So I’ve just emerged from 13 days in a forest in Northeast Thailand with 30 people around the world at the Mindfulness Project, a unique sort of experiment in community building, meditation, and self-sustainable natural living. If you know me, you probably know that I’ve been talking about doing something like this for a really long time, and now that’s it’s over, I’m struggling to figure out how to explain this experience. To recount the sights and sounds and feelings of it, to do it justice. It’s not something you can convey through a casual 10 minute conversation, let alone through a few Instagram photos or Facebook statuses.
I figured the most honest way to do it would be to just transcribe my personal journal entries from the past two weeks (elaborated a bit more here) as I sit in a Khon Kaen hotel room, in transition between adventures. I could try to summarize and neatly categorize my thoughts (“13 Things That Inevitably Happen When You Decide to Live Off The Grid”!) but this way is easier. Just a warning that it is a fairly long post, probably because I have an unusually long attention span after going without social media for two weeks. Hehe.
Day 1: Arrival
The first thing was getting to the project – a task easier said than done. I took a seven hour bus from Bangkok to Khon Kaen, a city up in the northeast that made every Thai person I talked to about it scratch their head and ask, why are you going there?, then another bus from the edge of the city to a remote rural location 30 minutes north. I got dropped off in seemingly the middle of nowhere and started down the path off the main road. Prepare for a very long walk, the project directions had instructed on their website, which I had conveniently forgotten about. I realized it was about to be a very long walk indeed. Three miles, to be exact. While lugging two backpacks and a day pack through 90 degree humidity with zero water. I beat back the growing despair in my mind and figured this was a test of my ability to be zen.
And then as if by magic, a local Thai man on a motorbike pulled up and gestured for me to get on. I suddenly remembered the sentence under the part about the long walk on the instruction sheet – it is very likely that someone will stop to pick you up. Thanking the universe, I hopped on behind him with 20 pounds of gear and he started driving – in the opposite direction of where I needed to go.
“I think I’m supposed to go the other way,” I said to him in the wrong language. He gestured as if to say there was an alternate way. The thought crossed my mind that he could be an axe murderer. But he had a good energy about him so I decided to trust my intuition and roll with it. Five minutes later, we pulled up to a big hand painted sign with MINDFULNESS PROJECT on it.
“Oh yay, you did it!” I said to him and he smiled, probably pitying the clueless American girl. He sped away and I walked past the sign into a tree-shaded path with zero idea of what I was getting myself into.
Upon arriving at the project, the first thing I thought of was that camp in Tarzan that the gorillas played in in that one song that I forgot the melody of because there are a lot more memorable Disney songs out there to fill up my brain space. It was very natural and very basic. I’m too lazy to describe what it looked like beyond this so I’ll upload a video tour for you later. Here, you can look at this for now.
Turns out that the day was everyone’s free day, so there were only five people present, all of whom looked much more harmonious with their surroundings than I. You could tell they had been traveling for a very long time by how well-worn their clothes were. Like they didn’t buy fancy travel sandals off Amazon a week ago, you know? (I love my new Tevas, by the way.) One girl had just cooked breakfast and someone handed me a plate. We sat on the dirt floor covered with straw mats and they started discussing Indian energy types, which I just listened to because I had never heard of kappa or vada or paiya and thus had nothing to contribute to the conversation. Everyone spoke English with some kind of accent but I was too shy to ask where they were from (would that be rude?). I started wondering if I was too un-exotic for the people at this place. One guy took out some kind of wooden flute and started playing a strange, meditative tune, and I wished I could be from somewhere a bit more exciting than Yorba Linda, California.
As the day went on, more people started coming back to the camp and engaging in activities that helped put me at ease. An Austrian and Italian showed me how to walk the slack line that had been set up between two trees (I promptly ripped a hole in my pants). A guy from Spain was playing the ukelele on a bamboo bridge overlooking the pond next to the kitchen and when I sat down, he taught me the first few chords of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. Then his Argentinian girlfriend joined us and I showed them some simple harmonies for “Hallelujah”, which we quickly became totally immersed in. As we sang together, I slowly rebuilt my confidence and regained my sense of self through music, the universal language.
At night, the Argentinian girl decided to facilitate an activity for the whole group. She blindfolded us, and then as if on cue, it started loudly and dramatically pouring rain, and though we were under a tin roof that the volunteers had just finished building the day before, the water flooded the mats under our feet. She told us to explore the area with our sense of touch, alone at first, then in pairs that we formed by groping out in the dark until we hit another body. She made us create different ways to maintain physical contact with our partner and navigate through the maze of other pairs. Then she told us to explore with our sense of hearing and we invented noises that were unlike anything we’d utter in real life, sounds that started off soft and isolated from each other and slowly grew together in a wall of sustained sound. An hour later, we took off the blindfolds and wordlessly looked around in amazement. We decided to sit on the floor in the kitchen afterwards to debrief the experience for the rest of the night.
