is men that took that away.  Either way, good for them.

All the women here are brilliant - they're so much more than I ever thought I would find from a monk.  I was expecting them to be neutral and modest, and yes, to an extent - but each one of them is filled with love and laughter, and those things that make humans so beautiful.  I have two favourites, even though I know I shouldn't:  Venerable Subhoda and Samaneri Dhammapunni.  Ven. Subhoda is fighting cancer right now and going through chemo treatments, and she's very small and frail looking, but only in body - she's very sharp, and intelligent and used to be an electrical engineer, and I love having conversations with her.  Dhammapunni is 72 years old, and won't be fully ordained until 2015, and she's small (everyone is small in Thailand) and covered in freckles, and whenever we're done serving food at meal times, she says "good luck to you" in her little cute voice.  She's adorable.

One little creature I'm going to be sad to say goodbye to (if I even get the chance - I leave so early tomorrow morning) is Naboon, Dhammananda's granddaughter.  She's eight, and in grade two, and she lives at the monastery, and she is super super shy and just learning English, and I have been trying all week to make friends with her, and the other day, I did that thing I do where I bend my back and bend down to the floor and come back up again, and later in the day, she came up to me and in English exclaimed "you are very good and beautiful" ...and from then on, she sits with me at meal times, and she even says hi, and thank you, and good morning to me now.  I was trying to learn thai just so I could say hi to her.  I gave her a canadian dollar this morning, and very slowly tried to explain that I wanted her to have this coin from Canada to remember me, and to use it as a good luck coin ...but I don't know if she understood everything.  I am going to write a small letter before bed and ask Dhammananda to translate it to her for me.  I'm going to miss her.

I'm going to miss the fat little dalmation dog called "dotcom" ...she's short and fat, and gets excited when I walk by.  There's lots of dogs here, in the monastery and in Thailand, and they are all really mangy, and some are really mean, but this one is nice, and likes me, and she's just a cute little fat thing.

I leave tomorrow morning at 6, and catch the train into Bangkok (in third class because it's free during rush hour) ...and then hopefully I can find a storage locker for my stuff at the train station, because I can't check into my hotel until 3PM.  I don't really have any plans for tomorrow during the day - will likely hang out with Sarom and Savann (two cambodians who were here with us) before they catch their train back to Cambodia, and I'd like to find some pro-biotics and some alcohol.  It's my birthday tomorrow, though in a discussion to Tim today, I couldn't decide if it counts because I was born at 10PM Pacific time on the 28th, and that's 1PM my time here in Bangkok, on the 29th.  So...I'm not sure if I can technically celebrate my birthday until the 29th...

Either way, wine will be consumed, a hot shower will be had, and then close to midnight, I meet Tim and the airport!  So excited, you have no idea.

Happy Birthday to me.  A full quarter century.