Life at Suan Mokkh
I decided to spend 10 days at the beginning of March sleeping on a concrete bed with a wooden pillow, waking up at 4am, not eating after lunch, not speaking or gesturing to anyone (except smiles every now and then), not using any electronics, and, for 7-10 hours every day, trying to focus on my breath and nothing else. And I actually enjoyed it. This is life at Suan Mokkh.
For the first 10 days of every month, people come from all around the world to experience life at Suan Mokkh, one of the most famous Buddhist monasteries and Dharma meditation retreats in Thailand, for a variety of reasons: to escape from their hectic everyday lives, to learn about Buddhism and meditation, or to shift their focus inward and spend some time in their own heads. On the last day of February, everyone gathered at the Dharma retreat center: a small, peaceful compound about 2km off a highway in a small town in southern Thailand. It consisted of meditation halls, a dining hall, dormitories, hot springs, and some fields and ponds. Large trees lined the walkways from building to building and there were a few wooded areas spread throughout. The buildings were all open to the outdoors - the halls had no walls and were instead supported by pillars - so it always felt as though you were outside in nature (there were even by-design holes in the concrete walls of the dorm rooms to let some of nature's light and sound in).
The conditions were... rustic. The idea was to simulate living like a monk for our time there (sort of - monks are actually a lot more restricted than we were), and to live according to eight precepts of Buddhism. As a result, we agreed to abstain from many of the comforts of modern life, such as smartphones, beds, showers, and toilets that flushed. I alluded to the first two above, but the last two could use an explanation. Although the dorms were separated by sex, no one was allowed to be naked in any public place, only in the private rooms where we slept. The dorms had large water basins scattered throughout their interior, which were used for washing hands, brushing teeth, and doing laundry. The basins had plastic bowls sitting on their lip, and in order to use them and keep them clean, you scooped water out with these plastic bowls and dumped it on whatever needed to get clean. Bathing took place near the toilets, where more basins were located, and followed the same concept. Plastic bowl in, dump water (nice and cold!) all over yourself. And since we weren't allowed to be naked, we had to do this in shorts or underwear or a bathing suit. It was challenging, but I got used to it. Pooping was another challenge. Next to each toilet there was a bucket of water and a small plastic bowl. Again, same concept here: plastic bowl in, dump water where you want to clean, repeat. No toilet paper! (Except if you wuss out and buy some at the shop, which I didn't. To be fair, though, it's way easier for guys to do this, so I empathized with the girls I saw walking around with rolls of TP.) This was not unique to Suan Mokkh, as I've seen it elsewhere, but it was new for me, and took a bit more getting used to than the bum gun.
Being so open to the outdoors also meant that we shared the space with different kinds of wildlife, none of which we were allowed to kill (including mosquitoes). I opened my bedroom door on the first day to find my new roommate: a spider with a body about the size of a twonie and long legs which extended upward from its body and folded back down onto the ground an inch or so away. I had matches nearby to light my lantern so I had to resist the urge to use them to set the dormitory on fire in order to kill it. In the end, I wasn't sure if it was alive or not so I let it be, but I got my answer on day 3 when it was gone from its spot. At this point I realized that my bags were open, so, fearing it might be trying to hitch a ride, I checked my gear to make sure it was spider-free, which involved plunging my hand into several deep pockets and feeling around in all the nooks and crannies. Thankfully, I didn't find any unwanted guests. I would find a few more of those guys in my room over the next week, though, as well as a millipede and a centipede. Others shared their room with scorpions, so I considered myself lucky. There were geckos everywhere around the grounds as well. Most were small, about the size of my thumb, but there were a few that were much larger, about the size of a can of Pringles. I opened the door to my room one night and one of the larger ones fell seemingly from the sky, bounced off my face and chest, and immediately scurried into my room when it hit the ground. This was one of the few times I broke my silence ("Jesus!"). They were also very loud - loud enough to wake me up at night. Their call sounded like a high pitched gargle to warm up, and then: "GE-CKO! GE-CKO!", eventually trailing off with a sigh. Over my time there, I came to enjoy it. Thankfully, we all had mosquito nets in our rooms to protect us from creepy crawlies while we slept. In addition to some small wildlife, we also witnessed a band of about 10 wild monkeys (macaques, I think) playing in the trees outside the dining hall; and a few large, 4-5 foot long monitor lizards walking near and swimming in the ponds, one of which walked within feet of a girl who was meditating.
