It is amazing to see how one’s perception and experience can change so immensely within 6 days from first being unsure to then not enjoying it to then absolutely loving it and being incredibly grateful. This is what happened to me during a 6-day meditation course at a Buddhist monastery in Nepal.
Generally, my favorite way of traveling is when I can learn something new or expand my horizons. So in January 2020, when I had to leave Rishikesh, India because my visa expired, I decided to book a last-minute flight to Kathmandu, Nepal. It was the cheapest international flight plus I knew there was the option of going to the Kopan Buddhist monastery for a 6-day meditation course during my 14-day stay in Nepal. I had heard about the Kopan Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal through a friend who had attended the Buddhism course and had recommended the monastery. A few years ago I had been quite good at meditation but I kind of lost grip and didn’t do it regularly anymore, so this course sounded like a great idea.
I booked the flight even though I wasn’t 100% sure if I should or should not attend the 6-day meditation course at the Kopan Monastery until the very last moment before the course started; mostly because of the very mixed feedback I found online about the courses at Kopan. I found a lot of good and positive feedback but then also quite a few negative ones and they were the ones that made me hesitate. I just didn’t quite feel in the right space for being stuck in a monastery with lots of strict rules, but then one day before it started I thought “It is just 5 nights and 6 days, it cannot be that bad” and decided to do it.
The course
On the first day of the course, my previous concerns were confirmed and I did NOT enjoy it. Instead, I questioned if I made the right decision to have come. We only did 8 x 10 min & 1 x 15 min meditations (95min in total), which is not a lot, considering it was a meditation course and considering I had come to improve my meditation skills. Instead, the main focus was on the teaching of Buddhism. I listened to it all with an open mind and there were indeed a lot of good views and practices in Buddhism that all humans could and probably should apply to their lives to become better humans and to create a better world. And even though Tibetan Buddhism has more in common with science, logic, and philosophy than other religions, which is amazing, it is STILL a religion; meaning the beliefs are absolute. It is very black and white and there is only one way and truth to how things are according to their religion. Which doesn’t work for me.
The teacher was an Australian woman who has been in Buddhism for 22 years. She was a wonderful person and was very good at teaching Buddhism. She had a good sense of humor and a good way to teach people from all walks of life. Participants of the course were asking the teacher questions in regards to any area of life and she almost always had a definite answer true in the belief of Buddhism, which was kind of frustrating to me. To me, it felt narrow-minded and stupid really to only look at things from one angle being the angle of Buddhist beliefs.
And then from Day 2, (almost) everything changed. One thing I did was that I changed my perspective and focused on expanding my knowledge and experience while not letting my ego or inner judge speak and take whatever was useful from the course to add to my own truth.
The amount of meditation time did not increase a lot in the remaining days, however, it was regular frequent meditation with different techniques and from the angle of Buddhism, which was new to me and new knowledge that I could apply to what I already knew about mediation.
But also the teachings on Buddhism got lighter and broader and I found huge amounts of value in some of the principles and teachings. Not all of it was new to me but learning about all of them together had a bigger impact for me and I have since applied them to my life and shared them with dear friends and family. Below I am listing 6 principles that resonated most with me. I will only elaborate a bit more on the last 3 of them because the others are quite logical and easy to understand.
- Loving-Kindness
Extending goodwill, care, and consideration to all beings
- Compassion
Recognizing the suffering of others and wishing for that suffering to be alleviated.
- Equanimity
Wish of well-being and happiness to all living beings.
- Silence
Silence is the only way that we can recognize what we need to change (esp. attachment and aversion). Silence is not just not talking, but it is taking time & space to observe what your mind is doing. I absolutely loved the not-speaking during the course. Every day from after dinner until after lunch the next day no one was allowed to speak (unless you asked a question during the sessions). It was amazing to see how it calms down your mind and thoughts. It was also truly special to watch people during breakfast and dinner focusing on mindful eating, noticing the taste of their food, or watching the steam coming up from their teacup. I enjoyed feeling the rays of sunshine in my face and the sound of birds make me so deeply grateful and happy that it moved me to tears. Even when we were allowed to speak I chose to not speak or only speak very little most of the time. One night I made an exception and I had a 15min conversation over dinner with 4 guys from the course. It was mindboggling to see how much energy it took from me. And then even worse during meditation after dinner the conversation I had kept going round in my head and I struggled to quiet my mind even more.
