Monkchat

It had been a while since I'd had a decent conversation about Buddhism so I decided to attend "monkchat" at Wat Chedi Luang, a stunning temple in the centre of the Old City in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand.

The monkchat set-up is a collection of tables and chairs shaded by trees in the temple grounds where young monks and novices (monks not yet qualified), take it in turns to attend for a few hours each day to talk with visitors, one on one or in groups. These conversations allow visitors to ask questions about Buddhism and the life of monks, and encourage the young monks to improve their language skills and learn about the lives of foreigners. Great idea; everyone's a winner!

As well as myself, my monk chat group consisted of a small collection of visitors from the US and France and our monk was Tung, a friendly 20 year old newly qualified monk with good English skills, from Wat Suan Dok, a nearby Buddhist monk university. As I didn't have a voice recorder it would be unfair to quote everything Tung told us as I'm only going from memory and a few scribbled notes which are, of course, open to interpretation but, here's what I got out of it:

If you were to give a Westerner just one piece of tangible advice to take away, what would it be?

"Practise meditation," Tung replied with a laugh. He went on to explain that monks in Thailand generally learn two types: 'insight meditation' and 'tranquility meditation' but that in Theravada Buddhism (the type of Buddhism they practise in Thailand) they only practise insight as it makes them more knowledgeable.

Insight mediation or "Vipassana", also known as "mindfulness" meditation, is the meditation of nirvana - the end of suffering. This type of meditation is about observing physical feelings in the body, and observing one's emotions, but without focusing on them and without attachment; just noticing them.

Tranquility meditation or "Samatha" is the meditation of enlightenment - the wisdom of emptiness. There are several types of tranquility meditation but one often used is a focus on the breath in order to calm the mind.

The Buddha practised both types but Tung stipulated that it's very important to have a meditation teacher and that you study it before you practise otherwise if you practise before you study you are likely to go the "wrong way". (I'm not sure what happens if you go the "wrong way", we didn't ask.)
  
Why do Theravada Buddhist monks not practise Samatha?
Because it doesn't give knowledge but Samatha meditation is like magic - "monks can fly!" (I couldn't get a solid explanation for this but, believe me, I'm looking for one!)

What happens to a Buddhist's soul when he dies?

Tung explained that we never see the soul, we can just feel a love. We go to one of four places when we die, depending on our lifestyle / state of mind:

1) If we are an angry person, we will go to an evil place
2) If we are a desirous person, we will become a "hungry ghost"
3) If we keep the five precepts, we will be reborn into the human world
4) If we have high merits we will go to heaven. 

What are the five precepts?

No killing
No stealing
No sexual misconduct*
No lies
No alcohol.**

*I've looked into this and as long as nobody gets hurt it's fine. Phew!
**Yeah, it is what it says; bad luck.

How do you know if a Buddhist is enlightened?

Apparently you don't. You continue to go to your Buddhist meetings and they will go to their enlightened meetings to talk about things but you will never get to find out.

Do monks pray?

"We don't pray, we chant and meditate."

Fascinated, and eager to learn more, I returned a week later and, this time, spoke alone with a monk named Supot, aged 23.

Supot, who travels to attend monk chat almost every day from a monastery outside of the city in the countryside, explained how difficult it can be to speak to visitors who have strong religious beliefs. "They're not open to new ideas," he told me. Because they're so focused on a "God" figure, he went on to clarify, they can't get their heads around a religion without one, and constantly try to push Buddha into that role which, of course, won't fit because Buddha was a regular guy (albeit a prince - but he was still human like the rest of us, and that's the point).

Supot quoted a Buddha proverb, "Everything is dependent on your actions."

His point is that Buddhism is all about taking responsibility for yourself, rather than relying on being judged, rewarded or punished by an external God. "When I put something on my Facebook," Supot told me, "not everything is about Buddhism. You must not only pray for things, but you must also take action. Things happen, not because of their wishing or praying but because of their action."

I told him I'm still amused to find that monks use Facebook but he didn't respond directly, although he did express disappointment that the world seems to be reducing face to face communication, which he deems important for happiness, in favour of spending more time making and maintaining relationships online. He advised me to live in reality because virtual friendships are not real. And oddly that echoes exactly what my good friend Karen told me the day previous. (I guess I need to listen!)

There's a fair bit of information here and everyone will make their own interpretations but, for me, there's a big question jumping right out that cannot be answered by a Theravada Buddhist monk:

What'll happen if we practise tranquility/Samatha meditation, the meditation of enlightenment? Will we find that "prayer" (or a form of prayer) can manifest our wishes without action?

Air on the G string

On the back of my previous post, a friend asked:

Do you believe in a creator?

I believe the closest there is to a creator is a life force; a special energy. I don't for a second imagine there's a "God" or creator. This is such a huge concept for us to get our heads around that whatever it is, is likely beyond human comprehension, HOWEVER the concept of there being an energy force makes a shed load more sense to me than there being one "divine being" who's in charge. I mean, if there's one divine being in charge, WTF is he up to allowing all this suffering? Nope. I believe in the whole interconnectedness and balance thing, yin and yang, cause and effect, as everything about it ties in with absolutely everything else that I (think I) know and am learning. The concept of a divine creator ties in with none of my other beliefs or understanding of anything whatsoever.

