I had wanted to do one of those Vipassana meditation retreats for some time.
I had heard good things about them, perhaps people kept the bad things to themselves. I remember applying and getting denied to three different courses while traveling through South and Southeast Asia in 2012. One course in Thailand was deemed full and another changed into Thai-speaking only. A course in Nepal never got back to me. Thanks for that. Never mind I thought, I suppose I wasn't ready. I applied to another meditation course—not Vipassana—in Kathmandu, and was accepted. Heading to the capital on my first full day in Nepal, my bus crashed and overturned. I hurt my back and received a few stitches on the back of the head. I missed the course. Perhaps the universe was trying to tell me something. I did manage to make the next month's course, an intro to Tibetan Buddhism and meditation. It wasn't as strict as Vipassana with fewer hours of meditation and only a half day of silence, which was probably better suited to me at that time.
Fast forward to 2015. I got accepted to Cambodia's only Vipassana center located just outside of Battambang, the country's second largest city with approximately a quarter million people. A colleague had recently taken the course and I was excited to finally get to partake myself. A little "soul-searching" if you will. Ten days of finding myself...yeah, I knew that wasn't going to happen, but still 10 days of silence and s l o w i n g it down sounded appealing. It was coming after leaving my job at the newspaper and prior to going back to the US for a visit. Time for some reflection before the next chapter unfolds.
Before I departed for the retreat, I got this message from a friend.
This was honestly the first time I'd even considered opting out because I just didn't count on it being that hard. Besides, the last six months had flown by and this was a mere 10 days. On my last day of work the week before, the aforementioned colleague tried to tell me how difficult it was. It's like you people wanted me to fail. C'mon, you are mentally weak!
I arrived in Battambang a day early, primarily so I didn't risk missing the bus leaving at 7am the day the retreat began. I hadn't risen that early in months and knew it would be a challenge to sleep early and not be grumpy as fuck from the outset. We would be rising at 4am during the course, but I'd deal with that when the time came. Six hours and nearly 300 km later, my minibus arrived. I got a moto-taxi to the Seng Huot hotel, flirted with the female staff—as one does—and checked into my room. I then proceeded to look for some shirts I could wear at the retreat that a) wouldn't cling to my body and b) weren't screenprinted with some bizarre message that might potentially distract someone from being one with the experience. I found two shirts at the market for less than five bucks that were perfect for the occasion—two shirts I'd never wear anywhere someone was actually looking at me.
I arrived at Dhamma Latthika, the meditation center, at about 2:30pm on day zero for registration and to lock away our phones and valuables. Say goodbye to distractions! Located 18 km from the city center, it was located down a dirt road behind a small hill of trees called Phnom Trung Moan, which supposedly translates to Chicken Cage Hill because there are or were many chicken farmers in that area. I was later told by the local guy wearing sunglasses inside the hotel that the center was actually at Duck Cage Hill, which was close to Chicken Cage Hill. Good to really know what's what.
The center felt like a prison to some degree despite being set among rows of fragrant flowering frangipanis. Even the late S.N. Goenka, one of Vipassana's teachers, said on video during our first teachers' discourse that it was "like prison." Presumably to make you have greater appreciation for everything once you got back to the outside. We had our own basic rooms: small single bed with a thin hard mattress, sheet, small stiff neck-inducing pillow, hot woolly blanket, mosquito net, small table with meditation mat and cushion, wash bucket, some shelves and a clothes line. There was no fan and it was hot as fuck. The average daily high had recently been 36C/97F with a "real feel" of 42/108. Swell. More like sweltering. Fortunately there was a grated window set in the middle of the door, which allowed in the evening breeze and would also allow people to catch sight of you masturbating if you were not abiding to the five precepts we had all agreed to in the beginning:
They were pretty easy to abide to, well except for the first one. I accidentally caught and crushed a mosquito in my fist purely through natural conditioning. Who am I kidding, that fucker wouldn't stop buzzing in my ear. But I did abstain from stealing, sexual activity, telling lies and intoxicants. The meditation mats were desireable, but it would have been difficult to walk out of there with one under the arm without being noticed. Sexual thoughts were a nonissue. I'm visually stimulated and there was nothing to see there. This was no hostess bar. We were also segregated from the women with the center being cordoned off down the middle. There were no lies to tell as we weren't speaking and the only intoxicants were possibly overindulging in the frangipani or taking an extra large spoonful of Nescafe at breakfast.
