Rude Awakenings - Forest Sangha Publications

^0 T H I R D M O O N 06the sun, always in complete silence. This day the rain was keepingeveryone in their huts, but I had two handmade Burmese umbrellasthat I was taking home as gifts. One, a plain one, I put out for my companionto use, taking for myself the one painted with colourfulBurmese designs. We both walked round the garden, the rain patteringon the umbrellas, while the others looked on. I was rather takenwith being the focus of attention and went round three times. Atbreak’s end, we returned to the meditation, but just the slight excitementof our little parade had disturbed the balance. The meditationwould not go right. I began to panic a little, which made it worse. I triedharder, which made it even worse. The more I tried, the farther I gotfrom being able to do it. The ability to concentrate on those subtle sensationshad totally gone. Next day it was the same, and the day after.The more it went on, the more fed up I got. I had fallen from heavenand I could not get back.The course finished on the night of the full moon with a visit to theBodhi Temple. Everyone was given candles and incense, and we walkedtogether through the empty streets, still in silence. The temple compoundwas lit with the flickering light of thousands of butter lamps.Others were already there, sitting quietly under trees or doing prostrationstoward the temple. We wandered through the grounds followingGoenka and then sat in meditation clustered together under the BodhiTree while Goenka did some chanting, his deep melodious voice comingand going in the night air. It was all very uplifting.As we went back to the vihara, all as high as kites, we were allowedto talk for the first time. We started hesitantly but came through thegates of the vihara producing an excited babble and then clusteredtogether in little groups sharing our experiences of the past three weeks.Myself and the monk ended up sitting up talking in our hut most of thenight. That is when I found out that his name was Stephen Batchelor,that he was my age, and that he had also come out to India straight fromschool. He had ended up in northern India, studying with the Tibetans,2 7 8