(Day nine.)

Yesterday, with earplugs in, I managed to stay absolutely silent right until the end of the day until the tai-chi man asked me a question. I didn’t want to be rude, so I answered him. Drat! I had failed in my twenty-four hour total silence attempt. Today presents another chance, in fact my last chance before my time at this Buddhist retreat comes to a close.

It’s now 10:53am and we’re approaching the half-way point of our final full day. I can’t tell you how excited I am at the thought of getting out of this place — clearly my ability to meditate is poor by in-room standards; it’s pretty much all we did yesterday and will do today. My meditative state has gone from one of dullness (think: blankness) to one which ponders quite a lot, although little to do with anything on our teacher’s script.

Since wearing earplugs, I’ve noticed that I’ve started to grind my teeth in a rhythmic fashion, I guess to fill the sonic void. Over the last few days in class, I noticed that I wriggle about a lot — often rocking back and forth like a madman. Squiffy has long chastised me and my ‘IT leg’; the rapid bouncing of my right leg when sitting on a chair. Maybe I really do have the synovitis dance, like my mother used to say?

Lunch is only an hour away and this (and going to bed) are now my favourite times of the day. The anticipation of whether the cooks will infuse any flavour into today’s dishes looms large on my mind. Fingers are crossed for a repeat performance of yesterday’s [l]pepper sauce!

The opening lines to U2’s ‘Walk On’, have popped into my head more than a few times now and I’m dying to listen to the song on my iPod. Right now, I cannot. Doing so would break my last attempt at total silence.

Lunch was a reasonable pasta with tomato sauce. Nothing on yesterday’s test match, but still a marked improvement on prior offerings. Oh, the biscuits were a nice touch too. It was vegetable soup for dinner. Not their best, but not their worst either. Squiffy magically produced a bag of Walkers salt and vinegar flavoured crisps and–after teasing me with them for a wee while–kindly shared them with me. I made exaggerated arm movements as I brought each godlike sliver of fried potato to my mouth, ensuring that our friends on the next table could see our booty. (Don’t worry, I did offer them around afterwards.) I think that I’ll save my 600ml bottle of Pepsi for the farewell lunch tomorrow.

In the evening, Tamir replaced the final meditation with a ‘light offering’ instead. Tea light candles and incense sticks were placed on and around the various stupas, statues and monuments around the site, to wish our family and friends well. It all looked very pretty and created an opportunity for me to take a few final atmospheric photographs.

Writing this, I’m now safely back in my room for the rest of the evening. Unless I talk in my sleep, it looks like I’ll have been successful in spending a complete twenty-four hour day in total silence. Even in a mini-monastery, I am rather surprised at how difficult it is to stay totally, absolutely silent. Even the strictest of students–not to mention monks–routinely break into whispers and at times fully-blown conversation. I feel rather proud of my achievement. Further so, the fact that I have spent nine days in near-silence. Don’t ask me what I’ve got out of it, just yet though!

[Show as slideshow]