I was told there were 107 or 108 participants. Only eight foreign men and probably about the same number of foreign women although I didn't attempt to count the shadows through the curtain that separated us during discourse. The rest were locals with about 10 monks thrown in for good measure. There was an American guy who had competed the course twice previously and whose girlfriend was interning in Phnom Penh. There was the 49-year-old British train driver with gold-capped teeth who had kids ranging in age from 19-29. There was a German dude and a French guy training in Muay Thai, an older chocolatier from France whose been living in Saigon for the past 18 years and the thin tatted Russian guy who has been traveling around Asia by motorbike with his girlfriend for the past two years. And let's not forget the fluffy white haired guy who seemed like he wasn't talking from the beginning. Respect. It was an interesting mix.
After our dinner of rice porridge, soupy vegetables, smelly soybeans and some crunchy vinegary vegetable we headed to the meditation hall for our first group meditation. Or maybe we ate after meditation, I can't remember. We were assigned mats presumably so they would know exactly who was hiding in their room when they were supposed to be sitting cross-legged suffering in the heat. I mean reducing suffering. Either way, we were now engaged in "noble silence." No more talking, not even eye contact, for 10 days. The overhead fans barely seemed to work as sweat beaded down my back and my face began to feel greasy. "Short Dick Man" could be heard blasting away at a nearby wedding party. Focus on your respiration. Focus on the area around your nostrils. The triangle from the top of your nose to the area above your upper lip. Feel the sensation from the inspiration. Feel the sensation from the expiration. Eenie weenie teenie weenie shriveled little short dick man.
The rules regarding dress stated no shorts or tank tops for modesty and to avoid distracting others. But it was HOT. I normally meditate in my boxers with the air conditioner on. This was asking a lot of me. At least I was finally able to make use of the longyi I was given in Burma years ago and the Thai fisherman pants that I never wore. Too much hassle when you need to take a leak. Others wore similar mostly loose fitting garments from those baggy crotched (aka MC Hammer) pants to standard linen trousers. Some just wore their pajamas and monks naturally wore their undoubtedly stinky saffron robes. White was the most common color and tops varied from standard tees to what seemed more like martial artist attire.
It was only a matter of time before people seemed to start communicating via other usually closed orifices. One guy broke the ice after dinner. Braaaap. I'm guessing he wasn't used to eating so many vegetables. Or maybe it was those soybeans. The frequency of others passing gas in a similar unashamed fashion increased as time went on, especially near the shared toilets where I got a laugh out of it. A relief physically and mentally so you could just go about your business without worrying if anyone was listening. They're not going to look me in the eye anyway so it's all good.
The morning was the best time of day. The bell gonged and people scurried to be the first one to the "showers." There were six stalls, some with buckets, some with just a faucet sticking out of the wall and a few with PVC piped overhead. Those were the ones you wanted. It was actually nice that early in the morning. I was only able to do some light stretching, brush my teeth and splash water in my face before the 4:30 bell. Then we shuffled silently to the meditation hall. From 4:30-6:30am we meditated—or tried to—sometimes silently and sometimes to the moaning, er chanting, of Goenka. It was distracting. He would repeat himself endlessly, which was all then translated into Khmer making it even more agonizing to endure. It was all part of the plan. "Patiently and persistently. Patiently and persistently, you will succeed," he said.
Well, I wasn't exactly failing, but my legs were in pain. I felt like I was tearing something. After that first prolonged session I limped my legs awake and noticed a monk ahead of me limping too. Eh, I thought, maybe this is just standard practice. The next day I realized this monk was walking on the ball of his left foot as if a rusty nail was embedded in his heel. And he was like 60. It was hard to really ascertain my ability to sit as I only had locals to compare to. That wasn't fair. I wanted to see how the other foreigners were fairing. Occasionally when I opened my eyes I could see my neighbor's knees bouncing and that gave me some reassurance. But nobody seemed to be holding their knees together during my "timeouts." Perhaps they did when I closed my eyes. Yeah.
