Buddhist monk photographs speedboats heading out to sea
Unusual at first glance. A monk with a camera.
Moreover, he stops the moment and captures it, instead of perceiving everything as it is. However, these are only our illusions of what this or that person should be like. What qualities, in our opinion, a monk should have. What he should do and what he should not. I once lived with monks in the mountains of Samui. Not for long, just a week. Some monks smoke cigarettes, drink Coca-Cola and sometimes even watch movies on a laptop.
The place where I got acquainted with monastic life is called Dipapavan and is located on Samui, high in the mountains. In fact, there are a number of such places in Thailand, I can’t say exactly how many. But there are also some scattered throughout the country.
You can come and live like a monk. Exotic? Only at first glance. For Thais, this is the norm.
Here, every man lives in a monastery for at least 3 months of his life. They can live longer. As long as he wishes. If more than three months, then you shave your hair and eyebrows. For a foreigner, this is not quite a familiar thing, monastic life. We do not have such a culture. If our people have a problem, then most often they drown it in vodka or, as a unique case, turn to a psychologist.
For Thais, it is completely normal to come to the boss at work and say that he went to a monastery, to think about it. And the boss has no right to refuse, even if there is a burning quarterly report. Otherwise, it is believed that everything that worries his employee, he will take on his karma. It is that simple. And for foreigners, there are places where they will "mess with" you. However, when you enter, you agree to the set conditions of being here or go on your sad way. You hand over your phone.
By the way, there is no signal there anyway, probably due to the high altitude in the mountains. You also rent it out so that you don’t distract your attention by reading, playing with a toy, taking photos for Instagram, etc. You concentrate only on yourself, without being distracted by your surroundings, on your breathing, on a certain breathing technique, on what you are doing here and now. Always, even while walking. You don’t talk to anyone, so as not to distract them, and yourself too.
Even looking at others is not welcome. A look is also a form of communication. All conditions are created here to protect us from our own super-communicative and information society. Everything is aimed at returning you to yourself.
This bell woke me up at 4:30 in the morning.
Getting up for meditation in the dark, by the light of one candle. We ate once a day. Mostly rice with bananas. For monks it was usual, for me it was not so much. But, you don’t think about food. A couple of times there were some flowers in batter. In short, what grows nearby. For a foreigner, if he wants, tea and coffee once a day.
Having learned about such an unusual diet for me, I weighed myself before and after visiting Dipapavan. My weight was the same. On such a diet I did not gain or lose weight. To paraphrase a popular proverb, we can say: “The body does not live by bread alone.”
This is the wooden "bed" I slept on. A mosquito net as a glamorous canopy. The usual mattress is replaced by a thin mat. You cover yourself with a blanket.
If you have a chicken, you can get a mosquito сетку под неё. That's okay. During the time of sleep you can protect the snake, scorpion or scorpion, coy There are many things in the mountainous jungle.
Next, as a patient, you should always check before you plan your treatment отсутствие выше перечисленных гостей.
I slept on this wooden pillow. This is not a joke. The monks said that when you get used to it, you have very beautiful dreams. I never got used to it. Maybe I just didn't have time in a week.
The windows are glassless, so the danger of encountering poisonous creatures seems quite real.
I washed myself in a place like this. Collected rain and spring water. You soap yourself, collect water in a bowl and pour it over yourself.
Statue of Siddhartha Gautama ("descendant of Gotama, successful in achieving goals"), he later became known as Buddha (literally "Awakened One").
You see a path of flat stones around. This is a circle for walking meditation.
The main place for meditation.
And this is how Natasha and I looked after a week spent in the mountains.
Yes, there is a women's section there. Of course, the girls lived separately. And even during meditation, they sat to the right of the male part of the population. But there is no time for girls there. There, you are on your own. It was a mind-blowing experience.
We will definitely come back.
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