Hopefully this paints a bit of a picture of the retreat grounds and conditions. In the next post, I'll describe what we actually did all day.
For the first 10 days of every month, people come from all around the world to experience life at Suan Mokkh, one of the most famous Buddhist monasteries and Dharma meditation retreats in Thailand, for a variety of reasons: to escape from their hectic everyday lives, to learn about Buddhism and meditation, or to shift their focus inward and spend some time in their own heads. On the last day of February, everyone gathered at the Dharma retreat center: a small, peaceful compound about 2km off a highway in a small town in southern Thailand. It consisted of meditation halls, a dining hall, dormitories, hot springs, and some fields and ponds. Large trees lined the walkways from building to building and there were a few wooded areas spread throughout. The buildings were all open to the outdoors - the halls had no walls and were instead supported by pillars - so it always felt as though you were outside in nature (there were even by-design holes in the concrete walls of the dorm rooms to let some of nature's light and sound in).
The conditions were... rustic. The idea was to simulate living like a monk for our time there (sort of - monks are actually a lot more restricted than we were), and to live according to eight precepts of Buddhism. As a result, we agreed to abstain from many of the comforts of modern life, such as smartphones, beds, showers, and toilets that flushed. I alluded to the first two above, but the last two could use an explanation. Although the dorms were separated by sex, no one was allowed to be naked in any public place, only in the private rooms where we slept. The dorms had large water basins scattered throughout their interior, which were used for washing hands, brushing teeth, and doing laundry. The basins had plastic bowls sitting on their lip, and in order to use them and keep them clean, you scooped water out with these plastic bowls and dumped it on whatever needed to get clean. Bathing took place near the toilets, where more basins were located, and followed the same concept. Plastic bowl in, dump water (nice and cold!) all over yourself. And since we weren't allowed to be naked, we had to do this in shorts or underwear or a bathing suit. It was challenging, but I got used to it. Pooping was another challenge. Next to each toilet there was a bucket of water and a small plastic bowl. Again, same concept here: plastic bowl in, dump water where you want to clean, repeat. No toilet paper! (Except if you wuss out and buy some at the shop, which I didn't. To be fair, though, it's way easier for guys to do this, so I empathized with the girls I saw walking around with rolls of TP.) This was not unique to Suan Mokkh, as I've seen it elsewhere, but it was new for me, and took a bit more getting used to than the bum gun.
Being so open to the outdoors also meant that we shared the space with different kinds of wildlife, none of which we were allowed to kill (including mosquitoes). I opened my bedroom door on the first day to find my new roommate: a spider with a body about the size of a twonie and long legs which extended upward from its body and folded back down onto the ground an inch or so away. I had matches nearby to light my lantern so I had to resist the urge to use them to set the dormitory on fire in order to kill it. In the end, I wasn't sure if it was alive or not so I let it be, but I got my answer on day 3 when it was gone from its spot. At this point I realized that my bags were open, so, fearing it might be trying to hitch a ride, I checked my gear to make sure it was spider-free, which involved plunging my hand into several deep pockets and feeling around in all the nooks and crannies. Thankfully, I didn't find any unwanted guests. I would find a few more of those guys in my room over the next week, though, as well as a millipede and a centipede. Others shared their room with scorpions, so I considered myself lucky. There were geckos everywhere around the grounds as well. Most were small, about the size of my thumb, but there were a few that were much larger, about the size of a can of Pringles. I opened the door to my room one night and one of the larger ones fell seemingly from the sky, bounced off my face and chest, and immediately scurried into my room when it hit the ground. This was one of the few times I broke my silence ("Jesus!"). They were also very loud - loud enough to wake me up at night. Their call sounded like a high pitched gargle to warm up, and then: "GE-CKO! GE-CKO!", eventually trailing off with a sigh. Over my time there, I came to enjoy it. Thankfully, we all had mosquito nets in our rooms to protect us from creepy crawlies while we slept. In addition to some small wildlife, we also witnessed a band of about 10 wild monkeys (macaques, I think) playing in the trees outside the dining hall; and a few large, 4-5 foot long monitor lizards walking near and swimming in the ponds, one of which walked within feet of a girl who was meditating.
Hopefully this paints a bit of a picture of the retreat grounds and conditions. In the next post, I'll describe what we actually did all day.
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| The dorm room: home for almost two weeks |
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| The razor thin straw mat on the concrete bed, and the pillow |
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