It was easy to see that this was going to lead to greater appreciation for nearly everything else in life. But how long would that last? I missed my shitty bed and my hot room. At least I had a fan and an air conditioner. I missed not wearing flip-flops to the toilet. I missed brushing my teeth into the sink. I missed steamed rice. I'll never voluntarily eat rice porridge. Only after a spoonful of sugar and a handful of peanuts did it finally hit the spot. I missed good fruit. Another fucking banana? I didn't really complain like this, but retrospectively it's easy to have a laugh. I was grateful for the food and the experience. It felt somewhat similar to camping except there were no marshmallows and it wasn't cold. Camping—the only time instant noodles taste amazing. That Nescafe and drizzle of sweetened condensed milk was just heavenly. No joke.
On the second full day, I realized it was good to have something to preoccupy the mind. That's why the monks were always sweeping their rooms or raking the most recently fallen leaves. With nothing to do, it was easy to fall back and think about how there wasn't anything to do. To idly sit waiting for the next meditation session. Why am I sitting? I've been sitting all day! I didn't want to lay down on my hot bed either. Wondering who was passing by and where they were off to. The toilet? The shower? Options galore. Some people washed the smell out of their boxers, the sweat from their shirts or showered at any opportunity. As if keeping the hair moist would prevent the sweat from trickling down their back during meditation. I went for walking meditations or just walks round and round. I saw a snake, I observed more, I stopped to smell the "roses" and I wondered if that woman I saw in the distance was thinking about sex. Not because I was, but my mind just wondered. I visualized her clenching her teeth fighting to fend off images of engorged members. I laughed and continued walking.
When I was lying down I started to see things. Not hallucinations or to see things as they really are, which is what Vipassana actually means. But rather, I noticed faces in the concrete walls or in the plastic, which covered the rafters of our cell block's shared ceiling. When the breeze blew, the plastic changed shape sucking in or out depending on the draft. I saw Darth Vader, Yoda and a stormtrooper. I saw Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Bob Dylan and faces I've already forgotten. Famous facial profiles were everywhere if you just looked for them. If you had nothing else to do. I really only noticed the fragrance from the fragipani and well, when I was in the toilets, the "fragrance" from in there, which is what you'd expect the morning after a naan and channa masala. Might have been even more pleasant.
It was day 2 that I started to think I might not see the course to completion. The voices in my head were like "You fucking pussy! You said yourself it was just 10 days!" In actuality, there was little back and forth. I was content with being done, OK with throwing in the towel because I rationalized that it would be better to leave early than to endure 10 days of rising anger. That was obviously not the point of meditation. I could not meditate through the pain. Was it all in my head? I didn't think so. I think I could have done half the scheduled sittings. And maybe have done a lying meditation or plopped myself in a chair for the other half. But I failed to communicate with the teacher early on and I convinced myself leaving was what I needed to do. I spoke with the teacher's assistant/translator and let him know how I was feeling and he convinced me to at least stay until the following morning. That was fine, I thought, leaving on day 3 sounded better. Stupid, but true.
So now, the light at the end of the tunnel was less than half a day away. Easier to take anything hour by hour or day by day. My meditations were improving overall as I could sit, when forced, for longer periods of time. And I could endure more pain than I would have normally allowed myself to. 100 inhalations and exhalations, Tyler. Somehow I'd make it and then do another 20. But not always. It was easier now that I had "given notice." My last supper was enjoyable knowing it was probably the last time I'd eat that gruel. I wouldn't miss it. The two hour post-dinner meditation was grueling but managable. Goenka's discourse was still painful to listen to even though we didn't have to assume the position. Patience, patience.
That night, my neighbor could not stop snoring. Even with waxed earplugs jammed deeply into my ears, the sound was intolerable. Hitting the concrete wall did nothing. There was no breeze either. I thought about flicking water at him through the grated hole in his door, but didn't. It all just seemed to affirm my not-yet-100% decision to leave. Morning meditation passed and breakfast came and went. I had to wait until the 8am group meditation in the hall so I could be discreet about my departure. No sense in walking out publicly feeling like a failure and no reason to disturb and weaken anyone else's confidence. They would know later when my mat would be empty and my door would be closed. I was a little sorry I would not be able to bullshit with the guys after it was all said and done. Now, I needed to find that guy. I felt terrible saying it as I had committed to the duration, but I wanted out.
