11/11/04 Followed an elderly monk on morning rounds back to his wat. He would not let me help him carry his heavy grocery bag but may not have understood my intention. Met a Thai family at his wat gathered to celebrate the initiation of one son as a Buddhist monk, but only for a 9 day period. At their invitation I attended the full two-hour ceremony and even joined in clipping a token strand of hair with ribbon-decorated scissors. However I did not stay for the feast afterwards which I regretted later in thinking about it, in case my leaving might have disappointed them.
11/12? Traveled to western hills to Sanklaburi near Myanmar border to escape oppressive Bangkok heat, traffic noise and thick smog, but discovered tropical heat is present everywhere and the city smog changed to choking wood smoke from village trash burned in open fires.
11/18 Traveled to ancient Siam capital Ayutthaya, an island upriver from Bangkok. Many beautiful red brick ruins of walls and chedi stupas and prang towers torn down by Cambodian invaders at about the time of the American revolution. Following the fall of Ayutthana the Siam capital was moved to Bangkok. The air is better but heat and noise of traffic and human crowds congest the downtown center, however the ancient ruins are fairly empty of people. The tourists arrive in big air conditioned buses from Bangkok about midmorning but they do not walk far into the interior grounds. There is an elephant corral offering rides guided by mahouts wearing colorful red costumes. While the customers ride on canopied seats, the mahout sits on the elephant's neck and kicks behind the ear flap with bare foot. To pass the time waiting for customers, some mahouts lounge on the canopied seats, some hose their charges down with water, some pose for tourist photos or invite the tourists to pose sitting on the elephant's knee, and others play with their pets teaching them circus tricks like catching and twirling hula hoops. The elephants seem to enjoy it. In fact an expression of insane glee spread over the broad, shaggy face of an old elephant as he sat on his haunches and waved his trunk to catch the next toss.
I haven't seen many monks in the downtown area but I did notice one who sat down at an outdoor cafe table with a newspaper. When I offered the cafe people to buy a meal for him, they accepted my payment but required me to present the dish and the cup of water to the monk personally, not just simply pay for it and walk away. So I moved the dish and the cup over to his side of the table. Then while I knelt with hands folded to forehead in a reverent wai position the monk chanted a fairly long chant. I would have liked to ask him about staying in a wat but he did not speak English and I did not want to disturb his meal, also I was afraid to break some custom such as sitting at an equal level with him. So I went on my way. I fear that if I do not break out of the traditional tourist groove of staying in hotels instead of the ancient traveler's custom of staying in a wat, I will miss this learning experience of visiting a uniquely Buddhist country. I remember how I once stayed in Wat Trimit in Bangkok 40 years ago penniless until my parents paid for an airplane ticket home. Maybe I am foolishly trying to repeat this past experience. It would seem easier to play a conventional tourist role but the usual tourist activities of food and sights and conversations in broken English do not appeal much to me. The prospect of dragging out two more weeks in hotels does not appeal to me at all but there is an invisible barrier keeping me out of the wats. Instead of developing a daily routine of wandering around the ruins, it might be more rewarding to find a meditation center somewhere which would allow me to stay there for the two remaining weeks. There is one I heard about called Suan Mokkh but it is located too far south near the Muslim disturbances. There is another one at Boonkanjanaram in Pattaya south of Bangkok where I may go visit tomorrow (11/21).
Not checking email until 15 December from India in order to stop thinking about the past to experience the present moment.
12/1/04 Back in Ayutthaya after spending 9 days at Boonkanjanaram Meditation Center. (Pattaya, Chonburi 20260, Khun Vitoon tel 038-756-907, boonkanmeditation@yahoo.com). It was worthwhile but difficult. A few words first about the background theory before moving on to the practice. The theory behind the practice is pretty well summarized in the google reference I found for "meditation centers in Thailand" which led me to choose Boonkanjanaram over some other sites. I ruled out Wat Pa Nanachat in the far east as being too austere (newcomers have to shave their head and eyebrows after staying more than three days) and Suan Mokkh in the far south as being possibly unsafe and also because their standard 10-day program for foreigners is only for the first 10 days each month, outside my Thai schedule. I was afraid that my stiff legs would be too painful at some other centers having long sittings whereas Boonkanjanaram has no group sittings at all. I was interested in Suan Mokkh after recently reading the book by the founder Buddhadasa Bhikkhu ( Mindfulness with Breathing, a Manual for Serious Beginners) about the 16-step anapanasati practice taught there. From this book I learned that my breathing awareness practice during my seven wilderness years only covered the first two or three steps of the full 16 step practice outlined by the Buddha in the Anapanasati Sutta. The first two steps have only the long breath and the short breath as their meditation object. All of the other 14 steps link breathing awareness with observation of other natural phenomena, especially the body (kaya), feelings of like and dislike (vedana), thinking (chitta) and the core concepts (Dhamma) of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and absence of self inherent in all compound things. According to the Buddha's 16-step anapanasati practice, the practice taught at Boonkanjanaram in my view would correspond to step number three (breathing awareness coupled with body awareness) except that the Boonkanjanaram practice omits the breathing part. It is called kayanupassana (mindfulness regarding the body) which is a branch of satipatthana (observation of the four foundations of mindfulness, of which the body is the first) or vipassana (insight meditation).
