Becoming a Monk in Dalat, Vietnam [Day 8]

During my stay in Dalat I heard stories about the Truc Lam Pagoda temple. People have been there to learn how to meditate. The monks will guide you and show you their techniques. I have meditated before as a habit. I managed to meditate daily for 15 minutes during 1 full month. I stopped doing this when I went on a new trip and just forgot about it. But this seems interesting, so I went to the temple in the early morning.

If you want to do this, the best practice is to go the day before, go to a monk and tell them you are interested in meditating. They will tell you to come the next day early in the morning at 6 am. They will invite you to have breakfast with them.

Studying

I came in later, but I was still early enough to get the rest of the practices. So I talked to a monk and told them I was interested in meditating. Sure enough he was very friendly to guide me. We settled with half a day. It's my final day in Dalat and I still wanted to go to the falls after this.

First he gave me a room in the temple. It was a room with 2 beds and a desk. There was already a person here. He was an American who was going to spend a full day with the monks. The monk gave us books to study. We had to study first before the meditation session.

The book I got is called "Trust in mind" by Thuần Bạch. The book is about your mind and how to set yourself free from it. All the time we're thinking. Human have a discriminating mind. We think about what is good or bad, right or wrong all the time. We look at things and judge them. That is not 'The Way'. 'The Way' is to set yourself free from this and to be able to observe things without discriminating them or judging them. It's about being able to observe your thoughts without following them.

I read this book for over 1 hour until it was time to go meditate.

Meditating

At 9 am, the monk comes and picks us up in our room and brings us to the meditation room. The meditation room is upstairs. In this room are the meditation cushions. There's also a buddha statue. The monk shows us the different ways to sit.

So there's a mattress and then the cushion. We have to put the cushion on the mattress and sit on it. It's a small and hard cushion, but it is to make sure we sit up straight. There are different positions you can sit in. The ideal position is the full lotus position. This is the most stable. Our body rests on 3 points during this.

I do not manage to do the full lotus and also not the half lotus. I settled with the easy pose.

Photo by Isabell Winter on Unsplash

After the monk showed us the positions, it was time to meditate ourselves. We had to sit facing the wall. The meditation session is 2 hours, but you can stop sooner if you want. I managed to meditate for 1 hour and 20 minutes. This is the longest session I have ever done. It was extremely hard, but well worth it.

I felt amazingly calm after this session. I was walking through the temple and I just felt great. No distractions, I didn't feel the need to take out my phone. I could just sit on the bench and enjoy being there without any distractions.

Lunch

At 11.30 am, the monks have lunch. We stayed with them for lunch. The monks have a vegetarian diet. And for lunch they have a praying routine. It was very interesting to experience this.

So for lunch we have to gather around the table. The table is for 8 people. First we have to stand behind our chairs. On the table in front of us is all the food. There is a big bowl of rice, 2 bowls of soup with vegetables, tea and a platter with vegetables.

While we are standing behind our chair, one of the monks start serving the rice. He puts rice in every bowl. There's no talking nor eye contact. Monks do not communicate during lunch. So everyone is just staring downwards and being silent. The monks we are at the table with are dressed in blue.

After a while, the monks in orange come in. I think they are the masters and the one's in blue are the apprentices. The masters have this typical musical instrument with them. Like they hit it and it makes this "bong" sound, but very calm and gentle. At this point we put our hands together and bend forward. Now we're allowed to sit down.

We go and sit down. We're not allowed to do anything. We just sit there, while the master keeps doing the "bong" sounds. At a certain point all of the monks pick up the bowl of rice in a very specific way for praying. So we follow them. Our left hand has only 3 fingers out (index, pink and thumb). The bowl of rice rests on these 3 fingers. The right hand also has 3 fingers sticking out (index, middle and pink). We hold our right hand in front of our face and then the left hand with the bowl of rice in front of that.

I do not have any pictures of this. It would've been really disrespectful. But I found an image on the following link (I can't show it here for copyright reasons).

https://samisarkis.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Vietnam/G00009vv5NRVVHY0/I00005l2LyDmTXOc

Now all the monks start chanting the prayer. They are all singing the same song. It's the first time I witness this. It is super interesting. I don't know which language it is in, but my guess is that is in Pali. It's a sacred language. I actually thought the song sounded beautiful.

I found this youtube video to give you some idea what it sounds like. This isn't exactly how it went, the temple I was at is for Zen Buddhism.

After the prayer it is time for lunch. We get chopsticks and a spoon. The chopsticks are used for grabbing the vegetables from the platter and the spoon is for eating. Do not mix these up! The food itself is really delicious. There is enough for everyone, which is good because I am very hungry.

There is no talking during lunch, no eye contact, no communication at all. This is very strange to me because in most cultures food is a time to get together and talk. But here everyone is kind of staring at the table in front of them. It reminds me of when I was a kid. When I did something wrong and my parents would be mad at me at the table. So I would just stare down and no one is talking. That is how it was.

Lunch takes 30 minutes. Everyone has to finish within this time. When you finish early, you have to sit and wait. Again no talking, no eye contact, just looking down and wait. After the 30 minutes are up the master starts playing the instrument again "bong, bong". We have to put our hands together and everyone starts chanting the prayer again. This prayer takes longer than the first time.

After this prayer we are allowed to leave the room. Now we are allowed to communicate.

Dishes

After lunch, they asked us to help doing the dishes. The dishes are done in 4 big sinks. The first sink is with soap and for washing all the cups, platters, spoons and chopsticks. Then everything goes into the second sink for rinsing and then to the third for more rinsing and finally in the last one for even more rinsing. So the dishes get rinsed 3 times.

After this it was time for me to say goodbye. The monks have free time now. The American guy is going to stay the full day. After the free time it's time for meditating and finally lunch. I kind of wanted to stay for the second meditation. It sounded really nice to do that. But I had to go. I wanted to see the highest falls of Dalat.

I am very grateful for this experience. It was very unique and it gave me some insight in the life at the temple. Finding enlightenment is not something you can get in just a day or 1 meditation session. It's a life long practice. It's not just about meditating, but how you are outside of that and how you live your life. To live a life free from your own mind. Having your mind where your body is the whole time. It takes a lifetime. There's a saying that goes "It's easier to turn iron into gold than to get rid of the discriminative mind".

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