| | It's been a long time in the writing but here is a pretty exhaustive review of Wat Rampoeng, down to the smallest details which one deserves to know before making such a commitment. If someone knows how, I'd like to add it to the list in the wiki.
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Wat Rampoeng
I retreated at Wat Rampoeng for two weeks and I can recommend it as a very good retreat location – as long as you can prepare your own action plan and don't need the type of guidance which most members of DhO would find ideal. It compares favourably in a few (not all) aspects with the much praised Panditarama centre in Lumbini, where I also went on retreat later on. It compares *very* favourably with the two Goenka centres I have visited in the past (different meditation styles aside). I am strongly considering retreating there again whenever I have a few weeks and can fly to Thailand.
On their website they advertise "courses" of at least 10 and (ideally) 26 days are offered, with the possibility of attending a "retreat" later. The distinction between course and retreat is not entirely clear, since the course is in all respects a retreat. The temple complex is situated in a green area 20-30 minutes from Chiang Mai's city centre and can be reached easily with one of the characteristic red taxi-vans (120 baht is the standard fare to charter a whole vehicle). There are roads and houses near, but once you are inside you could be deep in the forest for all you know. Chiang Mai's weather is possibly the most agreeable in all of South-East Asia, and for this reason alone one should give some thought to Wat Rampoeng for a retreat. It's never too cold, too hot, too sunny or too humid and this can change quite a few things for the better in terms of comfort and concentration once you're down the rabbit hole and have to sit still many hours every day. Mosquitos come out around dusk to feed (as can be expected in any tropical setting), but otherwise they don't bother yogis much. I spent most of my time meditating outdoors and I was only marginally inconvenienced by them. Chiang Mai is known to have some dengue fever during the summer season, but I didn't exactly see flocks of people being carried away by ambulance while there – so don't worry too much on that front.
The accommodation for meditators (at least for men, I have never seen the women's quarters, and I suspect they are at least a little different) is pleasant and well thought out. Yogis are lodged in small self-contained apartments with everything one needs to go through the retreat and nothing more: bed, fan, table, toilet, shower, basin, sponges, cleaning products, coathangers, broom. Food is served at 6:30 and 10:30 in the mess hall, and at 5 o'clock one can have a cup of some corn flour drink. Meat is served at every meal, but there is also a vegetarian option. All food is simply prepared but excellent, nutritious and fresh. No complaints on the that front. Light work (raking leaves, watering plants) is required of yogis after breakfast for about thirty-forty minutes.
Yogis can choose to meditate in a number of locations of their own liking. The temple complex is vast and variegated, and there are both indoors and outdoors spaces aplenty. Moreover, these spaces are almost entirely to foreign yogis, who are never more than a couple of dozens and are never really enough to make these spaces feel crowded (Thai meditators, who are more than 90% of the total and almost entirely women, seem to usually meditate elsewhere). Foreign meditators (which includes both Westerners and at least a few Chinese) are handled by the centre entirely separately from the Thais, and are even accommodated in a separate building. Meditators are given timers which they can use to time their sittings. They are quite loud, and there is a constant buzzing of timers all around the place. The dress code requires to wear white clothes (which can be purchased cheaply in loco if necessary) at all times. Women must wear also a light scarf on their upper chest, fastened at the extremities with some pin or brooch. There is a (cheap) laundry service provided for those who don't want to spend their time washing and drying clothes. A small convenience store operates several hours a day to provide meditators small items of daily use (such as soap, toothpaste, bottled water and even some food items) for an honest price. Yes, one can even buy some food to complement meals, but the attendant will refuse to sell anything that goes against the rules (e.g. solid food items after midday). A moving cart (not associated with the temple) selling freshly cut tropical fruit for a pittance (~30c for an honest portion) is also available around lunchtime.
As one might have guessed reading the last paragraph, Wat Rampoeng is not exclusively a meditation centre, but a temple which is open to the public and is the centre of all the activities, pomp and pageantry of a normal Buddhist temple. I might have been discouraged to go if I had known all this when I valued alternatives, but at no point did these activities disturb my meditation or decrease the quality of my mindfulness. I could always find a silent, secluded space to meditate, and all these other activities stayed in the distant background. If anything, the daily life of the temple and its various (and respectfully quiet) visitors served to dispel the feeling (which somewhat ruined my experience at Goenka retreats) that I am in a strange, cultish place with no relations with reality, with attendants looking over my shoulder all the time for infractions and (at least implicitly) approving or disapproving of my smallest acts. For the two weeks of my stay I was left almost entirely to myself and to my own sense of responsibility, and progress came fast – faster than I had expected in fact. I suppose that it is ultimately up to oneself to decide whether the "secluded retreat" environment is better conducive to progress, but the relative (and disciplined) openness of Wat Rampoeng quite suited my personal preferences. I certainly wouldn't have thought so until I tried it.
The first monk you will meet is a somewhat abrasive, scattered and quirky young monk who is in charge of the foreign meditators section. You will have spoken to him by phone before your arrival (they don't take reservation by email) and you will have agreed together on a specific day to start the retreat. He will take care of you for the first few hours of the first day, and if you can take his mannerisms and idiosyncrasies in stride you'll be alright. He will also impart the initial instructions of both walking and sitting meditation, and for those who are not clear with the spirit of meditation his instructions might be a bit confusing. I remember a Chinese yogi who marched around like a little soldier during the walking meditation, most likely as a consequence of misunderstood instructions. Whatever failings as a teacher this particular monk might have, his mistakes can be corrected during the interview sessions. Interview times are not allocated individually ("show up at 2:35pm for your 2:40 interview") and on some occasions one might waste more than an hour waiting for one's turn. During the interview a half-German monk who speaks impeccable English is always present to either conduct the interview himself or translate for the Sayadaw, when the latter not occupied with other responsibilities. The interview process requires the triple kow-tow to a Buddha statue and to the Sayadaw which some people (myself included) dislike and execute grudgingly. During the interview you will be asked how many hours you have meditated in the last day (you will be asked to start from 8 to advance to more than 12) and how many hours you slept (at first you will be given the 6 hours which are customary at any retreat, but in later days they will ask you to cut down to 5 and then 4; nobody however is there to check how many hours you actually sleep at night). If you don't ask anything the interview process will be more or less over there, unless they need to impart you with more instructions. From the beginning I tried to establish a clear communication channel to figure out what was going on in my daily meditation, but I was met only by silence and occasionally condescension, the details I volunteered were glossed over and my questions addressed in a generic fashion. As I understand more and more the culture and "political economy" of the Dharma-verse I see why monks might be reluctant to acknowledge students' achievements, even very small ones (see for example Mahasi Sayadaw initially giving away "Stream Entry certificates" in his meditation centre, but finding it wiser later to stop the practice), but there are still many drawbacks in doing so for genuinely willing yogis who aren't there to play games. As I said in the beginning, it's best to go there with one's own action plan.
As for what they teach, at Wat Rampoeng they use a slightly modified noting technique which – for the sitting meditation – includes moving the attention away from the breath to different spots of the lower body during different movements of the in- and out-breath, while for the walking meditation the movement of each step is broken into up to six movements (instead of the two or three which Mahasi Sayadaw recommended). Starting from the standard Mahasi technique, more and more steps of the technique are added every other day during the interviews. I cannot say whether the modified technique is better or worse than the original, or if it is just a "flair" which the Sayadaw decided to add to make it his own. It did its job well enough for me, as "normal" noting most likely would have.
To conclude, I warmly recommend Wat Rampoeng as a perfect retreat environment, if not as an ideal place to receive the type of hyper-practical, transparent, empowering guidance which I believe most of DhO members value. |