Men in White

I’ve got my feet on the ground and I don’t go to sleep to dream.”
-Fiona Apple, Sleep to Dream

Greetings! I have had a very interesting 10 days. I’ve never known a time to pass so slowly, but now that I’ve left, I feel like I was hardly there a day. In actuality, a new record has been set. 10 days is the longest I’ve spent in one place in 5 months. It sounds crazier than it feels. Chiang Mai is a nice city, what I saw of it. It’s got a laid back, yet bustling feel to it. Most of my time, however, aside from the last few hours, was spent at Wat Doi Suthep. The temple is about a 40 minute drive out of Chiang Mai. It’s up on a mountain, surrounded by rain forest, so it’s spared the pollution, and the air is ripe for long whiffs, heavy with the smell of flowers which are in bloom all around in vibrant shades of purple. In the mornings, if you walk to the end of the grounds just after the sun has risen and the clouds obscure the view of Chaing Mai below, all you can see is the end of the landing and beyond it, sky; it looks like the edge of the world. At night, you can see the city lit up, but none of the noises reach the mountain top. I would say this meant it was quiet, but there were always the bells. On either side of the main temple, was a wall of large, differently tuned bronze bells. My best guess is that ringing them brings good luck, because from the moment visitors arrive in the morning, they did so. There was also a giant gong, with a caption translated to english as “if you strike the gong softly, it would be auspicious for you.” I do so. During daylight hours, though, I generally refrain from going to the temple because people stare. I spent most of my time behind, a little lower down where it’s quiet, and there’s a little lower down where it’s quiet, and there’s other people dressed like me wandering about. I really must have been a sight–walking around barefoot all day, looking at my feet, measuring each step, dressed all in white, talking to no one. I felt like I’d been institutionalized. And in a way, I suppose I had sort of committed myself–detox for the mind, withdrawals included.

“Vipassana” meditation means “to see clearly”. After my time spent practicing, I could think of no better way to describe my experience. I feel like I’m seeing things a lot more clearly-myself, people around me, the ever elusive meaning of life (and no, I haven’t found it yet). I don’t know how it happened, and I can’t say that I had any epiphanies about what I should be doing with my life, but I do see things more clearly, and it’s strangely comforting. There are other benefits; like today I feel happy and calm, even when amongst the thronging masses in the city. The sky was a bit bluer, the babies were a bit cuter, and I felt a tinge farther from the people I care about–but not in a way that upsets me, in a way that knows what’s okay and what is right right now. But I’ll spare you too much of the emotional or philosophical here, that’s another blog all together. I’ll refine this one to my objective experience. During the course of my stay, I kept eight precepts: No killing(including spiders and malaria-carrying mosquitoes), no stealing, no “romantic activity” (and girls are not allowed to even come too near the monks), no wrong speech (this includes speaking with any of the other meditators) no intoxicants (or caffeine), no over eating (breakfast at 6:30, lunch at 11, and no eating after noon), no “diversion or beautification” (singing, dancing, reading, writing), and no oversleeping…this last one, I ashamed to say, I might technically have cheated with a nap here and there, but I believe I was justified, and later you shall find out why.

The day started at 4am every morning and ended at 10pm. In between, there was a whole lot of meditatin goin on and one meeting a day with my teacher. In the end, I was meditating around 2 hrs at a time, upwards of 7 hours a day; half walking, half sitting meditation. Although my legs fell asleep, I preferred sitting because that’s when the cool stuff happens. Vipassana aims to still the mind, and so involves a close watch over the mind’s movement, and constant noting until the distraction disappears (and believe it or not, it does). So, if you’re walking, you note, “right foot thus, left foot thus…”. If you start thinking about something later that day, “thinking, thinking”, or if there’s dogs barking outside, “hearing, hearing”, etc. Anything the mind comes up with, you must note and so be mindful all the livelong day. I must admit, a part of me feared I was being brainwashed, so outside of meditation, I tried to give my mind liberty to do as it pleased and retain a notion of the more thoughtful Blair whom I was rather fond of. After a lengthy inner monologue, I have come to the conclusion that I may still be good ole contemplative, analytical me and advance in meditation, because I’ve seen that there really is something to it. Now for an anecdote. One day, during sitting meditation, I started having these involuntary stomach muscle spasms. The more I concentrated on them, the more intense they became, until it developed into laughter. I was laughing so hard, I had tears in my eyes and had to stop and leave the room. My teacher told me that I’d reached a stage called piti, and while it was good and fun and all, it was “not the path.” I listen to her, with a big stupid grin on my face, then proceed to lock myself in my room where I laugh uncontrollably for over half an hour, at nothing at all.

Let’s see, what else…I met the abbot, and even gave him lunch one day, although he is not allowed to take it directly from me because I’m a woman and so super irresistible. Also, one evening, the princess of Thailand came to the temple. Apparently it’s sort of a big deal in these parts, it boasts a Buddha body relic (thought they aren’t more specific than that). Anyway, she showed up wearing her royal track suit to pay respects. That was coo; there were guards everywhere, and I didn’t know what was going on, until one told me, “I cannot let you pass…for the security of my princess.” I thought, “ok, weirdo”, and then went a different way and saw her as she was leaving. Then immediately after, I experience my first earthquake. Very minor, really just a tremor, but still, I thought it was something.