I’m still not really sure what I’ve gotten myself into, but if this is the first day, I’m pretty stoked to see what the next two weeks will hold.
Day 3: Nature
I’m pouring a bucket full of water over my head, standing naked in an open-air bamboo and grass structure and washing my body with soap made from just blended kaffir lime and water. Raindrops fall lightly on my face as ants crawl on the pebbles next to my feet and a spider builds a web over the water tap. Suddenly it dawns on me: damn, I am natural AF.
It’s very strange to think that in this modern world, it’s possible to go from living in the concrete jungle of Los Angeles, sleeping in a full-size bed surrounded by every worldly comfort imaginable, to living in the actual jungle of rural Northeast Thailand, sleeping in a giant tent with 30 strangers from around the world with nothing but a backpack, in less than 24 hours. Stranger still to be finally living my dream of existing completely in harmony with nature, free from “the system” in almost every way.
So what is it actually like to be living this way? To be completely honest, there are parts that really suck and for these first few days I find myself dwelling on them- the gross toilets where you have to aim in one bucket to pee and another to poo and afterwards cover your excrement with charcoal and sawdust and avoid looking at the maggots breeding everywhere (sorry for such vivid imagery), the natural toothpaste we have to use here that looks like thrown up spinach and makes me feel like I’m brushing my teeth with sand. The hard mat and tiny pillow I’m sleeping on and the constant fear of insects finding their way through the holes in my mosquito net during the night. The inconvenience of having to hand wash and dry my clothes every other day because I only brought 2 sports bras and I sweat through them in hours here. And most of all, the evil, evil mosquitoes biting every part of my body mercilessly when the sun goes down – 40 plus bites in three days that wake me up in the middle of the night because they itch so bad and make me scratch myself til I’m bleeding.
Yeah, living in nature isn’t the romantic utopia I imagined it would be. But there are incredible parts about this lifestyle, too. Falling asleep to the beautiful lull of a million crickets instead of the 110 freeway. Looking up from my hammock as I write this to see lush green plants, trees and grass in every direction, our resident black cat Mamu (Thai word for witch, apparently) climbing the tree trunk next to me to chase a gecko, and a gigantic black and white butterfly floating past my face. There are spiders in our open-air sleeping dorm, yes (and spiders are fucking scary), but there are also fireflies that light up the ceiling in wondrous bursts of twinkling fire, mimicking the blanket of endless stars outside.
“People are afraid of nature, and they try to control what they are afraid of,” Christian, our project founder/leader, remarked to us last night. I reflect on this statement, thinking about the enclosures we’ve built up for ourselves to shut out the animals, the insects, the rain and the sun, to completely control our environment. We’ve gained comfort, maybe, but there is so much we’ve lost that we don’t even know about because we’ve lived isolated from nature for so long. By setting up fancy interior lighting and regulating the temperature at a perfect 70 degrees, we’ve given up so many wonderful sensations – an unexpected and blissful breeze on our skin after intense heat, of warming sunlight after the rain, of morning dew and evening sunset and pale moonlight. By putting up artificial walls that block the sky, we’ve also blocked our minds. At some point in human evolution, we separated ourselves from our natural environment and forgot that we are all one – that we’re connected to every bug, tree and animal on this planet and if we destroy our environment, we destroy ourselves.
These mosquito bites still really suck, though.
Day 5: The Schedule
It’s hard to explain what this place is to someone who isn’t here experiencing it. It probably comes across as an over-the-top touchy-feel-y hippie escape land for Westerners, and maybe it is, but reducing it to a one-dimensional stereotype would be a mistake. Since my last entry, I’ve had a staggering amount of beautiful moments – more in one week than what feels like months back home.
I guess what I’m realizing is that when you get a small group of people together with the intention of living with love for each other and for the planet, beautiful moments are the norm rather than the exception. Spontaneous moments, like our giant dance party the other night in the “yoga sala” (aka dirt floor) which was preceded by my Argentinian music teacher friend playing guitar and singing Spanish songs as our other Singaporean yoga teacher friend performed interpretive dance to it while the rest of us laid on our backs giving each other massages. But I think what makes these spontaneous moments possible is the very intentional culture of love and mindfulness and joy that is integrated into every part of this place.
At 5:40 AM each day, someone rings a big gong to wake us up for yoga as the sun is rising. In silence, we sit cross legged in the sala until our teacher (one of the long-term volunteers) joins us. This morning, the rising sun was perfectly framed between the trees behind our teacher Anya, and she dedicated the session to it, noting that all of life on this planet, including us, is only possible because of its incredible light energy. Egg, the other cat, wanders over and sits on the mat next to her and a snail makes its way slowly through the dirt between us. The early sunlight filtering through the trees casts a glow on everyone and we start our session, pausing every once in a while to listen to Anya’s stories about her time as a nun at the monastery in Khon Kaen – the first woman to ever be accepted as a nun there. She tells us what it’s like to be completely isolated for weeks at a time with nothing but your own mind for company. How it feels to finally break through the overwhelming loneliness and anger that it brings to the other side – to peace and to the powerful realization that we are all interconnected.