One of the non-virtues in Buddhism is senseless chatter/talk. So many people talk so much without much meaning; worst of it being gossip and discussing other people.
While I am already not a fan of small talk, my experience on the course certainly made me realize that I will be even more conscious in the future of the words I speak and the conversations I partake in.
“Learning meditation, or studying Buddhism, is learning about you, your own nature. The subject is about your own mind. It is so important to know the mentality of your own mind, no matter you believing it or not believing, you are religious or not religious, you are Christian, or you are Hindu, or you are science, or you are black or East or West or…no matter. To know your own mind is very, very important.”
Lama Thubten Yeshe
DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE WHEN YOU STOP BUSYING YOURSELF? WHEN YOU DO NOTHING AND JUST ARE?
But then there is even more to silence than not talking. It is also not distracting yourself with anything, which we did on Day 4 of the course. No yoga, no stretching, no reading, no phone, no washing clothes. Just sitting on my bed or outside and letting my thoughts pass and notice them. The one thing I did was journaling. We were allowed to do this as long as it had to do with the course and I was very glad because so many things surfaced from deep inside me. It was also amazing to see how meditation started to get easier and especially to see how the mind calms down without all these distractions.
- Impermanence & Death
The lack of impermanence leads to unhappiness & suffering. Everything changes all the time. Death can happen at any time.
- Non-attachment
Attachment is the greatest cause of suffering.
Impermanence and non-attachment kind of go a little hand-in-hand. Generally, people get too attached to things and other people; materialistic things they possess, jobs they have, the shape of their bodies, partners they are with, or their friends. Thinking or believing that things will not change will eventually lead to unhappiness and suffering. In fact, everything changes ALL the time. Even the cells of your body are constantly dying and new ones are created. Realizing and accepting that nothing is permanent including being alive will make your life easier and make you more content. It helps us to maintain awareness of the preciousness of life and encourages us to sort out our priorities.
THE ONLY CONSTANT IN LIFE IS CHANGE.
By day 4 of the course, huge amounts of happiness and gratitude overcame me a few times during the day. On the one hand just to be there and as well as for the life I have. But also looking around at the other participants and to see how everyone was transforming made me so happy and grateful for the Kopan monastery hosting these courses and about so many people joining them. It was just incredible to see the about 65 participants that came from all walks of life, were any age from 16 years to 60+ years old and literally came from all over the world. No nationality was in the majority, which was very refreshing.
To me, Kopan felt like a sanctuary where you feel safe, protected, looked after, and disconnected from the outside world. Peaceful and nourishing. You feel understood and are amongst like-minded people. This is of course my personal opinion and I am sure that every participant had their own different experience.
At the end of the course I was curious and almost a bit anxious to leave this perfect protected bubble and go back to “reality” and society. Amongst other things dealing with harshness, judging, selfishness, too much chatter of which nothing exists within the monastery grounds.
I definitely also felt that my need for solitude, peace, and quiet would be even bigger. What I was craving was meditation, yoga, reflection, and me-time.
Conclusion:
I am very glad that I overcame my doubts and attended the course and I can certainly imagine going back again at some point for other courses. I learned so much and had such an incredible time, which will always be a part of my memories and life.
For me personally – even though I could apply a lot of the learnings to my life, generally the path and lifestyle of yoga, which is not a religion, resonates more with me. It has a lot of similarities in regards to conducts of behavior, but the asana (postures) and pranayama (breathing) practice in yoga make it so much easier to meditate. Asanas make your body strong to sit still for a long time in meditation and pranayama purifies and quietens the mind. In my yoga teacher training a few years back I also learned that food makes the mind busy. Which – if you pay attention to it – is quite true. Meditation at Kopan right after breakfast and dinner was tough. I could also see this in other participants – how they struggled to keep sitting still to listen and then meditate. It feels like there was a balance missing in the form of moving the bodies.
But having said that I learned a lot of new things and have added valuable learnings to my life and can certainly recommend anyone to attend this course.
Practical things:
I want to share a few practical things and information in case you are considering to join a course in the future.
