10: From Shwe Oo Min Monastery

Beloved friends,

Surprise #1: I am still at the monastery. Surprise #2: The monastery has WiFi. Sometimes. I wrote this on Friday, January 20th, the day I was originally supposed to leave, but the Internet was not working that day, so it had to wait until today. Plus it’s not great WiFi, so you’ll have to wait until next time for pictures. Also, as with most things here, in order to learn about the WiFi, you have to know somebody who knows somebody. The WiFi is password protected. And disguised as a Dental Clinic. 

Other things were not much more straightforward. When I arrived, I was greeted by a short nun in pink robes whose baldness accentuated her pointy ears and sharp cheekbones —  she would have looked elfin if her face were not so squat. She also looked (and has continued to look) like she just drank a bucketload of unsweetened tamarind juice mixed with lime. Upon seeing me in my confused state, she barked: “wait here” and walked off. A few steps later, she turned around and mumbled something. I did not understand. She tried again, more violently than the first time:

— What is your plan?
— Uh, to meditate?
— Huh. Yes. How long?
— Until the 20th, maybe 12 days
— Only 12 days? It is not possible. I cannot. No more space for short stays like this.
(beat)
You have meditation visa?
— Y…
— How you get meditation visa?
— Uhh… I corresponded with Zaw Minn…
— How you get meditation visa?
— Uhh…
— OK. You wait here.

At this point, she abandoned the Finnish lady she had been accompanying, went inside the office, got me a key (which didn’t work) and took me to my room. (Note: I’m like 60% sure now that this nun IS the Zaw Minn who gave me the letter of support for the meditation visa.)

There are three tables at lunch, the first is for meat eaters, the second is only for meat-eating women, the third for vegetarians. A guy who’s spent about six months here all together (over three stays) learned yesterday that the middle table is only for women. I felt really proud of myself for possessing that information.

As for the practice itself, which after all is why I’m here, it took me about a week, 2.5 books, two interviews with the Sayadaw (head meditation teacher), and 2 reruns of an instructional tape to kind of figure out what the hell I was supposed to be doing. In summary, Sayadaw U Tejanya emphasizes the importance of practicing meditation in daily life, of cultivating always the twin pillars of awareness and wisdom, and doing it with Right Effort and Right Attitude. If I understand correctly, basically this means: Stop trying so hard. Notice what you are noticing. Notice the quality of your awareness — is it tight and full of craving or aversion? Observe that. When you notice that your awareness has wandered, come back to noticing. Don’t get hung up on the objects of your observation or even the quality of your awareness. It’s not you, it’s Dhamma, it’s all cause and effect.

Coming from a life as a layperson, Sayadaw emphasizes the possibility and importance of practicing all the time, regardless of what you’re doing. So I am writing this email, and that’s part of my practice. I try to notice my fingers touching the keyboard, my feet on the ground, my breath… most importantly, I try to notice when I start getting tense. That’s a surefire sign I’m being sucked into something. Really, the practice is to be present in and surrender to the world and to notice when there are things in your way of being (defilements, in the Buddhist lingo) that are getting in the way of your being here now, your being aware. And it doesn’t so much matter what you’re aware of so long as you pay attention to the lens through which you are looking — you don’t want to look at the world through your anger glasses and not know you’re wearing the lenses that make everything look frustrating. 

It turns out this is very rich practice. Also, I get to exercise regularly and have long conversations with my fellow retreatants. Sometimes it feels more like camp than meditation retreat. But only sometimes: then I remember that I’ve been up since 3:30 and that I can’t eat past noon. And I sit in meditation for at least 5 hours a day, and there’s also walking meditation, of which there’s also several hours. I like it. I’m staying a week more than I originally intended, hoping to deepen my ability to remain aware and strengthen my wisdom so I can carry this practice into the wide world with me. Allow me to try to share some of what I’ve gotten so far.

