My mum had told me that I needed to prepare for the potential cold snap in the north of Thailand. I thought she should know me better, after all I’ve spent my life in the U.K. Then again, mums are always right. I think it went down to 10 degrees. Combined with high levels of humidity and no heating or insulation to speak of, it was possibly the coldest I’ve ever felt in my life. At least when I had to stand in the snow storm for 3 hours in New York I was wrapped up and waterproof.

On this retreat we won’t have to go on an alms round, which I wouldn’t mind doing right now as any means to get warmed up was welcome. At 6am the monks would have a light snack by ourselves and we would do the cleaning up afterwards. Ajahn Jaya left with 2 other monks and a novice monk to visit a school nearby. That left me alone with Tan F. who’s teaching me the basic ins and outs from scratch.

Yesterday he taught me that the bowl should not be on a raised platform for there’s potential for it to fall off. It must also be placed next to your head when you sleep. He’s a very pleasant old man, firm in his teachings but also rather forgetful, which made me feel less guilty as I bombard him with questions before he forgets. He taught me how to fold the main robe properly when not wearing it, how to properly clean the bowl after a meal and all the ceremony that’s needed before, during and after a meal.

Another aspect which I had not really thought of when wanting to get ordained was that at all times you must set an example be presentable to the public at large. I guess I never expected to be in front of the public as a monk so soon. Also severe punishment would be in order for dropping the bowl lid on an alms round, which I’ve already done.

I was missing a piece of cloth (when I already had so many) that’s used as a napkin during the meal and to dry the bowl after the meal. Each piece of cloth is special for they make one of the few requisites that a monk must keep. Each piece is dedicated to a specific task and a ceremony must be carried out by the monk himself to raise awareness to that fact. This involved a few chants followed by drawing 3 dots to the corner of the cloth so if another monk comes across it, they will know that it is already owned by another.

At meal time, senior family friends who are also attending the retreat came to offer food and seeing them bow down before me was an awkward yet humbling experience. Apparently my parents are very worried and they probably knew how it would turn out. This concept of prostrating in front of others is still very alient to me, especially as the recipient of it. I will think of it for now as simply an extended version of the anjali and nothing more.

Tan. F helped me with carrying out these chants and ceremonies to ‘let go’ and then re-assign each piece of clothing to a particular task. A monk should only have the exact number of requisites as needed by the practice. These are:

• 1 main robe
• 1 lower cloth
• 1 outer robe
• 2 undergarments

The first 3 are the known as the primary robes and these must be kept within reach of you at sunrise every day.

I was taught a chant which took the form of some sort of admission/answer dialogue. It’s about asking for forgiveness of wrongdoings that may have been committed. He also shaved my head and eyebrows again as today is supposedly the right day, I’m not sure why. He also told me that at Wat Pah Nanachat they shave every 2 weeks.

He then asked if I had any money on me and I had to say yes as I did and I wasn’t going to lie. Straight away things took a serious turn as forest monks take the issue of holding money very seriously and I was told to just “own up to it and throw it away”. This was not what I was told at my previous monastery in Bangkok where I was told that holding money is fine but using it is not. Either way I had to wait and informed Ajahn Jaya as soon as he got back.

He was completely unfazed by it and said that while this is true that monks should not hold money, 99% of monks in Thailand still do and the problem is the potential conflict of interest or fraud that could (and still does) occur. He told me to give it to someone who could then give it to Mum when she came the next day.

One of the senior monks was tasked with chanting the Patimokkha which is the 227 main rules that monks must keep as part of the discipline. It must have taken him almost a whole hour and it’s a wonder that he remembered 99% of it. There’s no way that I could ever manage to chant for that long from memory. I think the event is for the purpose of reminding the monks of the discipline required of the practice.

Although I managed to stay in the same sitting pose throughout the whole chant, I had to keep stretching at times to release the pressure on my back. I’m sure everyone noticed it as it was hard to be subtle. In the end I failed miserably to kneel-walk to and from Ajahn Jaya to pay respects as every other monk had done as my knees were in too much pain.