Yoo Hoo!!! I'm back. Been in the temple for the past week. I wan joining this novitiate programme and became a novice monk for like 8 days. (9 if you consider the day i went for preperation) Now it's time for the new noob to update noobs-4-noobs.
At the same time, this is my diary for my acariya (teacher) Rev. Dhammapala.
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Right, this is not the first time I had joint this kinda programme. In fact my acariya had seen my face for the third time already. So went in there well prepare with my friends, all veteran except wooi kean. So everyone was quite used to how things are done there. Hair shaving, precepts observing, meditation and filling up our tummy. However this time is something quite interesting.
Accomodation
Given an aircon room as usual, so I brought along my sleeping bag as a blanket. That's not the main point. Main thing is I get to share the same room as my fellow school mates and my senior and my gang. Sadhu to the person allocating us to that room. We did quite some thing in the room. Talk as usual, and introduced a new way to chant the parittas. Well since we are not allowed to sing (one of the precepts ma) so i used the parritas we are suppose to chant and mixed it with the song and it turn out to be quite good. (promote lee hom for a while) Try using his new song 落叶归根 chorus and chant NAMO TASSA BHAGAVATO ARAHATO SAMMASAMBUDDHASA. It turns out to be quite nice. However, got people complain me lo. Well we sort it out because I double checked with my acariya as well as the chief abbort of the temple, both say ok. Hee... Next time can chant in that way d!!!
FOOD
Haizz... Something people likes to quarrel about. Many people fight for food but we are suppose to comtemplate on whatever food we are given and choose what we don't like - avoid attachment. So I tasted the worst bittergout in my life. The damn thing really makes my eyes almost popped out! However, "this food I use it only to destroy the feeling of hunger and not producing new feeling of over eating; this lump of food is not yet loathsome but having touch this putrid body, it became exceedingly loathsome" So no complain on the food, in fact i put on some weight even we are only fed twice a day before noon. NO MEALS AFTERLUNCH!!! But still got gilanapacaya - medicine time. We took some chocolate and cheese as medicine to cure our "sick" tummy.
Activities
The most "interesting" part of the whole programme. This is a copy of our daily routine.
o500hours - rise and shine
0530hours - meditation
0630hours - morning puja (chanting)
0700hours - makan time (1st meal)
0730hours - temple cleaning (the temple is damn clean before we evan touch the broom)
0800hours - rest
0900hours - meditation and dhamma talk
1100hours - ready for lunch (2nd meal)
1200hours - rest time (at last)
1400hours - YOGA, meditation and lectures
1700hours - rest a bit
1730hours - gilanapacaya (i wonder did i got the spelling right)
1800hours - rest a bit
1830hours - metta bhavana (loving kindness meditation)
1930hours - ready for evening puja (chanting again... not lee hom style har)
2030hours - Dhamma talk
2130hours - closing to sleeping time
2200hours - SLEEP...
so basically this is what we did everyday except the last day which we had pindapatta and visiting old folks' home. Tight programme, tiring but enjoyable la. Especially the yoga. I did something that I don't even believed that I can do!!! TEACHER!! I LOVE THE CORPSE POSTURE!!! Next time we have more of the same posture ya. Then meditation was fun, when we talk about what we "saw" and many of us just fell asleep and one of them "saw" himself fighting a monster... As for me, nah, still can't concentrate well. Five minutes, 10 minutes, POP! my mind flew to somewhere else. So I will try to bring it back. No worries.
Dhamma Talks
This is the part where I don't really paid much attention to. Reason? It's too deep for me to understand it and I don't really think that at my level of meditation, I need to understand that. Wait till I progress to some higher level then I will see things clearer and I'll get to know what that is all about. However I can't be stopping the experts from learning ma, so let them learn and i guarenteed myself a few teachers in the future la. Hee... Well, the surprise sessions with Ven. Mahinda from Australia and my acariya's student was fun. We discussed a lot of things. Asked a lot of "unanswerable" questions. But we enjoyed the jokes la.
Avusos (fellow brothers)
Many misunderstanding between the Seniors and the juniors, don't wanna talk much about what they misunderstood but i don't think what they did was a right thing. But what can I do? I was treated like an illiterated people there. They always liked to pin point at people. "there are people who joined this programme for many times.... bla bla bla...." and the started complaining. Haizz... Nevermind bout the oldies, this is what we called the Generation gap. They just can't accept the modern things. BUT!!! As for my fellow friends, perfectly mixed together, it's like a small gathering for us. We shared our time together, did a lot of things together and shared a lot of things together. If you ask me what have I learnt there, HELPING EACH OTHER will definitely came first other than the spiritual gains. So I'm just quite enjoy it with them around.
Lastly... my last words
Basically, nothing much that I had to say. Throughout the whole programme, I not only learnt from my acariya, I too, learnt many things from my friends. Especially don't say one thing and do another. Like I always keep it as my principle. What noob says noob will do it! As for the spiritual side, I had learnt more about respecting my parents and gaining some knowlegde on dhamma except the Jhana part. Still not quite understand it. Sorry. So till the next programme.
Tata...
ps : my old self was pronuonced dead on the 26th August 2007 1400hours and it marks the time the new noob is being brought to this word.
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