In other words, all that is required at Boonkanjanaram is constantly observing the body in one of four main positions: walking, standing, sitting or lying down. This sounds simple but there is a condition: fidgeting and mental distractions are not allowed. Each body position is maintained until enough discomfort is felt to force a minor adjustment within a position or a change from one main position to another. The purpose is to realize just how full of suffering the body really is. It may be a self-fulfilling prophecy but the search for pain always seems to find it. Even lying down becomes unbearable if the body cannot turn over. This in turn motivates the seeker to abandon desires, even the desire for future lives or heavenly birth which inevitably results in more suffering as the wheel turns. In ordinary life the pain of having a physical body is masked by a distracted mind which skips from one object to another driven by likes and dislikes like a butterfly dodging a net. However at Boonkanjanaram the environment is so well controlled that the mind is forced to observe the body without the usual distractions. For instance the rules prohibit entertainment like radios, music, reading anything but spiritual texts, talking to anyone except the teacher, eating together, leaving the premises or feeding the animals (many healthy dogs), and no food is served after midday. Each yogi is left on his own with hardly anything to do but sweep dry leaves or walk in circles. There were about 10 Thai monks and two or three laymen. Each of us occupied a solitary one-man hut built on stilts and having a balcony all around which avoided crowding the sandy walking paths under the trees. A couple of times monks gave me excess food on returning from their morning rounds loaded with plastic grocery bags. They would put the excess donations into orange buckets lowered from their huts for the staff to take to the kitchen. One monk gave me a couple of small books in English containing the 227 vinaya rules and lists of Pali terms which monks have to memorize. Another one gave me a flashlight, a small towel, two rolls of toilet paper and a cool nibbana pear which he was not allowed to eat at night by their own vinaya rules. The morning I left I walked over to his hut to say goodbye, ignoring the rule against talking which the monks do not observe anyway, and he insisted on giving me parting gifts of cookies and an apple. His good heart reminded me of Brother Paul wrapping his jacket around my shoulders as I set out from Clairvaux Abbey in Vina, California, almost forty years ago to go meet Swami Satchidananda in New York City. What a long winding trail since then.
After the first week at Boonkanjanaram my mind settled down to a calm samattha state like during my Sonoran desert retreats before getting caught up with godsons and property ownership in Costa Rica. My long continental hikes during those years are seen in retrospect as extended sessions of walking meditation. At Boonkanjanaram I learned to reduce the amount of food intake to minimize drowsiness resulting from a full stomach. Each yogi was brought a nested stack of four or five metal cannisters containing generous amounts of delicious food. I learned to spoon only the quantity of food that I needed into my familiar Rubbermaid 2-cup Servin Saver bowl, to cure the suffering of hunger not to indulge the senses, and then put the cannisters back into the stack frame before starting to eat. This prevented eating too much. In this controlled environment my mind stopped thinking about the past or the future. The long days crawled by slowly but patiently as long as I felt I could leave if I wished. Finally I did leave a bit early.
In conclusion, Boonkanjanaram was a valuable experience which I would like to continue in India but not in solitary practice. Buddhists take refuge in three jewels: the Buddha, the Sangha Brotherhood and the Dhamma Teachings. Being a member of a group, even without talking, definitely supports practice, and solitary practice can slide into depression. There needs to be a middle way between extreme solitude and distracting company.
12/1/04 Today I also mailed godfather greetings and my homepage in color with all of their photos on it to my eleven (11) godsons in Costa Rica except for Greddy who left no forwarding postal address. Each letter contained a hand-written personal message encouraging them to enjoy their school vacation and go onwards next year and always remember the five rules for their wellbeing and happiness. I completely forgot to mention Christmas; there is no sign of it in this southeast Asian tropical land. Each letter concluded with a colorful Thai postage stamp selected for each person, some with golden or emerald sitting Buddhas (Kenneth, Cristian, Greivin, Cesar), some with pointed temples (Carlos, Fabian, Daniel, Yariela), some with fantastic deities floating on clouds (Jesus 'Chapulin') or chasing deer in the forest (Juancito 'Presidente').
12/2/04 Last night experimented with going out to eat a midnight meal, more than a snack, instead of coasting on empty. On the plus side this cured the hunger pains. On the minus side it dissolved my mental concentration and I slept poorly and the keen enjoyment of eating breakfast the next morning was blunted. ; On the whole I conclude it is better for health and practice to abstain from much food after midday but soft drinks and a light supper such as fruit is OK. Still avoiding reading email until 15 December.
12/4/04 Air India flight, 6:10 pm, Bangkok to Delhi.
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