After yoga, Christian, her partner and co-founder of the project, leads us in a 30 minute meditation session. Meditation is the heart of this project, but it’s a huge struggle for me to stay awake during it, let alone focused on my breathing and aware of my thoughts. My mind wanders like mad, contemplating dumb things like whether I should do laundry today or tomorrow, how many countries are represented by the current pool of volunteers, and what thoughts the people around me are having. Eventually, I realize what it is I’m actually thinking and let these threads go, coming back to my breath and body. I register the points of contact my feet have with the floor, feel exactly where the breeze blows on my face. Then we end the session and Christian divides us up for our morning chores – two volunteer to tidy the dorms, two to clean the toilets, three to prepare breakfast, a few more to clear the camp of fallen leaves and branches. We’re still silent and will remain so until after breakfast.
After an hour or so, the gong rings again and we line up for delicious food – egg and broccoli scramble with peanut butter oat cakes one day, tropical fruit salad with chocolate raisin pancakes another. We sit on the floor with our plates and wait until the last person has joined us, and someone says a mantra, asking us to thank the plants and people who made our food possible, to eat it in order to give us energy to help those in need. The silence allows us to focus on the act of eating, to really taste each bite and savor it before moving onto the next. I stand up after I’m done to collect the plates of the people around me and go to wash them in the kitchen, returning the favor someone else did for me yesterday.
When we’re done, we’re put in pairs and break the silence with a morning hug with a different person every day. We do this because it gives us natural endorphins, because travelers so rarely experience real human touch that isn’t sexual in nature, and because as we grow up we lose the trust we had as kids and with it, the instinct to hug the people around us. Most folks aren’t very good at hugging, Christian points out, and we practice relaxing into each other’s bodies, shedding the social norm that usually prevents us from reaching such close physical proximity.
After this, we perform a goodbye ceremony for anyone who is leaving the project that day. We sit in a circle around this person, close our eyes, relax, and summon our favorite memories of them. They are asked to reflect on their time at the project and think about what they will take back with them. Our eyes still closed, we concentrate on sending them loving energy as Christian says a mantra, followed by a giant group hug:
May you always be full of loving kindness.
May you be healthy and free of physical pain.
May you be safe and protected wherever you go.
May you be happy, content, and really free.
Then it’s time for our work for the day – cooking lunch, whacking weeds, plastering walls with clay and water, making natural soap and peanut butter, designing games for the forty Thai kids who are visiting the project next week. I prefer the sweatier tasks – anything that involves lots of dirt. I revel in the simple pleasure of digging through the earth with a shovel to level the yoga sala floor or create new beds for the garden or make mud bricks for natural building. It’s meditative and satisfying work, and I teach the other volunteers some a cappella rounds to pass the time. At one point we realize that we all know “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” from the Lion King and start singing it, then realize that we all know it in different languages (English, French, Spanish, and German).
I joke about how I got a fancy university degree only to end up doing farm work (sorry Mom…) and reflect on the fact that society looks down on it, dismisses it as unskilled and monotonous and unappealing, when really, I feel more peaceful and happy doing this than sitting for eight hours a day at a computer in a stuffy office with artificial lighting. What time is it? someone asks and the rest of us shrug. Time is an illusion, we say half-kiddingly. It’s sun o’clock.
When the gong rings, we line up for lunch, whatever the kitchen volunteers dream up – today zucchini curry, yesterday a rice broccoli mushroom dish. Then it’s 4 hours of free time, which I utilize differently every day. Yesterday I decided to run around the village and ran into some mean-looking dogs, and as I contemplated my life choices a truck came to my rescue and its driver sling-shot some rocks at them and accompanied me to the end of the road, laughing at the frazzled sweaty foreign girl.
At 6PM, the gong rings for our evening talking circle, where we sit on the floor and take turns answering two questions. The first is always the same: What was your favorite moment of today? And the second is different every time. Why and how did your last relationship end? Who is the most important person in your life? What are you most ashamed of?
I love the opportunity the talking circles afford me to reflect on each day and hone in on the best moments. Sometimes, it’s something as simple as the light cutting through the trees this morning during yoga; other times, it’s a deeper moment, like the conversation about our cultural differences a few of partook in the other day. And I love the opportunity the talking circles give me to practice deep listening – to stay focused on what others are sharing instead of thinking about my own answer, to hear their words with an open heart instead of closed judgement, which I realize isn’t my default state. It’s something I have to consciously work at.
