Hooray the Perverse one returns. What have you learned while at the monastery?
That I can really draw if I allow my mind to be clear in the Zen sense.
and yes, it is not something YOU or other people on this forum can do to sit cross legged in calm water and wait until a 3 feet long incense to finish burning. Yes, sitting, meditating, in still waters for 3 hours.
We missed you too, man~ You'll have to tell us about what you're doing out there. I'd be very interested in hearing about your stay in the monastery (if it happened yet, I mean)!
Nothing particular really, I wake up at 4am to eat breakfast, sit and meditate for 2 hours or so. 6am after we usually take showers, and there is free time which we can pretty much do any non-sinful thing we can think of, but are usually nothing. At 8-9am we will be preparing lunch for the brothers with the head monk as my teacher, we listen to his teachings (in Thai and Mandarin Chinese) and set about doing daily chores, like trimming trees that don't need to be trimmed etc or sweeping grass that doesn't need to be swept. Then from 4pm after, we have a quick meal before dinner, and set about meditating in still waters, on rocks in isolation as the monk patrols us with KYAN RODS and beat us if we look distracted.
Yes, it is quite near the anime counterpart of monasteries, except this is a thai temple, so you basically as a foreigner allow to stay silent, those who are Thai are ask to memorize the Nīlakantha dhāranī in Sanskrit or Thai, but I have a Chinese edition which I can read. In the first 2 days I used the scriptures as best as I can, by the third day I was reciting it without referring to the mantra.
So far, I have been beaten 11 times, with 7 times in the first 2 days.
I was the only foreigner there, there are 3 Thai monks with me and 1 nun, (no she is not hot, MJP!)
I found myself sleeping after 9pm and joining the spiritual prayer for 1 hour a day after dinner time with my monk brothers. We don't speak the same language, but it feels like home here.
I also drew Ruro here, so she is special to me now.
by the way, I am not fully back yet, I still have yet to find a proper new job to do, so I am looking around Thailand for that job.
Yes, I am still here lol.