Wat Pa Tam Wua Forest Monastery

This was probably the hardest time of my life. Sometimes it was all about not giving up and keep going. Especially the first three days were extreme. But I made it! And retrospectively I can say it was worth the pain and I would definitely do it again.
I am talking about the 10 days I spent in the Wat Pa Tam Wua Forest Monastery, situated in the far north of Thailand right on the border to Burma, in the Mae Hong Son Province.
The minivan we took from Chiang Mai dropped us off on the road close to the Monastery. From there we had to walk one kilometer to reach this magical place.

Jess and the mini van we took from Chiang Mai

When we walked in there were many people dressed in white sweeping leaves and taking care of  the Monastery. It was a really strange sight because we weren't expecting to see such a thing. I actually have no idea what I was expecting.
My first thought was I have arrived in the nuthouse but soon after I should become one of those people, sweeping leaves very mindfully and everything would be normal for me.
Jess and I checked into our Kuti and we had just enough time for a quick shower and to change from our normal clothes into the white ones before the evening chanting started. A little bit overwhelmed and confused we reached the Dhamma Hall where everybody was sitting on a pillow on the floor and chanting some worshippings. We took our chanting books and joined the group.

The Kutis

Evening chanting

Wat Pa Tam Wua is a very open minded Forest Monastery where everybody from beginners to advanced meditation practitioners can come and join the Vipassana meditation. There are four monks living in this beautiful place and more monks are visiting so that sometimes there are eleven monks. Two of them are teaching the secrets of Samatha and Vipassana meditation.
Unlike in a city Monastery you don't have to be silent the whole time and it is okay to stay only for a few days but it is recommended to stay at least 10 days to see some results. It is also allowed to read books about meditation and buddhism and to write.
Nevertheless everybody staying at the monastery had to undertake the five precepts which are:
1. Refrain from killing or deliberately harm others
2. Refrain from taking what was not given
3. Refrain from Sexualität misconduct
4. Refrain from false speech
5. Refrain from taking intoxicants

I decided to stay 10 days and I also wanted to take it very seriously so I decided to be silent. Being silent means wearing the 'silent and happy' badge which indicates that no one can talk to you and you don't talk to anyone.

At 5am on the next morning my alarm went off. Time for morning meditation. At 6:30am one of the monks rang the bell and everybody was supposed to be in the Dhamma Hall for the rice offering. After that it was time for breakfast. The food in the Monastery was vegan. We always had rice, vegetables and tofu for breakfast.
The first group meditation session started from 8am to 10am. We started with one hour of walking meditation through the beautiful garden. Some people would wonder now, what is walking meditation? It is basically very mindful walking. We concentrate only on our steps and on the breathing, keeping the mind calm and trying not to get distracted by any thoughts. If we catch our mind thinking, we have to bring it back to the object we are focusing on until the mind is completely calm and stops thinking so that we can be in the present moment.

Rice offering to the monks in the morning

Walking meditation through the garden

After walking meditation we always switched to half an hour sitting meditation and after that laying down meditation. Every single day at least one person fell asleep during laying down meditation and started snoring.
At 11am it was lunch time after we offered food to the monks again. Lunch consisted again of rice, vegetables and tofu. Lunch was the last meal for the day.

Food offering to the monks before lunch

Laying down meditation

At 1pm the second meditation session started, again walking, sitting and laying down meditation, two hours in total. This time we would walk through the forest.
There was also a dog living at the monastery named Pui Dog, who always followed the time schedule. He would lay next to us when we were meditating and come for a walk every morning and midday. He would also howl every time when the monks rang the bell to call us to the beginning of the meditation class. He was very adorable. I bet he had reached Nirvana already considering all the meditation and mindfulness he has been practicing...

The honorable Pui Dog

After the midday meditation we had time to ask the teacher questions and at 4pm it was time to sweep the leaves in the garden. We were supposed to stay mindful and don't let 'monkey-mind' come. The Abbot called it lovingly 'monkey-mind' when the mind can't stop thinking and it jumps from one thought to the next.

Walking meditation through the forest

Pui Dog also practices walking meditation

Question time

At 6pm it was time for evening chanting and after that meditation in the dark. After that we were supposed to meditate one more hour in our room and at 9pm it was bed time.

