10 days of sitting is not as easy as it sounds!

We persevered and made it through the entire 10 day meditation retreat! Although this doesn't sound like much of a feat, and admittedly we were prepared for this to be a relaxing little vacation, it turned out to be quite an intense and sometimes trying experience... While it was hard for both of us, overall it was completely worth the time and effort. The schedule was rigorous and about as far from our normal routine as we could possibly get. While we have become accustomed to waking up around ten, eating and enjoying coffee almost immediately upon leaving the bed, which inevitably led to an afternoon of strolling about shopping and snacking at any of a number of amazing sidewalk food vendors.

one of the rooms at the Dhamma Abha center

The retreat started with a lovely chartered bus ride from just outside Bangkok to the central Northern town of Phitsanulok. Although we were not required to maintain silence at this stage, the bus ride was very quiet and you got the distinct impression that folks were preparing themselves for what was to come. We arrived at the center in the late afternoon and as we disembarked the bus we were guided to our gender segregated areas so deftly we hardly had time to exchange a parting glance. We surrendered our cell phones, reading material, and pain killers, along with other contraband and in exchange received our room assignments, dish sets, and linen. The rooms were modest and there was truly no luxury about the place to distract one from the experience. The rooms for new students were a modest 12 foot by 6 foot rectangle with a built in platform bed, two shelves, a screened window, four or five coat hooks, a laundry line, several clothes pins, a small stool, and a three speed fan which could be plugged in to the single outlet. Each hall contained about 25 rooms and each room was constructed like a cubicle with walls about seven feet high but still about five feet short of reaching the ceiling. The design meant that all your noises could be observed by your neighbors in the hall and whether this design was to keep up the air circulation in the hot climate, or for the purpose of helping you maintain your "sila" of silence I'm still not sure. The bathrooms were much like the rooms and each of the twelve community stalls contained a toilet and a shower with communal sinks at either end of the bathroom block. These were cleaned every morning and never showed their inevitable heavy use by the many meditators. All in all the accommodations were completely reasonable and acceptable, lacking nothing and providing nothing outside the essentials. We were called to our first dinner by the gentle chiming of a meditation gong (projected through a loudspeaker) and got our first taste of the excellent and completely foreign vegetarian Thai dishes we would be enjoying throughout the course. Our introduction to the schedule was relaxed that evening as we listened to the welcome discourses and watched a video featuring Goenka that explained what we were embarking on. We were in bed by 9:30 with lights out by 10pm! The wake up chiming started at 4am and the first meditation of the day started by 4:30, which for the first couple days seemed completely unreasonable and unworkable as we both found ourselves nodding off again and again. Eventually we both developed techniques that helped us stay awake and aware for the earliest of the meditations but it was certainly a test of willpower. The days schedule followed with more meditations, breakfast, rest period, meditation, meditation, meditation, lunch, rest period, meditation, meditation, meditation, tea and light snack, rest period, meditation, discourse, meditation, then bed. We all did this with complete silence both in speech and body language and were instructed to work as if we were completely alone. Surprisingly, neither of us found that it was too difficult to be silent for the duration instead finding the prolonged sitting and intense concentration required to practice Vipassana to be the most difficult aspects of the course. During the later days of the course we were asked to participate in Sittings of Great Determination which entailed sitting in a single posture without moving for one hour. To those of us who've had desk jobs that might seem like something we do all the time and as such should be simple and painless. It is not so. The first half an hour feels like an hour but it's bearable. The next fifteen minutes seem like two hours and as you become increasingly uncomfortable you find yourself becoming agitated and losing concentration. The last fifteen minutes feel like an eternity with each second pounding itself into existence with the building pressure in your aching legs. It's everything you can do to focus on the meditation practice and if you could open your eyes you'd burn holes in the clock with your stare as you waited for the hour to finish. When it's over and you are free to relieve your body of it's torture you often find a great sense of accomplishment in having stuck it out through the meditation. After days of this it becomes easier and easier to maintain the postures throughout the other meditation hours and a strange thing start to happen to the pain and discomfort you feel - it stops interrupting your meditation practice and instead becomes like other sensations, allowing you to acknowledge that it's there but not stealing all your focus away from the task at hand. This meditation style is certainly not easy but it's difficulty is not exclusive to any particular type of person or personality. This can truly be practiced by all and each and every person could and would certainly benefit from the exercises. After the course completed it was recommended that we maintain a meditation practice for two hours a day in our outside lives - one hour in the morning, one hour in the evening. So far we've been making at least one of those meditations daily and intend to continue the practice, hopefully indefinitely. We're glad to have taken the course and are talking already about taking a second course in India in the next year or so. We would recommend this experience to anyone and have found it to be beneficial in both our lives already and look forward to continued results with continued practice! If you want more info you can check out http://www.dhamma.org/

Looking up at the spire of the main meditation hall and the lovely countryside around the center. So peaceful!

Right now we're back in Bangkok, having and it's drizzling and gray which makes it a bit cooler, a nice change from the heat we felt here before we left for Phitsanulok. We're getting set to ride Southeast to the Cambodian border with 8 days left on our Thailand visas. After 3 iterations of map purchases we've settled on a CD-ROM of max 1:2500 scale maps that seem to be detailed enough to satisfy both of us. We're unloading some books we've finished (or given up on) this morning and using every excuse to avoid getting on our bikes to run our errands. We're both feeling a bit apprehensive about riding again since we've been off our bikes for quite a while now but are confident that we'll get back into the swing of things without much trouble once we get outside Bangkok. Today we'll say goodbye to our lovely host Supaporn and make our way by train to Ayutthaya, about 75km north of Bangkok, to visit the temple ruins and give ourselves a less hectic starting point for our trip toward Cambodia.

Supaporn takes us all over Bangkok showing us the non-Farang (Farang is Thai for foreigner) sights

Oh, and for our friends and family:

Zach has started using skype phone and can be found by his gmail address in a skype user search so if you're using skype you should add us so we can talk to and maybe even see your smiling faces!

On a final note, to all those at the Lexis Bellevue office who have been caught up in the layoff, our sincerest condolences go out to you. We wish you the best of luck in your next venture and remind you all that if you've got some moolah stocked away and feel like traveling with some hardcore budget travelers we're always happy to have people to meet up with along our route! We're true believers that a severance package is best spent on travel!

Zen Zach and Equanimus Elise