The time I went to a Buddhist meditation silence retreat....

I'd been hiking through SE Asia, and discovered a 10-day Vipassana silence retreat in Malaysia.

I figured why not? I could stand to shut up for awhile!

So I rocked up. Here were the stipulations; no stimulus material whatsoever allowed. No music, no reading material at all.

Yeah ok, sure. I can do that.

We had our own very basic room; bed, sink, shower, toilet. Absolutely nothing else. Ok, there was toilet paper.

I wondered how many actually stuck to the no reading materials etc rule......

It was a total silence retreat. You couldn't talk to anyone. Not the other participants. Not even a thank you to those who served the (vegetarian, fairly tasty) food.

The only people you could talk to was to ask short questions of the guru, and only when invited to, and only at either the morning or afternoon 3-hour meditation sessions.

All fine, I suppose.

What really pissed me off was that prior to signing up I made sure that it wasn't religious. I sent multiple emails checking and rechecking this. I'm not against religion, but was going there to chill, connect, and focus. To learn some meditation techniques.

Well these 'meditation' sessions were sessions equal parts sitting cross-legged humming/not humming, and getting ear-bashed about how all religion is shit, and theirs is the only way.

Precisely the stupid, myopic shit I DIDN'T go there for!

Also, we weren't allowed to meditate outside. At all. Outside was simply for moving between three rooms; our little room, dining hall, meditation hall.

Men and women were completely separated. The only time we saw each other was on opposite sides of the meditation hall.

Did they think people were going to have a sly shag on the side or something??

They kept saying how you needed to learn to find peace and joy in all circumstances, and yet we weren't allowed to be outside. We were to remain calm at all times, and not be surprised by anything.

This came to a head for me on the fifth day.

We were sitting there in the hall, my knees were hurting. One of my favourite sounds thrumming rhythmically; a heavy raining cascading off the roof and dripping, rolling from leaf to leaf on the bushes just outside the window.

I watched it for awhile. Watched individual drops dance their ways down, some using each leaf as a trampoline to spring forth.

Then I stood up.

The guru had already left; his part of the session had just finished. I signaled the assistant.

Quietly whispered to him that I was leaving.

Now, the protocol was that you had to see the guru one-on-one if you decided to leave, which was fine.

I went to see him.

Of course, he asked me why I wanted to leave. I said that I find my joy and peace in the outdoors.

He asked how I was leaving.

I said I was going to get my pack, and walk into town.

It was then that he broke character. His eyes opened wide, and in an incredulous voice said, "But it is raining very hard"!

I said, "You have just finished talking about finding peace in any situation. Do you not actually believe it yourself? I love the rain, I thrive in the rain".

He said, "But the town is a long way"!

I calmly replied, "I know. It is 30km". Don't worry; I have walked much, much further. And I will love every moment of it in this cool, refreshing rain".

I went on, "Again, you are telling us to be peaceful in any situation, and yet you have removed all opportunity to practice that. We aren't allowed to even sit on the grass outside, sun on the face, ants crawling on our legs. Your people promised me it would be purely about meditation, and yet every session contains a large religious 'teaching' portion. I thank you for your generosity, but it is time for me to leave".

And I did.

I didn't get too far down the road, however, when one of the volunteer cooks was returning home. He gave me a lift, and offered me a place to stay for the night.

I accepted his offer, and we discussed both the experience I had, including my concerns and frustrations, and his experiences there, as well as his interaction with Buddhism as a whole.

It was a fantastic evening of intelligent, open conversation!

The next day, was something else altogether; I spent the day with a muslim man, visiting mosques and discussing religion, politics, terrorism.

But that's a story for another day.