I wish you can have a 5 minute holiday
by Mike Rios
Teach in Thailand
"Your mind is like monkey," the Buddhist monk told me, "A monkey fighting with a hurricane."
Normally someone saying this type of thing may have offended me, but given that he was an old smiling monk, it felt natural. Then I asked "so how do I make change it?" and instead of answering me, he asked me another question back. Our conversations always seemed to end like this.
After my Teach in Thailand program finished, I spent a week meditating in the mountains of northern Thailand. The experience was as difficult as it was rewarding. Essentially I sat for ten hours a day with one goal: stop thinking. I couldn't talk to anyone, I couldn't read a book, or listen to music. Just stop thinking. Once a day I could talk to my monk teacher for five minutes and ask questions, but he always wanted me to find the answer. After three days I was ready to give up. I was getting restless and my thoughts were scattered. But then one late night, as the monk said it would, the hurricane settled. I let go. I focused on the moment of stillness. The monkey had found peace. It was honestly one of the greatest feelings I've ever had in my life.
On my last morning I didn't want to leave. It was 4 a.m. and for a few minutes I simply watched the candlelight dance on the temple walls. A monk came and asked me how long I was staying. "I'll leave today," I said with sadness. He laughed and in a froggy voice said something that can be roughly translated as, "No matter how long you stay … you will have the better feeling in your heart." He patted me on the shoulder, smiled, and finally walked away.
That afternoon, when I was saying goodbye to my monk teacher, he spoke more than I had heard him talk the whole week. It went something like this:
"I'm very … how you say … I'm very gladness that you come here. Most the foreigner, they come to Thailand and they ride the elephant or go to the island. But you, you've done something that is very important to our culture." He smiled, adjusted his glasses, and continued slowly, "I want you to think about the foreigners when they come here for holiday. What do they do? They are so stressed with work, so busy busy busy, and they come to Thailand so they can what? Relax. They sit on the beach and rest their minds. For you, I hope you take this gift of meditation wherever you go. Even for 5 minutes per day, I hope you take the time. I wish you can have a 5 minute holiday, everyday. Thank you for coming."
As I road down from the mountains with a group of novice monks, I couldn't help but smile. We were all sitting together, squashed in the back of a pick-up truck, like a big happy family. The younger monks teased each other, while the older brothers laughed at them. The sun was beginning to set and the breeze warm. For the next hour I slowly took in the scene. I thought about all the adventures I had lived in the last six months. I thought about my students. I thought about all the things about the Thais that drove me crazy and won my heart at the same time. I thought about how I almost didn't come to teach. I thought about how different my life would have been. I thought about how much Thailand had become a part of me. But most of all, I felt complete. Everything was perfectly still as it should be.