10:00 PM to bed, 5:00 AM to wake up.
This was truly something unusual for me.
The bed was very hard, so I expected that I wouldn’t be able to sleep.
Fortunately, I was wrong! I woke up a few times and diligently switched my two tormented sides, but other than that, the night passed completely peacefully.
The five o’clock wake-up is recommended so that we have time for our own development. After a quick wash, I started the day with meditation. Let’s say I “warmed up.”
Breakfast rice offering
This was the first official program of my first full day. This is a different kind of traditional ceremony than the lunch offering presented in the previous post.
Here we kneel at the edges of the hall, facing out of the hall, after having taken a small portion of rice placed on a small plate. The emphasis here is not by chance on the word “small” in both cases.
We divide the small amount of rice on the plate into four equal parts with a small spoon. Then the four monks approach each of us one after the other. We all raise the rice above our heads and then put one of the small portions of rice into the monk’s food collection bowl with the small spoon.
The monk thus receives a small spoonful of rice from everyone, 130-150 people.
When the ceremony is over, after a short speech, we also go to eat. The breakfast plate is smaller than the one for lunch. This obviously has a meaning.
The food is served to us in the following picture.
There is a long row of men’s and women’s tables next to each other in the middle of the room. We men line up on both sides of the men’s table, and the women form two rows at their tables in the same way.
Rice is the first on the table. Everyone helps themselves. Then toppings. Spices, enhancers. And at the end of the table, maybe something else, especially at lunch. A little fruit, a little candy, some chips. But it’s always in small quantities. If the first ones take more than they should, the others won’t have any left. Not everyone enjoys this food-taking, so let’s leave it at that.
After two meals, I still feel like I could be a vegetarian. Before I left Hungary, I had a plan to try it out for a few months. Maybe the time has come. I have no choice for 10 days, then we’ll see.
The morning walking meditation
This is a slightly shorter walk than the daytime one, it doesn’t even go up into the forest, we just walk around the large area of the temple below. So, shorter, but also slower. We walked 1.3 km in 45 minutes.
I realized the first time that this was not a performance hike, but after all, that’s not why I came.
After the walking meditation, we practiced sitting meditation. Then lying down.
There are not many instructions given regarding the meditation practice. This is how I got an answer to how the teachings take place when people come and go every day. Well, like this!
Here we don’t get meditation instruction, but the opportunity to meditate for several hours a day.
In fact, we spend half a working day practicing meditation every day. The more diligent ones do it in the morning, noon, and evening.
I rather wrote today in my free time.
My first realization here
I looked at my colleagues during the day. A thought slowly formed in me.
Most of us are alone here. Many of us also indicate our desire for silence with our little badges. I could say that this is not a communicative place. There is not much connection.
And there are hardly any smiles.
Seeing so many unsmiling people made me feel a little at home. In a worse way, I mean.
It’s okay that serious (mental) work is going on here. You don’t have to laugh for hours and smile all day. (Let’s say it works for me here, but whatever!)
Well, when the polite gesture of letting go again doesn’t get a reaction. When the silent greeting with a hand on the heart meets a blind gaze, and when my eyes searching for the reflection of the other eye feel darkness, then I ask myself: Why?
Can’t we develop ourselves with a smile on our faces? Who said that? Who convinced these people that meditation requires dignity? How many times did I feel this last year at one of the meditation courses.
The majority are so silent that they sit down across from you without any sign. They don’t even wish you a good appetite with a sign, and they don’t care about your well-being.
Later, in the kitchen, I experienced in the morning that whoever comes in doesn’t greet their colleagues, but only the cook and his assistant. Most people neglect even the most basic polite gestures.
If someone accidentally smiled at me, or smiled back, I felt that we were kindred spirits.
I have also committed the unwarranted smiling quite often here. For which I was stopped several times in Bali on the street, or about which many have commented, “I wish I knew how you do it.”
I realized that most of the people present here are probably looking for a solution here.
Don’t judge me too quickly for this statement. I’ll write the proof that I received shortly after the previous statement was written.
Returning to the previous sentence. I felt that the majority is here for the secret. How to be happy?
And at the same time, it occurred to me that the majority will not get closer to this secret here. Not because the secret doesn’t exist.
But because they are looking in the wrong place.
We will not get methods here. Because there is actually no meditation education. There are no lessons about Buddha. There are no very big dharma talks and explanations.
The only thing we get here is the opportunity to pay more attention to ourselves.
To better see the keeper of all questions, answers, and secrets: ourselves.
It actually became clear to me on the first day that no one even offered to go without the internet at the door.
As I look around, most people have their phones in their hands or in front of them. I saw someone working on a laptop during the day.
Our fifth roommate was watching YouTube videos until dawn.
There are definitely people who take the exclusion of the outside world seriously, but I don’t think there are many of us.
For my own sake, I turned off the internet on my own initiative. I didn’t hesitate for a moment about doing this. As I walked to the reception, I turned off my phone.
I knew in advance that I wouldn’t have such an opportunity like the one I have now. 100% attention. For the first time.
People! Moving forward has a price. Who pays for it here?…
I think the majority of society doesn’t explore this opportunity.
Today’s Dharma Talk
After the three types of meditation practices, a Dharma talk followed. The monk said that he had three topics in mind for today, but he couldn’t decide which one to give, so let’s vote.
He brought up the following three topics, and with them the evidence that my previous statement was correct. It’s a pretty quick and synchronized agreement between my statement and the evidence.
The topics:
- Buddhism: about three of us raised our hands.
- Meditation: as far as I can tell, no one showed up.
- Life Advice: about 150 hands went up.
For me, this “good advice for life” block was funny. I’ve heard almost every piece of good advice several times, in one form or another.
I’m sure that most of you have heard the big one too. It just hasn’t become knowledge for some reason.
I considered the first piece of good advice to be the best and most truthful.
Guess what’s important to you,
This sentence has always been highlighted so far. Nobody likes the next part anymore
and let go of the rest of the unnecessary things!
I think this is the secret, by the way: You have to put away the excess. But people don’t like to throw away what they’ve already acquired…
There was an interesting sentence that made me smile a little.
It’s not the poor who has little, but the one who wants more.
I smiled because I heard this sentence for the first time in my life just yesterday. That is, I read it. Among the letters of Seneca.
Buddhism and Stoicism…
I wholeheartedly support the idea that there will be as many of my friends here as possible who leave richer after a few days than they came.
For me, the proof of this will be a smile.
In any case, I am still smiling as I write this.
Buy me a coffee?
If you enjoyed this story, you can buy me a coffee. You don’t have to – but it means a lot and I always turn it into a new adventure.
Buy a coffee for Steve
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