Toward the end of our breakfast break, I found him washing his clothes. I told him that I did in fact want to go. He told me to talk to the teacher first. We walked to the teachers' quarters and I felt like everyone knew—anyone who was paying attention—that something was up, that my shell was cracking. He did everything he could to keep me onboard. He said I could skip some of the group sessions and meditate in my room. I could lie down and meditate when my legs were in pain. He asked me if I noticed the guy in the wheelchair who was still there. I felt even more guilty. How do I know he's not paralyzed from the waist down and can't feel his legs, I thought. The teacher had a point, in that I ought to stay for another two days. Try not to quit yet. But I must have said "I'm leaving, I'm leaving" a few thousand times since it first entered my head and it was hard to even consider another night. Staying until the evening sounded agonizing. I was already gone.
He finally gave up, I apologized again and walked back to my room as everyone strode toward the hall for meditation. I'm free, I'm free I thought as I took in a final whiff of frangipani and hastily packed my bags. I retrieved my phone and wallet from my locker and walked to the front of the center in shorts—oh, how nice they felt—where I met the guy for a final goodbye. I felt good but incredibly guilty. I asked him if I was the first to leave and to my surprise and reassurance, he told me that five people had jumped the fence yesterday. I was the first one today. Four locals and one foreigner who claimed a "family emergency" as his excuse. Maybe I thought.
A moto-taxi arrived and I said goodbye as I gleefully hopped aboard. We drove off down the gravel road around Phnom Trung Moan and under the center's gates. The breeze in my face and the wind in my hair felt amazing. Children were playing, buffalo were grazing, the day was awakening. I do wish I had completed the full 10 days, but only if there had been less physical discomfort. I don't agree with those who say the pain is in your head; no pain no gain; mind over matter and all that nonsense. Certainly partially true—there was some weak-mindedness for sure but with some common sense thrown in for good measure. Nobody knows your body but you. And that makes me OK with it. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to stretch my legs.
I had heard good things about them, perhaps people kept the bad things to themselves. I remember applying and getting denied to three different courses while traveling through South and Southeast Asia in 2012. One course in Thailand was deemed full and another changed into Thai-speaking only. A course in Nepal never got back to me. Thanks for that. Never mind I thought, I suppose I wasn't ready. I applied to another meditation course—not Vipassana—in Kathmandu, and was accepted. Heading to the capital on my first full day in Nepal, my bus crashed and overturned. I hurt my back and received a few stitches on the back of the head. I missed the course. Perhaps the universe was trying to tell me something. I did manage to make the next month's course, an intro to Tibetan Buddhism and meditation. It wasn't as strict as Vipassana with fewer hours of meditation and only a half day of silence, which was probably better suited to me at that time.
Fast forward to 2015. I got accepted to Cambodia's only Vipassana center located just outside of Battambang, the country's second largest city with approximately a quarter million people. A colleague had recently taken the course and I was excited to finally get to partake myself. A little "soul-searching" if you will. Ten days of finding myself...yeah, I knew that wasn't going to happen, but still 10 days of silence and s l o w i n g it down sounded appealing. It was coming after leaving my job at the newspaper and prior to going back to the US for a visit. Time for some reflection before the next chapter unfolds.
Before I departed for the retreat, I got this message from a friend.
This was honestly the first time I'd even considered opting out because I just didn't count on it being that hard. Besides, the last six months had flown by and this was a mere 10 days. On my last day of work the week before, the aforementioned colleague tried to tell me how difficult it was. It's like you people wanted me to fail. C'mon, you are mentally weak!
I arrived in Battambang a day early, primarily so I didn't risk missing the bus leaving at 7am the day the retreat began. I hadn't risen that early in months and knew it would be a challenge to sleep early and not be grumpy as fuck from the outset. We would be rising at 4am during the course, but I'd deal with that when the time came. Six hours and nearly 300 km later, my minibus arrived. I got a moto-taxi to the Seng Huot hotel, flirted with the female staff—as one does—and checked into my room. I then proceeded to look for some shirts I could wear at the retreat that a) wouldn't cling to my body and b) weren't screenprinted with some bizarre message that might potentially distract someone from being one with the experience. I found two shirts at the market for less than five bucks that were perfect for the occasion—two shirts I'd never wear anywhere someone was actually looking at me.
