The Hardships of Life at Wat Tam Wua Monastery
The bus left me alone on the highway and drove away.
The path to the monastery wound away between the mountains.
Everything around was filled with silence, calm, and beauty.
I arrived just in time - right at lunch. The bell rang, they had not had time to explain what was what, so they told me to leave my things and go eat with everyone.
After lunch I was settled into this dormitory house. On each floor there is one large room where everyone sleeps on mats, plus a toilet and shower. There are also fans and a couple of outlets. Men and women, of course, live in separate houses.
Usually they try to house everyone separately - each student gets their own little house (kuti), but at that time a lot of people had arrived.
Daily Schedule
- 6:30
- Wake up at dawn and first breakfast
- 8:00 - 10:00
- Morning meditation
- 11:00
- Lunch
- 13:00 - 16:00
- Afternoon meditation
- 16:00 - 17:00
- Help clean the monastery
- 17:00
- Tea or coffee.
- 18:30 - 20:30
- Evening meditation
- 21:00
- Lights out
During the breaks between meditations and meals, you can walk around the monastery and talk with other people who came to learn meditation. People come from many countries. During registration I glanced at previous pages of the guest book - there were definitely a couple dozen different countries.
You can also put on a "Silent" badge, and nobody will bother you with conversation. If that is what you want.
Food
The monastery serves vegetarian food. It turned out that you really can live on it. Although I had to eat about one and a half times more than usual.
Rice, vegetables prepared in different ways (some Thai ones; there were potatoes only once), watermelon, pineapple. Tasty.
They feed you twice: early in the morning and around noon. A lot. There is also tea or coffee at five in the evening. Plain tea.
Meditations
There are no photos of the process itself.
Three types of meditation were practiced: walking meditation, sitting meditation, and lying meditation. The last one turned out to be the hardest - I kept falling asleep. I really liked the first one, walking meditation. The monastery is in a stunningly picturesque place. Walking there brings enormous aesthetic pleasure.
The meditation experience turned out to be interesting.
About the Spiritual Side
I never got the feeling of "do not forget, ***, to suffer" during the whole stay. On the contrary, the monks encouraged people to be happy, and smiled. They said that above all one should be unclouded, and everything else comes later. They joked: "sorry, we have vegetarian food here, we do not offer barbecue."
Staying at the monastery fills you with calm and gives you a tremendous rest.
The beard got a couple dozen "likes" over the whole stay. Including from monks. Including a couple of "likes" from the abbot of the monastery.
It should also be noted that all of this is, conventionally speaking, free. Nobody demands money for this "sanatorium." Nevertheless, visitors are expected to make a donation to the monastery (but of course nobody checks this, and the amount is not specified in any way).