1. When a thought comes, you acknowledge the thought and send it away or say that you will think about this after meditation.
2. Your knees when sitting should always touch the corners of your mat just like Buddha giving you a connection to the earth and during your meditation you should not move though this comes with time and practice.
We decided to visit Wat Langka in PP just a short walk from the guest house for the 8:30am session on Sunday morning. This session is open to all locals, foreigners and expats, it went for an hour and as we got there early we had the opportunity to explore before meditation began. It is a beautiful place and as we went upstairs the monks had laid out all the cushions and mats for the session.
As we went in as is the custom we remove shoes at the entrance and silently take or place on a mat and begin. For the first 30 minutes I managed very well, I was acknowledging and sending thoughts away and concentrating solely on the awareness of breath ie. when a thought comes I send it away and focus back on my breathing....in........and out.
I was honestly amazed with how well I managed to keep my concentration and allow my mind to be still. The second half hour was more difficult, I was becoming aware that I was concentrating on being still, so my thoughts continued and I often wasn't quick enough to catch them and stop them before they went onto the next...very silly things like what I'm doing tomorrow and what Free the Bears will be like, a couple of occasions required me to open my eyes and switch legs because my foot had gone dead or I had pins and needles. Though in that time it was nice to admire the intricate details of this temple and its ancient paintings of Buddhas history and life.
I found my self smiling at Buddha because Buddha was always smiling back.
When we finished we bowed and gave thanks as is the custom and left feeling calm and quiet. I certainly feel like I have more of a connection or understanding of the temples and what they represent having been there and experienced it for myself.
As a tourist in South East Asia it's very easy to walk into yet another temple and go 'snap' 'snap' 'snap' with your camera and walk out saying "well that was nice".
We continued to walk to the very first Wat in PP Wat Phnom on a small hill at the top of the city, this is said to be the place where a woman named Penh went to the Mekong and pulled four statues of Buddha out of the water she took them to this hill and built a little bamboo house for them to keep them safe and allow her to give offerings and becoming the reason behind the name of the city Phnom Penh. This now being a place for locals to come and bring offerings and being a Sunday the place was filled with local families, we took the time to sit inside and watch families bringing lotus flowers and incense, fake money and fruit plates to offer. We sat and admired the glistening gold throughout the temple, the ornate statues throughout and the stories that unfolded the deeper you focused on the paintings and their intricacies. A very young boy in blue denim overalls and his older sister were ushered in by their grandmother to say blessings to us which was very sweet.
I'm very grateful to Elisa for the insight she shared with me and I can only hope to carry these thoughts forward in my journey and in life.
As we were leaving we passed a monk with a lotus flower, we stopped to ask if we could take a photo of him and he smiled, as we thanked him he stopped me and looked at my GoPro ...."memory?" he asked......it certainly was.
Namaste.