I arrived at Dhamma Latthika, the meditation center, at about 2:30pm on day zero for registration and to lock away our phones and valuables. Say goodbye to distractions! Located 18 km from the city center, it was located down a dirt road behind a small hill of trees called Phnom Trung Moan, which supposedly translates to Chicken Cage Hill because there are or were many chicken farmers in that area. I was later told by the local guy wearing sunglasses inside the hotel that the center was actually at Duck Cage Hill, which was close to Chicken Cage Hill. Good to really know what's what.
The center felt like a prison to some degree despite being set among rows of fragrant flowering frangipanis. Even the late S.N. Goenka, one of Vipassana's teachers, said on video during our first teachers' discourse that it was "like prison." Presumably to make you have greater appreciation for everything once you got back to the outside. We had our own basic rooms: small single bed with a thin hard mattress, sheet, small stiff neck-inducing pillow, hot woolly blanket, mosquito net, small table with meditation mat and cushion, wash bucket, some shelves and a clothes line. There was no fan and it was hot as fuck. The average daily high had recently been 36C/97F with a "real feel" of 42/108. Swell. More like sweltering. Fortunately there was a grated window set in the middle of the door, which allowed in the evening breeze and would also allow people to catch sight of you masturbating if you were not abiding to the five precepts we had all agreed to in the beginning:
They were pretty easy to abide to, well except for the first one. I accidentally caught and crushed a mosquito in my fist purely through natural conditioning. Who am I kidding, that fucker wouldn't stop buzzing in my ear. But I did abstain from stealing, sexual activity, telling lies and intoxicants. The meditation mats were desireable, but it would have been difficult to walk out of there with one under the arm without being noticed. Sexual thoughts were a nonissue. I'm visually stimulated and there was nothing to see there. This was no hostess bar. We were also segregated from the women with the center being cordoned off down the middle. There were no lies to tell as we weren't speaking and the only intoxicants were possibly overindulging in the frangipani or taking an extra large spoonful of Nescafe at breakfast.
I was told there were 107 or 108 participants. Only eight foreign men and probably about the same number of foreign women although I didn't attempt to count the shadows through the curtain that separated us during discourse. The rest were locals with about 10 monks thrown in for good measure. There was an American guy who had competed the course twice previously and whose girlfriend was interning in Phnom Penh. There was the 49-year-old British train driver with gold-capped teeth who had kids ranging in age from 19-29. There was a German dude and a French guy training in Muay Thai, an older chocolatier from France whose been living in Saigon for the past 18 years and the thin tatted Russian guy who has been traveling around Asia by motorbike with his girlfriend for the past two years. And let's not forget the fluffy white haired guy who seemed like he wasn't talking from the beginning. Respect. It was an interesting mix.
After our dinner of rice porridge, soupy vegetables, smelly soybeans and some crunchy vinegary vegetable we headed to the meditation hall for our first group meditation. Or maybe we ate after meditation, I can't remember. We were assigned mats presumably so they would know exactly who was hiding in their room when they were supposed to be sitting cross-legged suffering in the heat. I mean reducing suffering. Either way, we were now engaged in "noble silence." No more talking, not even eye contact, for 10 days. The overhead fans barely seemed to work as sweat beaded down my back and my face began to feel greasy. "Short Dick Man" could be heard blasting away at a nearby wedding party. Focus on your respiration. Focus on the area around your nostrils. The triangle from the top of your nose to the area above your upper lip. Feel the sensation from the inspiration. Feel the sensation from the expiration. Eenie weenie teenie weenie shriveled little short dick man.
The rules regarding dress stated no shorts or tank tops for modesty and to avoid distracting others. But it was HOT. I normally meditate in my boxers with the air conditioner on. This was asking a lot of me. At least I was finally able to make use of the longyi I was given in Burma years ago and the Thai fisherman pants that I never wore. Too much hassle when you need to take a leak. Others wore similar mostly loose fitting garments from those baggy crotched (aka MC Hammer) pants to standard linen trousers. Some just wore their pajamas and monks naturally wore their undoubtedly stinky saffron robes. White was the most common color and tops varied from standard tees to what seemed more like martial artist attire.
