Throwback Thursday – Vipassana at Wat Rampoeng

The throwback this Thursday is to April 2005. I chose to quit my job in Hong Kong, put all my worldly belongings in a large Samsonite and landed in Bangkok. 

I celebrated the Thai New Year, SongKran, and made my rounds of the palaces and monasteries before travelling up to Chiang Mai. I had been in touch with The Northern Meditation Centre at Wat Rampoeng run for both Thai and foreign meditators.

Wat Rampoeng is not as spartan as some other monasteries open to foreigners – most notably Wat Suan Mokh at Chaiya. The room, I was given, had a comfortable mattress on the floor, attached bathroom with shower and fan and light. There were two meals a day - breakfast at 6.00 a.m. and lunch at 11. There was a tuck shop where we could buy some light snacks at 4.00 pm. All in all, as you can guess, a comfortable place.

The very kindly Ajarn Suphan, Head of the Monastery. His emotional and spiritual guidance transformed me. 

The first day, we were taught the initiation ceremony by a nun. The proper form of bowing and kneeling. Humility is of essence in Buddhism. The bowing and kneeling was for the initiation ceremony in the afternoon. The ceremony is presided over by the Ajarn or Abbot of the monastery – ‘ajarn’ in Thai means teacher. The Abbot of Wat Rampoeng is the very kindly Ajarn Suphan. At 19, he gave up worldly life, against the wishes of his Bangkok business family to join the very austere life of a monk at Wat Rampoeng.

Ajarn Suphan radiates spirituality. At the initiation ceremony, one by one the meditators entered his chamber on their knees and offered him three lotus flowers, three candles and three incense sticks. The beatific smile on his face helped calm my anxieties. I had never done meditation before and I wasn’t sure if it worked. At that point in my life, I needed to quieten my inner rages and trauma and was willing to cling to any straw that offered me hope.

Fellow meditators in the courtyard engaged in sitting and walking vipassana.

Vipassana transformed my life. When I came out of the monastery a month later, it was difficult for me to believe it was the same me - a bundle of negativity, worries and anxieties. Twelve hours of vipassana a day with daily mentoring by the Ajarn had helped purge 44 years of bitterness, regrets and insecurities. It was a brand NEW me. I felt happy and carefree and began travelling across South East Asia without an iota of worry. The best year of my life so far!