Bliss out with a meditation holiday in Thailand

When Serena Davies decided to go on a meditation holiday in Thailand, she didn't get a cushy few days in a luxury spa, with joss-sticks, massages and plenty of sleep. Instead she battled with her inner-self, fasted and fought off cravings for banana pancakes.

Wat Ram Poeng is a monastery and meditation centre and was my home for four weeks. A gorgeous array of temples and holy spaces, amidst
flower beds and fountains, it is perched at the edge of Chiang Mai,
Thailand's second city and a far more pleasant climate and urban base
than the exhausting, polluted Bangkok.

Foreigners as much as Thais are encouraged to come here and learn to
meditate. In fact, the quarters set aside for farangs (as we are
known) are so much in demand that those of the Thais are being
usurped. Everywhere are wan figures, dressed in the obligatory
white, walking like zombies, eyes staring at the ground as if
searching for a lost contact lens, or writhing in painful
approximations of the lotus position, faces composed in a severe
serenity.

They are practising the walking and sitting meditations of the
Vipassana Technique, one of the oldest and purest strands of
Buddhist meditation - which, advocates claim, is the original technique that Buddha
devised. The only demand Buddha made of his followers was
that they practise meditation, for, he said, this is the direct path to
enlightenment. No worshipping of graven images and no prayers to gods
unseen.

The farangs at Wat Ram Poeng meditate for seven, eight or nine hours a day if they
are newcomers, a daunting 12 or 13 if they are into their third
week. We rise at 4am, can't eat after 12pm, can't sleep before 10pm,
can't listen to music, can't read, and certainly can't snog, go
raving or call their mummies when it all gets too much. No lollipops
here, just hard hard work.

So why do it? Vipassana meditation is "insight" meditation. It teaches mindfulness. It teaches that if we try at each second to be
aware of ourselves, our thoughts, our emotions, sensations and desires, we may achieve a better understanding of reality.

But it isn't depressing. As you get
a little more skilled at the job - 12 hours of practice a day assists
miraculously - you react less to thoughts and feelings, you cease to generate more, and begin to be taught by those that are there.

Most farangs stay for 10 days, which is an extremely good innings by
anyone's standards. But the full retreat offered at Wat Ram Poeng
lasts 26 days, and there is something at its end called
"determination". We called it "detention" as a joke, but it's
actually rather worse. Determination requires that the student stay
awake for approximately 80 hours - three full nights - and
meditate the entire time. (Don't worry, I
failed).

Little precious snatched breaks for a cup of coffee or a
yoghurt drink are allowed, but basically you are left to meditate for 19 or 20
hours a day. Food is brought to your room, but curtains are to be
kept drawn, and escape is solely permitted for your daily visitation
to the teacher. You aren't allowed to wash, you aren't allowed to
change your clothes, and you aren't allowed to brush your teeth. This
is hardcore. They just about stop at putting you under lock and key.