It was only a matter of time before people seemed to start communicating via other usually closed orifices. One guy broke the ice after dinner. Braaaap. I'm guessing he wasn't used to eating so many vegetables. Or maybe it was those soybeans. The frequency of others passing gas in a similar unashamed fashion increased as time went on, especially near the shared toilets where I got a laugh out of it. A relief physically and mentally so you could just go about your business without worrying if anyone was listening. They're not going to look me in the eye anyway so it's all good.
The morning was the best time of day. The bell gonged and people scurried to be the first one to the "showers." There were six stalls, some with buckets, some with just a faucet sticking out of the wall and a few with PVC piped overhead. Those were the ones you wanted. It was actually nice that early in the morning. I was only able to do some light stretching, brush my teeth and splash water in my face before the 4:30 bell. Then we shuffled silently to the meditation hall. From 4:30-6:30am we meditated—or tried to—sometimes silently and sometimes to the moaning, er chanting, of Goenka. It was distracting. He would repeat himself endlessly, which was all then translated into Khmer making it even more agonizing to endure. It was all part of the plan. "Patiently and persistently. Patiently and persistently, you will succeed," he said.
Well, I wasn't exactly failing, but my legs were in pain. I felt like I was tearing something. After that first prolonged session I limped my legs awake and noticed a monk ahead of me limping too. Eh, I thought, maybe this is just standard practice. The next day I realized this monk was walking on the ball of his left foot as if a rusty nail was embedded in his heel. And he was like 60. It was hard to really ascertain my ability to sit as I only had locals to compare to. That wasn't fair. I wanted to see how the other foreigners were fairing. Occasionally when I opened my eyes I could see my neighbor's knees bouncing and that gave me some reassurance. But nobody seemed to be holding their knees together during my "timeouts." Perhaps they did when I closed my eyes. Yeah.
It was easy to see that this was going to lead to greater appreciation for nearly everything else in life. But how long would that last? I missed my shitty bed and my hot room. At least I had a fan and an air conditioner. I missed not wearing flip-flops to the toilet. I missed brushing my teeth into the sink. I missed steamed rice. I'll never voluntarily eat rice porridge. Only after a spoonful of sugar and a handful of peanuts did it finally hit the spot. I missed good fruit. Another fucking banana? I didn't really complain like this, but retrospectively it's easy to have a laugh. I was grateful for the food and the experience. It felt somewhat similar to camping except there were no marshmallows and it wasn't cold. Camping—the only time instant noodles taste amazing. That Nescafe and drizzle of sweetened condensed milk was just heavenly. No joke.
On the second full day, I realized it was good to have something to preoccupy the mind. That's why the monks were always sweeping their rooms or raking the most recently fallen leaves. With nothing to do, it was easy to fall back and think about how there wasn't anything to do. To idly sit waiting for the next meditation session. Why am I sitting? I've been sitting all day! I didn't want to lay down on my hot bed either. Wondering who was passing by and where they were off to. The toilet? The shower? Options galore. Some people washed the smell out of their boxers, the sweat from their shirts or showered at any opportunity. As if keeping the hair moist would prevent the sweat from trickling down their back during meditation. I went for walking meditations or just walks round and round. I saw a snake, I observed more, I stopped to smell the "roses" and I wondered if that woman I saw in the distance was thinking about sex. Not because I was, but my mind just wondered. I visualized her clenching her teeth fighting to fend off images of engorged members. I laughed and continued walking.
When I was lying down I started to see things. Not hallucinations or to see things as they really are, which is what Vipassana actually means. But rather, I noticed faces in the concrete walls or in the plastic, which covered the rafters of our cell block's shared ceiling. When the breeze blew, the plastic changed shape sucking in or out depending on the draft. I saw Darth Vader, Yoda and a stormtrooper. I saw Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Bob Dylan and faces I've already forgotten. Famous facial profiles were everywhere if you just looked for them. If you had nothing else to do. I really only noticed the fragrance from the fragipani and well, when I was in the toilets, the "fragrance" from in there, which is what you'd expect the morning after a naan and channa masala. Might have been even more pleasant.