After the talking circle, we have a workshop or teaching of some sort, led by Christian or any of us with whatever knowledge we have to contribute. We had an intense discussion last night about the nature of thoughts – how they have zero power until you believe them. How you can’t control what happens to you, but you can always control how you experience them. I go to bed a bit perplexed, sometimes frustrated, but very much alive.
Day 7: Birthday Party
Today happened to be one of the volunteer’s birthdays, and we celebrated Mindfulness Project-style. “We don’t buy physical gifts – instead, today becomes a wish day for the birthday person. They can wish to spend the day in whatever way they want, and we do everything in our capacity to make the wish come true,” Christian explained to us in the morning after breakfast. “Most of us are not used to identifying what it is we really want, and conveying it to others. This is a good way to practice that self-love.”
The level of thoughtfulness everyone has put into making today special for the birthday girl has blown my mind. Yesterday, we all gathered for a secret meeting to plan out all the surprises we wanted to enact today. One person offered to write a song, which others quickly offered to help with. Another said they would make a leaf and flower crown for her to wear. Someone else would scrap together ingredients from the kitchen to bake a natural vegan cake.
During the talking circle tonight, we surprised her by turning our second question into a personal reflection on why each of us admires her or a wish we have for her life, which we pre-wrote on little paper hearts that we strung onto a necklace after we spoke. By the time Christian gave his reflection, telling her how inspired he is by her decision to leave her long time career to travel here and by her beautiful spirit, she was crying, and I was too. You can’t help but feel deeply touched by the outpouring of genuine love for this person and realize how rewarding of an act giving really is.
After that, we had a huge dance party in the yoga sala, ate delicious garlic tortillas which Christian hand made for everyone, and wrapped the leftover bread around sticks that we roasted over a huge bonfire. I danced freely and exuberantly and realized how nice it felt to do so without alcohol, with a clear mind and a body buzzing off of endorphins and good vibes.
Day 10: Attitude and Perspective
As my time is ending here, I’m finding it harder to stay present – I keep thinking about my next travel moves; what else is out there and where I want to go. I’m a bit sad that the people who were here when I first arrived have all left, replaced by a totally new batch of volunteers whom I don’t want to exert energy getting to know only to say goodbye in a few days. Yesterday, I didn’t interact much with people and started to wish I was somewhere else – I’m up to over 100 mosquito bites and I spent a lot of the day cursing their itchy, painful existence. I also fell back into my bad habit of judging people, which is easy to do when you’re in a bad mood, especially when you don’t really know them. He is rude for putting so much food on his plate. She’s so young, she doesn’t know anything about relationships yet.
Today, though, I told myself that I would make the most out of my last few days here – that I wouldn’t take this place for granted. And I was amazed at how my entire experience changed when I shifted my mindset to a more loving one. I put positive energy into my interactions with the new people and and got into amazing conversations. I pretended that putting cow manure on the garden beds was like sprinkling fairy dust and had an awesome time. I started a mini-running club and coached one of the girls through the last mile in the intense humidity and ended up feeling like she was a little sister I never had.
I guess you can choose to only see the mosquito bites and the people who’ve left that you miss, or you can choose to see the fireflies and the people who’ve just arrived that you have yet to be inspired by.
Day 13: Reflections
Before coming here, one of my deepest fears was that I’d find out that this kind of radically simple lifestyle, surrendering all material comfort and abstaining from alcohol and technology and possessions to be deeply with ourselves and each other, wouldn’t fulfill me. But it has in every way. This experience has taught me that community is all I need to be happy – and that’s an incredibly powerful realization.
Before political change can happen, cultural change must occur. We have to learn how to treat each other with compassion. We have to open our minds. We have to start with loving ourselves. I’ve known these things for a while now, but intellectually knowing is one thing and personally experiencing is another.
What the Mindfulness Project community does is weave cultural norms of love and presence and joy so deeply into everything we do that nothing toxic or dehumanizing can ever take root here in the first place. Instead of defining ourselves by what we don’t want and only focusing on addressing outcomes of our current destructive culture, we co-create the vision of the world we want to see and live it.
And this practice is something that’s intended to be taken from the project and implemented in our lives afterward, to radiate outward from one candle to a thousand flames to light up the darkness. Radical love can transform the fear and hate that has been socially conditioned within us, and acting from love can transform systems and societies. I’m still nowhere near close to mastering the darkness inside of me, but I’ve gained so many practices to help start this journey.
That brings me to the next step of my travel adventure. I’ve decided to trek across Thailand to live at a forest monastery in the north for a few days, to get deeper into meditation practice (or at least not fall asleep during every session). I have no expectations, just intrigue at what will happen when I’m there – plus, it’s free to stay!
Thanks for reading if you’ve made it this far, and excited to see you in six weeks!
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