- Accommodation, weather, and clothes:
I had initially booked a dorm room for my stay at the Kopan monastery, which is the cheapest option and the monks told me on the phone that it is much warmer than other rooms as it faces the sun most of the day. I attended the course in early January, which is the coldest time of the year in Nepal and I did not want to be uncomfortable and freeze all the time. When I arrived and checked into the dorm room, I wasn’t so sure anymore about this choice; there were about 10 beds in the room very close to each other. No space to put out a yoga mat for some stretches and certainly no privacy.
Spending 6 days on a meditation course I felt like I would want peace and quiet and time to process. So I went back to reception – the monks at reception are incredibly friendly and helpful – and upgraded to a single room, which didn’t cost too much more and was so worth it. I had a small room (see picture) with 2 thick blankets on my bed, a desk, chair, cupboard, space for my yoga mat, and lots of peace and quiet. My room didn’t get much sun but it was ok. If you do go in December or January just make sure you have plenty of warm clothes. I had a thin down jacket, a blanket, beanie, warm socks, and a hot water bottle (which I could even fill up in the bathroom because the water was that hot).
- Location:
The location is really nice on a hill overlooking surrounding areas and mountains. The monastery with its gardens and meditation halls is very well looked after, clean, nice, and beautiful. It is an authentic, working monastery with hundreds of monks all ages from about 7 years old. It was quite special to spend time amongst them and see them live their life in the monastery. I saw a lot of negative feedback online from day visitors to Kopan and that they weren’t allowed into buildings or that the monks weren’t friendly. Well, I don’t recommend going there for a day visit, even we weren’t allowed to talk to monks or interrupt them in their daily lives which makes sense. It is not a tourist attraction, but a holy place for Buddhist monks.
- Daily schedule:
The daily schedule generally looked as per below. It is really not too difficult to attend all meditations and sessions. During every session, there is at least one meditation, often two.
- 6:45 am – Meditation
- 7:30 am – Breakfast
- 9:00 am – Session 1
- 10:30 am – Break
- 10:45 am – Session 2
- 11:30 am – Lunch
- 2:00 pm – Session 3
- 3:15 pm – Break
- 3:30 pm – Session 4
- 5:00 pm – Break/Tea
- 6:30 pm – Dinner
- 7:15 pm – Meditation
- The Rules:
The rules (which you also find on their website) say that you are not allowed any devices that connect to the Internet or any contact with the outside world. You are supposed to check in your mobile phone and other electronic devices in the reception safe at the start of the course. But they don’t enforce it. I did not hand my cellphone in and was even online the first day. After that, I was out of data anyway which was good. But since I write my journal online I was glad to have my phone to take notes. And I don’t think it hindered me or my experience, after all, it was just 5 ½ days. There are a bunch of other rules too which are criticized by many in online reviews, but actually I didn’t find it so bad or restricting. After all, you are there for a limited time and are part of a living and breathing Buddhist monastery as a guest. One of the rules says you HAVE to attend every class. I missed one of the morning meditation classes because I was just emotionally not able to attend and no one said anything.
- The Food:
The food is vegetarian which was perfect for me. However especially breakfast is quite tricky if you have a gluten-intolerance like me. Breakfast is very basic in general (oat porridge in water or milk, peanut butter, bread) while lunch and dinner were usually fine. Generally, the food is plenty and really good. We did have a clear soup with veggies once almost every day but for 6 days it was ok. And the home-made peanut butter that everyone is raving about in other reviews is really THAT good!
If you feel like different food, there is a cafeteria that serves drinks and food and there is a little shop, which sells all kinds of basic things incl. snacks, small food items, toilet paper, etc.
I hope you enjoyed this post or found it helpful. Let me know if you have any feedback or additional questions.
THE NAKED TRUTH
Life and also traveling are not always sunshine and rainbows – especially not outside your comfort zone and no story is complete without mentioning the struggles, the difficulties, and the hard times.
During the whole course I felt non-stop tired, like I wanted to close my eyes and lie down. Partly because my nights were full of intense dreams about the past and my childhood. I also felt very restless, not at peace as I had felt in India before. The meditations and silence were bringing a lot of things to the surface, memories from the past, good and bad, unhealthy patterns, outdated subconscious beliefs. It felt like I was turned inside out. Which is great and necessary for growth but so uncomfortable.
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Like!! I blog frequently and I really thank you for your content. The article has truly peaked my interest.
I am glad to hear you liked the article! Thank you!