Travel Talk

Meditating with Thai Monks

 

Good day,

Check it, I leave the slum of a guest house and hit the streets looking for good times and eats. Cruise to the bus station, meet these dudes, show them where to get tickets, bus comes. They say “that our bus” I say nah and just chill. Turns out it is our bus, thanks guys.

Get in, totally loaded with mosiqutos so I wait outside, board last. I am sitting next to a monk. We start chatting, one thing leads to another, start talking about meditating aka “mental purification”. This Buddhist monk was born in Laos but lived in Canada most of his life, Montreal to be exact.

Suffice to say when we finally get through all the border crossings he says “want to come to our temple and learn to meditate?” I said “Sure”.

We take a tuk tuk to one of the NICEST wat’s I’ve ever seen. I’m staying in my own bungalow surrounded by other ones similar that house monks who have been in the program ~1-4 years and meditate 20 hours a day, sleep 4 hours a day and eat once. They only eat what villagers bring them. This place is very different.

I’m sleeping on the floor in this 12×12 ft room with a barrel for a shower. I arrive and he says I will come get you in a few hours. When they say “few hours” they mean few hours. Then we talk about this and that until I’m like “so how do you meditate” I got an idea and tried it, at first I’m like wow this is boring but I had nothing else to do. I mean I’m in this small room, no where to go, nothing else to do… I was jonesing for a smoke, a coke, a bite to eat, a conversation, anything but nothing, just stillness everywhere.

I remember him saying “When alone becareful of your thoughts, when with friends becareful of your words”. That’s really true when left alone with your thoughts and nothing else.

At 4 am I woke up like “WTF is that noise” and was like “Wow, I’m in a monestary, this is something new”. This monk was watering his lawn and showering with a hose. These guys meditate 20 hours a day and keep much different hours than say an average 9-5er. I’m almost like “how did I end up here!?”

After a while I don’t know but all these images start coming up and it was a most interesting / lonely / long / soul searching night. I’m welcome to stay as long as I want, may stay a few more days unless…

I DON’T GET MY VACCINE THING STRAIGTENED OUT! ERGH!! I go to 3 hospitals today, first one I’m like “no way”, next one I”m like “OK” and the guy is like “sorry, we only have verorab, you SHOULD be taking Rabipur”… Really? EVERYONE else says it’s ok and I even have one 1 verorab in the mix. Now I’m en route to the next hospital. Getting annjoyed and wishing I wore some Nike Air’s instead of flip flops.

Found this internet cafe as I had some work to do for my web business and now updating you here. I’ll either find a vaccine here or I need to bounce tomorrow.

Just yesterday I was like “maybe in Tibet I’ll go meditate with monks” now I got invited to their wat and I’m living like a 2 year + monks who just meditate, I’ve never thought so much and blocked so many thoughts, my mind is expanding, I like it.

To think, just 2 days ago I was writing how traveling was getting boring!

In the event that I stay with the monks(I can’t believe I’m staying with monks), I won’t be updating. If I didn’t have to go get these vaccines I wouldn’t have left, it’s a mission outside the city. In Nongkhai, Thailand on the border of Laos. Then again, I may make the trek, I like to get out and about, you know.

Tips hat,

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