When you don’t speak for almost ten days, you wind up with a lot to say.

To give you an idea, here is what each day entailed at the Forest Monastery:

• 5AM: Wake up: I’d do yoga to warm up my body
• 6AM: Help prepare dining hall for breakfast
• 6:30AM: Rice offering to monks
• 7AM: Breakfast: rice with Thai veggies, vegan
• 8-10AM: Morning meditation practices
• 10:30AM: Lunch offering to monks
• 11AM: Lunch: rice with Thai veggies, vegan
• 1-3PM: Afternoon meditation practices
• 4PM: Volunteering around the grounds: raking leaves, food prep
• 5PM: Free time! I’d do yoga, have a silent disco with myself, draw, write, read and pretend I’m not hungry because we don’t eat dinner
• 6-7:30PM: Evening chanting, lessons from the abbot and meditation
• Rest of evening: Free time that I’d usually spend drawing, writing or reading

So that’s what my day looked like. Every single day. Wat Pa Tam Wua is named after its surroundings (jungle and caves), and welcomes anyone who is interested in learning and practicing Buddhism, daily spiritual practices and mindfulness (vipassana meditations). Staying there is free, so long as you adhere to the daily activities and accept a long list of monastery rules — mostly to the tune of wearing white at all times (besides sleep), no laying down on the grass outside, no funny business between men and women, and showing the utmost respect to all creatures and the monks. There was no “enforcement” of the rules, but it is understood that karma is the ultimate truth, so…

I love routine, and I find habits deeply comforting. And as a designer, I see rules as design constraints. Even so, I was thrown by this place and how much I craved things like “wearing color” and “choosing what and when I eat.” In a previous post, I wrote about how sometimes I catch a glimpse of someone doing something mundane in their world here, and I want to slip into that existence with them. Well, this place is where that happened, Buddhist monk-style. And I have to say that it was liberating to be stripped of liberties — but this was entirely dependent on the fact that I could call an end to it whenever I wanted to. Without the decision fatigue of my daily life, I was left feeling clear-headed, tuned into my body, and infinitely creative. Parts of it definitely felt robotic and I was ready to leave by the end (holy mackerel, evening chanting could be mind-numbing), but there were many times I felt as light as a feather going about my day, journaling and sketch-noting as I went.

I do have to say that the first few days of the retreat, it felt like someone had turned out my lights. Like, internally, no one was really home. Without speaking, my internal monologue was going strong, but had nothing but a journal to bounce myself off of as I was immersed in abject unfamiliarity. At the time, I wrote that I felt “dead inside” and “intellectually under-stimulated.” I can’t help but laugh a little looking back on these dark moments, knowing how illuminated things would become. But it was a hard shift — complete vacation mode to wondering whether I had joined a cult run by cherubic monks.

And the silence factor was real. With about 150 international visitors delving into this experience with me (and staying around two days on average), I was one of about thirty who vowed silence. This made for the social interactions around me to feel wildly magnified — like a lightbulb to my moth. Without connecting with them about this shared experience, I feared I would miss out on deepening my meditation practice. Around day three or four, I reminded myself of the uniqueness of the opportunity to commit to silence, and stayed true to my (non-)word for all nine of my practicing days. Without journaling and drawing, however, I would have lost my mind while in search of it.

Bit by bit, that internal darkness lit up. In a way, it felt like with each day I was handed a new flashlight that illuminated a long-forgotten corner of my psyche. I can easily attribute this to the daily meditation practices, as this effect was coupled with some serious mental fatigue. As I found sitting in stillness with my mind more tolerable, I also noticed how tiring it was to “practice” the form of vipassana that was taught there. As an athlete, I associate the word practice with exhaustion, but I hadn’t been expecting the same effect on my neural pathways.

The monks taught us three basic steps to follow during our meditations. We were instructed to (1) set up a home-base (the body and breath), (2) allow the mind to think, and (3) notice that the mind is thinking. Eventually, this brings you back to your home-base. As someone who *loves* story and narrative, this was wildly challenging. Step two could be my rabbit hole; I love to allowing my mind to think and think and think.

In the past, I have thought of my own mind as a playground. I’m comforted by and proud of the capacity of my own imagination and creative expression. Vipassana at the Forest Monastery was training me to gently silence this part of myself — which explains the “dead inside” feeling at the start of the retreat. To quiet my mind and free itself from thoughts was an entirely new and fatiguing practice.

That said, the effects of doing this properly were so liberating. It felt like I found some overdue rest for my nervous system — literally and figuratively. The times my meditative practice felt “right” were out-of-body experiences. I was there, and then I wasn’t. I was the knower — the observer of my body. Everything felt numb, liquid and like I had become my mind’s eye. I could sit in that state forever. After the first time I felt this, I cried in disbelief that I’m 32 and that this was my first time discovering an untapped power. (That’s attachment for you!)

Not all of my meditations were like this, by any means. I strove for this, and I think that I strove too hard, honestly. When I wasn’t trying so hard, I could get there. But it wasn’t the norm. The after effects of all of the practices were long-lasting though. They always felt relatively quieting, and very much like something I should be doing far more often in my day-to-day. They also amplified my ability to notice, which has stoked a previously-smoldering creative fire. As someone who lives fast, the practice has slowed parts of my existence down. And that feels right.

To close this entry out, I’ve got to transcribe some of the observations about myself that I journaled on the last day of the retreat, while soaking up some afternoon rays of sun on the porch of my hut:

• I can make almost anything seem very funny to myself.
• Making something seem funny to someone else honestly matters less, and is a whole different scenario.
• My body (and my digestive system) love movement — I don’t think I can change this.
• Losing my dad will never stop hurting.
• My body is indeed separate from my mind.
• My body has done so much for me in my life, yet the way I “speak” to it is so disparaging. I would love to love my body more for who it is.
• I am so much more at peace with myself when I let go of the need to be seen. I was a ghost here in my silence, and it became freeing after some time.
• Personally, I can do without organized religion. I appreciate all that it does, and what it stands for. But I think it is a struggle for me. Even Buddhism.

That’s all from the retreat. It was an experience I will never ever forget. I’m very curious to see what gems stick with me, and which do not.