It was day 2 that I started to think I might not see the course to completion. The voices in my head were like "You fucking pussy! You said yourself it was just 10 days!" In actuality, there was little back and forth. I was content with being done, OK with throwing in the towel because I rationalized that it would be better to leave early than to endure 10 days of rising anger. That was obviously not the point of meditation. I could not meditate through the pain. Was it all in my head? I didn't think so. I think I could have done half the scheduled sittings. And maybe have done a lying meditation or plopped myself in a chair for the other half. But I failed to communicate with the teacher early on and I convinced myself leaving was what I needed to do. I spoke with the teacher's assistant/translator and let him know how I was feeling and he convinced me to at least stay until the following morning. That was fine, I thought, leaving on day 3 sounded better. Stupid, but true.
So now, the light at the end of the tunnel was less than half a day away. Easier to take anything hour by hour or day by day. My meditations were improving overall as I could sit, when forced, for longer periods of time. And I could endure more pain than I would have normally allowed myself to. 100 inhalations and exhalations, Tyler. Somehow I'd make it and then do another 20. But not always. It was easier now that I had "given notice." My last supper was enjoyable knowing it was probably the last time I'd eat that gruel. I wouldn't miss it. The two hour post-dinner meditation was grueling but managable. Goenka's discourse was still painful to listen to even though we didn't have to assume the position. Patience, patience.
That night, my neighbor could not stop snoring. Even with waxed earplugs jammed deeply into my ears, the sound was intolerable. Hitting the concrete wall did nothing. There was no breeze either. I thought about flicking water at him through the grated hole in his door, but didn't. It all just seemed to affirm my not-yet-100% decision to leave. Morning meditation passed and breakfast came and went. I had to wait until the 8am group meditation in the hall so I could be discreet about my departure. No sense in walking out publicly feeling like a failure and no reason to disturb and weaken anyone else's confidence. They would know later when my mat would be empty and my door would be closed. I was a little sorry I would not be able to bullshit with the guys after it was all said and done. Now, I needed to find that guy. I felt terrible saying it as I had committed to the duration, but I wanted out.
Toward the end of our breakfast break, I found him washing his clothes. I told him that I did in fact want to go. He told me to talk to the teacher first. We walked to the teachers' quarters and I felt like everyone knew—anyone who was paying attention—that something was up, that my shell was cracking. He did everything he could to keep me onboard. He said I could skip some of the group sessions and meditate in my room. I could lie down and meditate when my legs were in pain. He asked me if I noticed the guy in the wheelchair who was still there. I felt even more guilty. How do I know he's not paralyzed from the waist down and can't feel his legs, I thought. The teacher had a point, in that I ought to stay for another two days. Try not to quit yet. But I must have said "I'm leaving, I'm leaving" a few thousand times since it first entered my head and it was hard to even consider another night. Staying until the evening sounded agonizing. I was already gone.
He finally gave up, I apologized again and walked back to my room as everyone strode toward the hall for meditation. I'm free, I'm free I thought as I took in a final whiff of frangipani and hastily packed my bags. I retrieved my phone and wallet from my locker and walked to the front of the center in shorts—oh, how nice they felt—where I met the guy for a final goodbye. I felt good but incredibly guilty. I asked him if I was the first to leave and to my surprise and reassurance, he told me that five people had jumped the fence yesterday. I was the first one today. Four locals and one foreigner who claimed a "family emergency" as his excuse. Maybe I thought.
A moto-taxi arrived and I said goodbye as I gleefully hopped aboard. We drove off down the gravel road around Phnom Trung Moan and under the center's gates. The breeze in my face and the wind in my hair felt amazing. Children were playing, buffalo were grazing, the day was awakening. I do wish I had completed the full 10 days, but only if there had been less physical discomfort. I don't agree with those who say the pain is in your head; no pain no gain; mind over matter and all that nonsense. Certainly partially true—there was some weak-mindedness for sure but with some common sense thrown in for good measure. Nobody knows your body but you. And that makes me OK with it. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to stretch my legs.