Walking meditation in the morning - everybody is following the monks (dressed in brown/orange)

It was a lot of meditation. Especially for someone like me who has never done it before but I really enjoyed it. Particularly the morning walking meditation was my favourite. It was also no problem not to eat after 11am and I loved being in the forest far away from any temptations. I struggled with the sitting though. Even after the ten days my legs still really hurt after 20 minutes sitting crossedleg on the floor.
The teaching monk always told us 'to know'. Know that we are sitting here in Wat Tam Wua and know that our body is breathing in and breathing out. Then he wanted us to focus on our breath, breathing in we would say "Bud" to ourselves and breathing out we would say "Dho". "Buddho" means being aware and mindful. We would repeat "buddho" until the mind was calm and not distracted by any thoughts. Or any pain. We were usually sitting for 35 minutes. It was very hard for me to concentrate on the breathing, on the first day I was always falling asleep and then it was also just too easy to get caught up in thoughts. But it became easier the more I practiced.
Laying down meditation was my least favourite form of meditation. It is not only very hard to stay awake but my mind would always go crazy when I was laying down and I just could not stop thinking. On the other side there was no pain in the legs anymore..
But the toughest part for me was the isolation. Because I was wearing my "silent and happy" badge every day I completely isolated myself from the rest of the people. For me it was okay not to talk, you get used to it very quickly but only concentrating on myself and not having any contact to other people was a challenge - considering that I am a very social person.
The Dalai Lama once said "When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you might learn something new." This is so true.
I also discovered that when I don't talk to anybody, I only get the input I want to get. I choose the books I read and I listen to what the teacher has to say. No one spoils me with all the crap people usually talk during the day. All the additional information that I don't need to know. I also had the opportunity to 'sort my mind out'. I had crazy dreams at night always remembering old times.
Once before I came to the Monastery I met a woman and she told me that meditation is like sorting your files in your head and throwing everything out you don't need anymore and by that restoring space for new things. Like when your computer gets old and you go through your old files and get rid of all the files you don't need anymore. I think it is a good way to describe it.
Being silent also helped me a lot to calm my mind down. Already on the second day I realised the difference and it was more easy for me to concentrate on my breath and stay calm.
Nevertheless I struggled the whole time and especially in the beginning I was counting the days. When I read my diary now, every entry starts with "day 2 is done! Only 8 more days to go. I can do it!" I really had to motivate myself not to give up.
Every day the yellow bus came to the Monastery and wistfully I was looking at it, wishing I would be one of the people who were leaving. But I stayed. I stayed 10 days and after one week it started to get easier (maybe also because I wrote 3 instead of 7 days to go in my diary).
I also experimented a little bit, I wanted to try fasting. So I endet up having only one meal on the third and fourth day and no meal on my fifth day. This resulted in me being an absolutely over emotional and very irritable person, even the Abbot annoyed me with his otherwise very amusing talks and jokes. I felt really bad and from the next day I decided to follow the two-meals-per-day-schedule again.

The Abbot 

Breakfast time - it was always very cold in the morning

March and April is always burning season in Northern Thailand. The air was always full of smoke, sometimes more and sometimes less. On my seventh day the smoke was really strong and suddenly we could see the fire up on the hill right behind our Kutis. It was not more than a 100m away from my Kuti and I could hear, smell and see the flames. When I came back from evening chanting I could see the line flames. The flames were not big but it was a long line and it was burning down the hill towards the Monastery. The locals stayed very calm, this is normal for them. I got told that they even set the fire themselves, there are many different stories why. I couldn't do anything else but trusting the firefighter outside and going to sleep. When I woke up the next morning I was still alive (onviously) but my room was full of smoke and everything was very smelly. I know, that was not very healthy for myself.
Two days after the smoke cleared and we could even see blue sky again.

Most of my free time I used to read about meditation. I read a lot and I also learned a lot. Before I came to the Monastery I had only a vague idea of what Buddhism is and I had no clue how to practice meditation. Now I have learned and experienced so much that I know if I would have to choose a religion for myself I would choose Buddhism.
Even though I  was having the hardest time of my life and my mood would change every hour from really happy to really mad I am so glad I did these 10 days and I feel like I have discovered a whole new me. I remember how happy I was on my last day. I felt so alive but in a different way, a way I can't describe and I was so unbelievably happy. In total I was eight full days silent and I lost 6 kilogram.