2026 writing January 2 3 4

This reminds me of writing in the temple because that is the place I wrote and mostly in the morning, especially when I wanted to record my dream.  I don’t dream as much out of the temple as in the temple.  And every year in the temple they are clear dreams of Mom and Dad that I have written about in my writings at Wat Rampoeng. When I spoke at Dad’s celebration of life, I expressed that one reason I go to the temple in Thailand annually is that I always have visitors from close relatives who have passed on, mostly from my Dad.  The significant dream this year was a very similar dream to the one I had in February with the setting being in the home I had grown up in.  I found this so significant in many layers.  

I did not write as much this year in my ten days of meditation at Wat Ram Poeng and did not write at all at the second temple.  So I write now about my four day experience in the forest temple.  The second temple was in the middle of a forest outside of Korat Thailand.  I flew back to Bangkok the day after I left Wat Ram Poeng after spending one night in the hotel, a nice hotel I had found when I was there in February.  I returned to the Bangkok Patio where I have stayed since returning to Thailand over the last ten years annually with the exception of one year due to lack of travel from Covid. Bangkok Patio feels like a home because familiar faces greet me along with a familiar space.  The rooms are small apartments.  I spent one night there and had arranged for my regular driver, Hung Oui, to take me and my two friends, Courtney and Gi Gi up to the forest temple for our five day retreat.  

Courtney has facilitated mediation retreats, and weekly zoom dharma talks wherein I have been active for at least ten years.  Our group is one of my sangha groups, a group of people who discuss the dharma, the teachings of Buddha.  A few years ago he organized our sangha group for a pilgrimage visiting several prominent temples in Thailand.  This year he organized this retreat to Korat.  Only two of us from our group, Gi Gi and my self, accepted the invitation.  

After a six hour drive, more than it should have been with traffic getting out of Bangkok, we arrived at the temple.  The head monk, Phra Ajahn Prechet, greeted us and took us to our Kutis where we would be staying four nights.  A Kuti is a small hut where monks and nuns stay.  This temple had never had a retreat, it was a favor the monk had arranged for Courtney.  My kuti was a small room with windows on three sides and a separate shower and toilet with a separate door joined by a patio looking over a small pond.  Courtney said there was a mattress they used for when monks got sick so the monk offered this mattress to me since I was older.  It was only an inch thick on top of what everyone else slept on, a wooden bed frame.  My sleep was restful sleeping on my back.  This time unlike Wat Rampoeng, we did not give up our phones.  I was pleased with my lack of use of my phone, with a realization that continuing to limit its use outside of the temple would be a healthy practice. 

So our retreat began.  We met with the monk that evening as we faced him sitting on the platform where monks sat higher than us.  He told us what he projected our days would be like and asked for our feedback.  We would begin with a four o’clock dharma
talk in the temple followed by joining the monks for their morning alms around the neighboring community.  Normally, women did not follow the monks but he made an exception for Gi Gi and my self.  He explained that one meal a day was what he, the five resident monks and one nun practiced.  After a ceremony from the community presenting food they had prepared along with what the monks had gathered during their alms, we went to the kitchen area for our meals around nine am.  Ajahn Prechat had asked Courtney if we would like a second small meal delivered to our kutis before noon since we were not in the practice of eating so infrequently.  We all agreed that this was a good idea.  Our practice was what and where we chose, alternating between conscious walking and sitting as like at Wat Rampoeng.  It was easy for me to fall into this routine after spending my previous ten days at Wat Rampoeng.  

January 3 2026 a few more reflections

After breakfast the second day at the Forest Temple, I spent my time walking, sitting on my porch looking out over the pond and moving in and out of sitting meditation.  As my routine out of the temple, I lie down on my mattress, do my 26 breathing points I learned from my practice at Wat Rampoeng, followed by falling asleep for my hour afternoon nap.  Afterwards, I spent an hour walking one of the three paths surrounded by a wood frame, then back to my porch.  The monks invited us to the veranda looking out over another lake at the other side of the temple.  Here they met daily to have their afternoon tea or coffee.   There were five of us now.  Joy who is a school principal in the Philippines and is a member of our Sangha group and her boyfriend. They joined us this morning to spend two nights with us.  Joy joined me this afternoon at the walking paths, requesting to teach her the six walking steps I had learned at Wat Rampoeng.  

It was decided that on the third day, we would take a tour around Korat.  The five of us plus two others from the community rode in the temple van.  One monk rode up front with us with the driver, the other four monks rode in Ajahn Prechat’s car.  We went to see a ruin that had been used as a resting stop for thousands of years on treks from Thailand into Cambodia in the times when elephants were used for transit.  The history and the energy of the walls of clay brick brought me to tears.  

What have I learned that I bring into my life outside of the temple?  There is a sign I always notice in the foreign meditation office at Wat Rampoeng,

“The work is not in the temple it is after you leave”

This time of forced solitude teaches me to appreciate this quiet and doing nothing outside the temple.  This morning I awoke not wanting to write but I just began and it feels this writing is an acceptance of doing nothing developing into something.  This year more than most, I left with a gratitude of acceptance and appreciation of all the good things I have in my life.  I feel this practice of not being in a place where it is easy to find distractions, teaches me to avoid the distractions more in the outside world.  They are still there and a joy in my life but I take more time to also enjoy the quiet moments of meditation rather they be watching the sun come up and beginning to notice the joy and view of the mountain as I am now sitting at my small antique window facing the view of the mountain, stopping to do my breathing points, and giving my self time for meditations throughout my day.  I no longer make a set time for these mediations, they come in and out of my life naturally, even as part of my daily activities of cooking, cleaning, sorting my imported inventory, or creating my jewelry.  

Tomorrow I will write about Ajahn Prechat’s Dharma message, 

“Have you seen him?”

January 4

I said I would write every day even if it’s a few words.  Today I am reflecting on what Ajahn Prechat said in one of his first dhama talk, “Have you seen him?”  Him” is that alter Ego that gets in our way, “him” is what takes us away from the loving kindness that we should be sharing every day.  In some ways, “him” is like an ego of which we need to “let go”.  Let go of our attachments, let go of our distractions, let go of our control and more so what controls us.