Wat Rampoeng November 2025

I am totally convinced that there is energy in this place, spiritual energy.  I just had my visitor, my mother, coming to me in a dream as I awoke this early morning.  She was teaching me a recipe telling me how to cut the cheese for a specific kind of cheese pasta similar to a macaroni and cheese which was one of her common dishes. Originally we were going to have what is my favorite that she would prepare, fried pork chops but in very typical mom fashion she had only two pork chops so not enough for guests.  The guests were two of my fellow meditators. So we added the pork chops to the macaroni dish as mom suggested to have enough to feed us all.  She was teaching me how to cut cheese and I was cutting it too fast and too thick so she was gently teaching me how to cut it slower and thinner.  I had already breaded the chops with flour so that they could be fried and added to the macaroni dish.  My sister Alice was also in the kitchen with the two meditators helping us prepare dinner.

My mother showed her love through feeding me.  So it is appropriate that she came to me centered around food, her favorite dishes that I still prepare in her memory.  I do not know that I ever dream of her outside of the temple and definitely not in such as vivid way as I do in the temple.  She is close to me, touching me, guiding me in this symbolism of teaching me how to prepare food.  If for not any other reason, this brief encounter through such a vivid dream is worth my journey to come to these ten days at Wat Rampoeng.  It seems that I dream either of my father or mother or both every year I attend my vipassana. At my father’s funeral, I spoke of one reason I come to these vipasanas is because I have visitors from those close to me who have passed on. 

I am writing just as I awoke even before my coffee to remember this special early morning encounter. Now I will prepare my self for four am chanting to begin my fourth day.  

This year I have attended specifically during this time because I knew that a monk who was not here when I attended my first year gave daily Dhamma talks to the new meditators.  I asked this monk Ajahn Sukito when I came in February that even though I was known as an “old meditator” and did not have to attend the training week of the new students if I could attend this week to listen to his dharma talks. He responded that I could and this week was scheduled for that reason.

Ajahn Sukito has expressed in his Dhamma talk this morning the energy of this temple and the feelings we can receive from the spiritual world.  He spoke of this happening especially of this day “The Buddha Day” celebrated once a week scheduled around the new, half and full moons.  It is the day we first give our prayers to our parents living or not.  So not a coincidence that this dream came to me this early morning of Buddha Day.  

A beautiful meditation happened today, my fifth day, where thoughts of the most happy I could possibly be was in that moment of meditating.  I was meditating to many song birds in the trees above me.  I felt they sang louder and prettier than I have ever heard in the temple and were singing to me.  I found my lips turning into a smile as I was deep into meditation with only the thoughts of pure happiness.  It always happens that I am more comfortable and happy midway through my ten days.  I stop counting the days and am more able to find joy in the present moment.  

I have not taken time to write much this time at the temple.  The ten days have passed faster than they have in the past.  I feel this is true because I feel I have lived more in the present.  I have not done as much formal walking and sitting meditation.  I have spent more time in the room in series of short sitting meditations.  I have been more relaxed and not thinking I need to follow the quests for a certain amount of time meditating.  In reportings with my monk, she asks me how many hours I have done and I respond honestly six to eight hours.  I think it is that I have come so many times, the monks do not put the pressure on me and trust me to do what I feel is comfortable for me.  In every reporting she has expressed that I do what is comfortable for me so this has given me a more relaxed ten days. I have been going to sleep at seven and waking at two and taking an hour nap after lunch.  I like this routine and have learned that I love the early morning quiet times.  I have especially enjoyed the group chanting times at 4am led by Prah Ajahn Sukito.  Following the chanting, he has taught us an extremely slow technique of prostrations that I found is very relaxing for the body.  And with the exception of two days he has given his Dhamma talks following our 6:30 breakfast.  Daily at meal time, I am gifted a bag of special treats, bananas, avocados and today it was a delicious fried piece of fish.  I see no one else that is given this gift.  It must be that this particular cook feels I have come so many times and he recognizes and wants to reward all my visits.  I am reminded as I write these words of my dream of my mother caring for me by preparing food for me.  

I am so happy this morning awakening to a long dream about my mother and my father.  Many times they are not together in a dream.  This one really showed me how much they loved and adored each other.  Mom had an accident and needed some work on her chin.  At first Dad asked me to give her part of my chin but I told him I liked my chin the way it was so he and I went in search of a doctor to do the chin surgery.  Our discussion took place in our home in Davidson which has been in my dreams many times, but only in dreams during my ten years of visits to this temple. I wondered this morning if I stayed longer here if these dreams would be more frequent.  As like a dream from last year, our home was bigger with many fire places in each room inside and outside, all of them burning safely and warmly.  I know that I am a fire sign and adore a fire.  Our special screen porch that Mom loved so much and the large back yard with her clothes line was very visible in this dream so it was obvious that this was our Davidson home where I spent six years of my youth in third, fourth, fifth, ninth, tenth and eleventh grades and in Pakistan in sixth, seventh, eighth and twelfth grades.  Dad and I found a very caring doctor, he even invited Dad to lunch so they could discuss the surgery but dad did not accept because he wanted to make sure the surgery was completed as soon as possible.  They stood for an extended time outside talking not only about surgery but Dad was sharing about his own life, telling the doctor that he almost became a medical doctor instead of PhD in Economics.  I will have to find out from my siblings if this is true. The personality of my father was very personable and social.  There are times to this day that my siblings and I laugh about how we would have to wait as children for Dad to finish his social conversations when we were out running errands with him.  It was one of his many charming characteristics that I loved, respected and from which I learned to model.  To me, it is an example of sharing loving kindness which Buddhism encourages.   In the dream, I went to get the car, happening to be my present beloved green cooper, which I feel was a gift from Dad purchased with his inheritance money.  I named her Patty with the memory of my father being of English descent and passing on March 17th, Saint Patty’s Day.  I found my self waiting in the car for him to finish his conversation with the doctor before we retuned home.  The dream ended as I waited.