When I say "God is love" (i.e. follow the path of love) I'm over-simplifying in order to make it tangible but what I believe is that showing love, kindness and compassion is the PHYSICAL part of the realisation that we're interconnected. Do you know what I mean? Those who see beyond our illusion of separateness, those who fully realise that we're interconnected - not just with each other but with everything - and that everything is ruled by cause and effect, will automatically treat everyone (and everything) with love and respect because they know it fucks up the balance otherwise but, anyone who doesn't really get that can simply follow the path of "God" (love) and end up having pretty much the same effect without having to understand, or believe, the nuts and bolts of it.

I’m now going to explain the Lord’s prayer
(Oh yes! It’s all go this morning, isn’t it..?!)

Our father
(god-> the life force/energy, manifesting itself as love)
who art in heaven
(which can be seen/realised when the mind reaches peace->clarity->nirvana)
Hallowed be thy name
(which is highly respected, sacred)
Thy kingdom come
(This place, this heaven, this nirvana, will be reached in our minds)
Thy will be done
(when we will realise our interconnectedness and treat others with love)
On earth as it is in heaven
(in our day to day lives.)
Give us this day our daily bread
(When we ask for our basics for survival, nothing more, without greed)
And forgive us our trespasses
(We will be treated by others with love, kindness and compassion when WE fuck up)
As we forgive those who trespass against us
(when we treat others with love, kindness and compassion when they fuck up.)
Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil
(Let’s steer clear of greed and attachment and our minds will be free from pain)
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory
(because this realisation of our connectedness, and therefore our loving treatment of others, is what it's all about; it's the only power that will make us happy and healthy, and allow us to know true happiness: nirvana)
For ever and ever
(and although our lives are impermanant, these rules are not.)
Amen.
(Word.)

My interpretation of The Lord’s Prayer:

Our life force, which is sacred, we will come to know when our minds reach nirvana.
This place, this heaven, this nirvana, will be reached in our minds
when we see beyond our illusion of separateness, when we realise our interconnectedness, and treat others with love in our day to day lives.
When we ask for our basics for survival, nothing more, without greed, and when we treat others with love, kindness and compassion when they fuck up, we ourselves will be treated by others with love, kindness and compassion when WE fuck up.
Let’s steer clear of greed and attachment and therefore keep our minds free from pain, because this realisation of our connectedness, and therefore our loving treatment of others, is what it's all about; it's the only power that will make us happy and healthy, and allow us to know true happiness: nirvana.
Although our lives are impermanant, these rules are not.
Word.

Every day, Nirvana

My 3G connection failed - as it regularly does - on my walk to work this morning, interrupting my joy at listening to a Tubular Bells/Christina Aguilera mash-up on YouTube. Unenthused with most of the music on my iPhone at the moment, I put on a meditation recording.

Instantly I was whisked away from the cold, the traffic and my fellow commuters, and the soothing voice took me up and away to a higher place where I started to feel untouchable. I felt surprisingly relaxed very quickly and was beginning to feel connected when suddenly the voice was cut off and my phone started ringing into my earphones. Urgh. It was the estate office where I live so I figured it could be important - was my flat flooded or on fire? Reluctantly I answered it. When am I going to pick up the parcel that was delivered last week? So, not even slightly important. How irritating to have been grabbed from my path to Nirvana and thrust onto the concrete plaza in front of Canary Wharf station.

Not that the estate office shouldn't have made the call, they're just trying to clear some space for the inevitable rush of Christmas deliveries. But the point of the today's rambling is that this just made me realise how much I need to be away from what is increasingly appearing to me to be pointless, banal crap.

It's not that my life is stressful, oh no, far from it. I've got it pretty easy at the moment, things are going well for me, I have nothing whatsoever to complain about. It's just that I feel the urge, the need, to be in a higher place. I'm starting to see a lot of stuff that goes on around me as truly worthless. Not that I'm coming from a negative place; I'm certainly not seeing things from a depressive perspective, and I don't feel at all jaded. Just a lot of things I once took as red and never questioned seem so superficial to me now.

Seven years ago before I moved to London I stared at the ceiling above my bed and said out loud to myself, "There has got to be more to life than this." And I found that there was. I removed myself from the Northern town I lived in and discovered the exciting metropolis that is London. I've travelled and partied, met some incredible people and done and seen things I'd never imagined I would or could. And I'm still discovering and learning and it's still exciting and I do still love it, I really do. But in parallel to that I find half of me in a similar headspace to seven years ago, only a step up, if you like.

I need to connect with our life force and I need to be around people who understand this. I don't mean I want a weekend at Centerparcs, I mean I need to get right back to basics, to the very root of what we're made of. I want to be creative and feel I must listen to the voice inside but, I'm struggling to hear what it's saying. But I do know it's speaking.

I'm going to a meditation workshop next week presented by one of the practitioners who introduced me to reiki. I'll use this to help me decide whether I will take the opportunity early next year to cut myself off from the outside world and spend ten days at a meditation centre. I want a piece of Nirvana and I want to be able to access it every day. Only then, I feel, will I be able to hear what my inner voice is telling me.