Then there was the case of the vindictive neighboring monk. The windows to the rooms were all like foggy glass shudders, which you could open to see outside, or close, and just see forms and colors, if they were close enough. I had a room adjacent to mine, which I thought nothing of for the first few days. They appeared to store a computer there, but I hadn’t seen anyone in it. My room and this room were separated by those glass shudders. One night, I’m meditating and I hear chanting. I finished my session, but then it was still there when I was trying to sleep, and I started hearing something like feedback screeching. I realize it is coming from that room. So, I open the shudders, look in, see a computer, speakers, and a soundboard. I think, “Oh. No big deal, I did AV stuff in college, I’ll just use my vast knowledge to reach through the shudders and turn the volume down on the board. I am in fact so genius, I use a water bottle to extend the length of my arm, which doesn’t quite reach. I do this, but then, instead of turning the volume down, it just turns to static. I think, among the static, I can hear someone tapping a microphone as if to see if it is still working. Then I think, “Well….shit” as I realize this is possibly not what I thought it was. The shudders as close together, and I am wearing a cotton sweater to keep warm that evening…I can’t reach my hand far enough in to reach the levers without the bottle, so to gain better control, I take off the sweater. Then I’m reaching through the shudders, fiddling with knobs I cannot see in the dark, when I realize, that should a person walk down the hall at that moment, they could see into the room what would probably appear as a robber, attempting to steal a computer….topless. I gather my wits and my garments, and find I can remove the shudders one at a time to make a bigger space to get through. Then, because I still can not see the upside down board in the dark, I get the bright idea to hold my camera through the opening and take a picture of the panel that I can zoom in on. It is then that I realize that what I thought was the volume control was actually labeled, “Hz”. I know nothing about running a radio station or that equipment. The phone starts to ring. I start to panic, and when I try to think of a solution, I find myself automatically going, “thinking, thinking, thinking…NO!” I didn’t know what to do. Turns out it was indeed a radio station, and that evening, I knocked the entire monking community offline. Way to go me. A techie monk finally came to fix it…and he was there for 4 hours, till 3 in the morning. I didn’t move in my room, too afraid to face him as a woman and an english speaker. I just laid there thinking, “What have I done” for 4 hours. After this evening, there was always a monk in the room, and I promise you, when I came back at night, they would turn the volume up, making sleeping during the allotted hours very difficult indeed.

Other than this, my time at Doi Suthep was relatively stressless. I am in fact planning to go back in a week or two to finish the course (however that is determined). My teacher thought it shouldn’t take me too much longer, so I agreed to go back, after a short trip BACK to Bangkok to take care of an airline ticket, and then a little time south on the beaches.

My trip back to Bangkok was an adventure in itself. My overnight train was delayed two hours, so I set off to an internet cafe. When I went back to the station, I approached a group of train employees and showed them my ticket. They were all talking excitedly (but not happily), and it seemed as if I did not help the problem. There is a small Thai woman there in a suit, and she takes me by the wrist and leads me away hurriedly. I don’t really know what is going on, but she doesn’t seem very happy, and I feel like a little kid who drew on the wall with crayons, though I am oblivious to my crime. She is talking and I don’t know what she’s saying, but there’s a man walking on my left side who’s laughing. I think it’s weird that she still hasn’t let go of my arm, but I didn’t push it. We go to the ticket counter, and she speaks to the agent. Then she takes my ticket and the guy’s ticket and gives them to the agent, and then gives me money in return. I’m thinking, “Oh no. No, no. I want to go to Bangkok.”, but she has my arm again, and suddenly we’re outside. I make a futile gesture towards the train station and say, “no…train?”, but I get little in the way of a response. Then we are in a taxi and the 3 of us have become 7. The man looks like he is thinking, and finally comes out with, “Bus. Bangkok.” Like I mentioned, I was feeling uber calm at the moment, so I thought, “whatever”. Then we get to the bus station, and we go to a counter and the woman purchases tickets. I’ve been under the impression, she worked for the railway, on account of the suit, but then we sit down, and she finally smiles, and I realize that they’re a couple who for whatever reason, like myself, could not board the train, and have taken me as their charge. They’re very friendly, and we all show each other our ID cards, and I throw out the only two Thai words I know too soon, and it becomes quiet because she doesn’t really speak any english, and his is sparse. Still, I get their names, Shirapon and Gouswan. I start writing in my journal, and I look up and she’s extending a bracelet to me. “She made it,” says Gouswan, “for friend”. I’m still wearing it, even though the elastic’s a bit too tight. We eventually get on the bus, and I fall asleep, only to be woken at 12:30 to get off the bus and eat. I do not know why why why we need to eat at 12:30, but they’re pulling me again. Then we get back on, and Shirapon reaches across the aisle to pull my blanket over me. I feel loved. 4am and we reach Bangkok. We get off the bus we’re on, and they motion for me to get on another bus, yelling something to the people in the seat next to me about where to kick me off. Then they are gone. I’ve spent the day here taking care of a few things and writing this ridiculously long blog before I head out tonight to the south. Pui should be here soon, I think we will hang out for an hour or two before I’m off. Sorry I don’t have a more exciting way to end this monstrous entry, I’ll try to do something exciting on the beach, like burn or something.