(Day two.)

Three chimes of the gong at 6am meant that it was time to drag myself over to the gompa to meditate for forty-five minutes — the first of three meditations each day. Less tired than yesterday, I was able to remain mostly awake this time around, although had pretty much a calm, blank mind throughout. Tamir, our meditation leader, kept whispering words to the effect of “don’t try to quiet your busy mind, it cannot be forced” down his necessary microphone. It seems that I might have been born to meditate as, whilst my mind is usually buzzing with thoughts, opinions and riffs, when I ask for calm, it seems that I get it.

After an acceptable breakfast (muesli, bananas, bread, the most sickly red-flavoured jam), I once again found myself cross-legged in the gompa — this time listening to Glen explain the fundamentals of Buddhism. A note of caution to readers here: Don’t expect to learn anything about Buddhism itself in the scriptures of this blog; I’ll only be writing about my personal experiences of my ten days inside a mini-monastery — both good and bad. If you want to read about Buddhism, grab a copy of Tibetan Buddhism from the Ground Up: A Practical Approach for Modern Life from Amazon.

At 11am, it was time for yoga with Thomas, a beany-thin pony-tailed, gentle man from Munich who–quite brilliantly–shared the same vocal chords and accent as Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was only the second time that I had tried yoga*. “Dat’s id… Breed deeply… Veel di abdumin rise and vall… Az you condinue do breed…”. I was quite quite pleased with my second attempt at yoga. Bendy Thomas notwithstanding, I was the only male in a room full of reasonably fit chicks, managing to hold my own right up until the balance-on-you-shoulders-and-point-your-legs-vertically-in-the-air position. Which didn’t go at all well, even with Thomas holding my trembling ankles.

Lunch was to be the finest meal of the day (dry falafels, dry rice, bread, hummus), after which I squeezed in thirty minutes to perform my ill-chosen ‘karma yoga’ (read: chores). Each of us had to pick a couple of daily duties from a list, e.g. sweeping, fetching drinks for the teacher, banging the gong. By the time the list got to me, there were only a couple of unallocated tasks left, one of which was “stupa cleaning”; so I put my name down. Turns out that a stupa is a memorial sculpture displayed in memory of Buddhists who have demonstrated their own impermanence. It also turns out that stupas attract more than their fair share of bird poo. So yes, “stupa cleaning” amounts to little more than cleaning bird poo off memorial stones. Great choice, Dave!

The class was split into two groups and sent out to discuss the morning’s teachings; for an hour we were allowed to speak, so long as we kept our words on-topic. I don’t know whether it’s got anything to do with my vow of silence, but every time I opened my mouth something controversial popped-out. More controversial than my friend Vivian Street giving his talk on charity to the proverbial Great Ormond Street hospital (sorry, private joke, couldn’t resist). Brilliantly, before those most offended were able to formulate a cohesive response, the gong rang and we had to return to silence until the next day. If I’m lucky, next time I’ll be in a discussion group with Squiffy: I’m going to point out all her annoying little habits (like leaving the toilet seat down) just a few seconds before the gong rings, leaving her smouldering away in her silence for the next twenty-four hours!

The next two meditations caused me physical discomfort. Sitting cross-legged, perfectly still for three-quarts of an hour is hard to do anyway, but really difficult with ravenous mosquitoes on the hunt for blood. One of the house rules is no killing, so all we can do is slowly brush them away in a zen-like manner.

Dinner was–again–a very dreary flavoured water (“soup”). During a brilliant break of the contemplative silence, one of the monk’s mobile phones beeped to alert him to an incoming SMS text message, which got me thinking: which airtime package does a monk sign-up to? Presumably a contract with many texts, but minimal talk-time minutes. Is the handset pre-configured to silent mode too?

* The first time I attempted yoga was at home in London with Squiffy and her MTV yoga video. I’m ashamed to admit that I gave-up right away as I snapped the video’s accompanying ‘yoga band’. Picture an elasticated skipping rope: Lying down, I was to tuck the rubber strip under my feet and pull the ends towards my waist. As the band tensioned, I warned Squiffy that it would snap if I pulled it any further. “Nonsense man”, she said and demanded that I fully straighten, else I wouldn’t get the benefit of the stretch. Needless to say, the band snapped, recoiled and whipped me on the forehead. And Squiffy fell about laughing. The court case against MTV continues.

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