On meditation retreat, there are mainly two kinds of thoughts: there’s the long, incessant whine of inane banality that runs through the head, and there’s the clear pearls of wisdom that crystallize out of stillness and feel more like gifts than thoughts. Here are some of both:

• Sitting nervously in Sayadaw’s office before my first interview, waiting for the man to arrive, I notice what I’m pretty sure is a bottle of whiskey. And even if it wasn’t, it’s too good a story to give up.
• There’s a Chasidic story of a chasid who traveled far to see a particular Tzadik, a wise and righteous rabbi whose name I cannot recall. When the time came for the Tzadik to teach on the Sabbath, the re was no space in the room for the chasid from far away. While he was waiting outside, another chasid came to him and asked: “You’ve come from so far! Do you not want to hear the rabbi’s teaching?” The chasid, who eventually became a tzadik himself, replied: “Do you think I’ve come to hear the Rabbi’s teaching? I’ve come to see how the Rabbi ties his shoes!” — In my second interview with Sayadaw, a mosquito landed on his forehead. There was a flash of tension on his right shoulder, and it immediately disappeared. He continued to gesticulate in making his point, leaving the mosquito alone.
• List of retreat pets, named by me, in no particular order: Scabies Kitten I, Scabies Kitten II, Scabies Kitten Momma, Big-titted Bitch, Almost-Phantom Puppies (Big-titted bitch had babies, I’d been told, but didn’t see them for weeks), Bathroom Frog, Dead Rotten Fish (not to be confused with Dining Hall Fermented Fish, though they share a certain quality of deadness and both generate aversion responses. DHFF provides a better opportunity to practice, though — it smells worse and is more ubiquitous), Surprise! It’s a Kitten! (Encountered late one night when I went to get water), Other Bathroom Frog.
• There are two kinds of getting lost that happen on retreat (once you’ve learned the ropes of the center, of course): There’s getting lost in thought, and there’s getting lost from thoughts. In the former, the thoughts run around endlessly, carrying you away like a runaway train. In the latter, you wander so far into the abyss of the unknown that the thoughts cannot follow and there’s only stillness and light. It is in this getting lost that new things are found.
• Your mind creates all sorts of weird shit when you just sit and watch for a long time. I had a vision of a giant grasshopper cracking open my ribcage as if to eat my heart. Then a procession of Buddhas made of light glided into my open chest cavity. This is the kind of thing you just sit and watch.
• Sometimes your mind is not creating anything, but discovering thought patterns long stored in the hidden compartments, the dusty attics and basements of your body. On day two, I thought of my maternal grandfather and was filled with sadness. Then I thought of my other grandfather, and cried for him, which I have never done. And in the crying I discovered also anger for his having abandoned my father and my uncle and for never having met him. This also you sit and watch.
• Sometimes, the day is divided into hour-sized chunks the only difference between which is whether you’re anxiously anticipating sitting down or getting up.
• An unoriginal theory: old experiences become patterns stored in our body as well as our mind. Meditation attempts to find the patterns and rewire them into healthier ones, replacing unwholesome identification with wholesome thought. In a Freudian twist, insight experiences are like finding the root cause of the old pattern, which eradicates it immediately. This practice emphasizes the mind, but there are others (like yoga asana or Grotowski’s theatrics) which start from the body. Thoughts and resources on this are most welcome — I am looking forward to exploring further and finding a better balance between mind- and body-first practices. And there’s something about meditation and yoga as a Via Negativa, a paring away, whereas devotional practices are a Via Positiva, a showing of what the world could be like. 
• My mind was planning, and I noticed it was planning, and I touched the thing that drives the planning: it is a fear, a dread like a thin translucent disc of orange slowly spinning in my chest. It looks like it might crack if you poke it. I’ve been watching it.

That’s enough, I think, for now.

With love that’s endless as the sea of stars I see at night and wishing you wisdom and awareness and silence and pearls of insight,

Rafa