For once the sleep wasn’t too bad. I had obtained an extra blanket to use as a lower layer to the straw mat which helped somewhat with the cushioning but not so much the insulation. Trying to sleep at 7pm didn’t help much either but turning on a light of any sort would draw all sorts of living beings to the kuti.

The morning chanting was surprisingly fast. It’s so much faster in Pali-English! The whole morning chant was done in half an hour at 4am and another hour of meditation followed. I spent half of that doing walking meditation as my legs were not feeling well from all the kneeling and came back to sit for the last half an hour.

The alms round went on a different route today and took about an hour. Some parts of the trip were excruciating but somehow manageable overall, although I was struggling to keep up with the others. Maybe without me and Tan C. the experienced monks would have paced it in less than an hour. Also wearing only the outer robe as Ajahn R. suggested was a lot easier. I’ve just realised that I haven’t eaten much meat recently and it’s not something commonly offered. Even so, given how much veg I consumed it was unusually hard to do a number two. This shouldn’t be that surprising given that we only eat 1 meal a day in about 25 minutes. After the meal there’s Ovata which is a brief talk or lesson given by the abbot and I was just late for it. We got a small telling off as a result. Remember, from now it’s at 9:30am.

I cleaned up the storage room #2 and toilet block #4 for the 3-4:30pm chores. The storage room I made sure to sweep inside and mop the paved area outside. The toilet was being used by the works people building the new Bot (temple building) so I only gave the block a quick spray. I finished it all before 4:30pm so took a quick shower by the bowl drying shed. This seemed to be the best time as the water is not too cold yet and there are no more strenuous activities in the evening.

At 4:30pm is Nam Pana and I talked to Tan C. as usual and getting to know Nen (Thai term of a novice monk) P. who’s from Laos and speaks really good Thai. He asked if I could help teach him some English as he was still a beginner and I happily obliged. Teaching was perhaps going a little too far as I was no teacher but I’ll try my best. Afterwards I hung around and practised some more of the chants.

Evening chanting was at 6:15pm and the Pali-English chant was rapid compared to Pali-Thai, only 30 minutes again. This was then followed by 1 hour of meditation sitting and/or walking. After we finished at 7:45pm I went straight back to sleep.