Ramblings About My Life..

The Santi Forest Monastery

Last Sunday, the 14th of August 2005 Anto Domini, I participated in an excursion organized by Metta Lodge, a Buddhist teachings centre - I had nothing better to do at home anyway and I figured an outing to somewhere new might be a welcome change from my daily routine of rotting away at home (note that the process of "rotting at home" involves over-indulgence in sleep, listening to music for hours at end, rereading books for the billionth time and, of course, a daily dosage of approximately three DotA games a day). My mum thought that it would be a pretty good chance for me to get to know my religion a little better, and somehow I have to agree with her on that. "Uninformed religiously" is perhaps an understatement when it is applied to me. I mean, yeah, I do eat vegetarian food on certain days of the month (the 1st and the 15th of the Chinese lunar calendar) and I do pray when I'm brought to a temple on certain days and festivals - but I know next to nothing when it comes to Buddhism. I can't recite the Five Precepts to save my life. I don't know the correct procedures for offering dana. I know nothing of the chants. Upon reflecting on my previous statements above, I don't even know if I should call myself a Buddhist or not. In a way, this visit was to be something akin to a crash course for me - a crash course in the way of Buddhism. Anyway, this excursion comprised of a visit to a "forest retreat" of sorts and a visit to a dragonfruit farm. The "forest retreat" is actually a monastery, home to several monks. In addition to being a monastery, it also provides lodging for people who want to find their inner peace by getting away from it all by meditating and dwelling on their religion's teachings in a tranquil environment.

The day began with everyone rallying at Metta Lodge at 8.30am. Due to several delays, my mum and I reached Metta Lodge at 8.45am, only to find out that most of the other people who were participating in the excursion were already there. There is nothing more mortifying than reaching a meeting much later than the time agreed upon and have everyone staring at you, wondering what on Earth is wrong with these people? Haven't they heard of alarm clocks? The discomfort was magnified several times when my mum indicated that we were to pay our respects to an altar with a statue of Buddha that was in the hall where everyone was gathered. My mum knew the correct way of doing it, and before I could ask her in an undertone as to the correct steps, she was already kneeling down and bowing. I didn't want to do an awkward impression of "monkey see, monkey do", so I settled for a rough cross of kneeling and palms together - fully aware that everyone in the room just received a visual cue that clearly said "Hey! He's never done this before!". To their credit, no one in the room laughed. To my great surprise, there were several people my age, in addtion to the hordes of kids and their parents - looks like my mum wasn't lying when she said that the Dhamma and meditation classes were quite popular with teenagers too. However, I didn't get to mix with them much because they tended to go around in tightly-knit groups and I didn't want to barge into the midst of their group, scaring them shitless in the process. I think I give quite a bad first impression to people, what with spiky hair, wierd clothing and a pierced ear - and what made it worse was that everone there looked so decent, wearing matching Metta Lodge shirts and looking like the typical "good kid". Not that I'm a "bad kid", mind you... Hahaha... When all the stragglers had arrived, we finally left the place. At that point, I discovered that this "excursion" was seriously big! Metta Lodge had even rented a bus to provide transport. However, I was to be the chauffeur for my mum and two other girls who somehow didn't follow the others on the bus. When the bus finally got into gear, our little convoy (about 5 to 6 cars long, plus a bus) rumbled away from Melodies' Garden and onto the Tebrau Highway.

Our destinations were located deep in the heart of Ulu Tiram, a small town halfway between Johor Bahru and Kota Tinggi - and as such, I had practically no experience navigating the town's roads because my family would only drive through the town on our journeys back to Kota Tinggi, the de facto "kampung" of the Yee family. I arrived at Ulu Tiram before the bus and since my mum said that she knew the way, we decided to head to the monastery first. We drove through miles of village roads, missed the turnoff to the monastery and made a big U-turn. After retracing our tracks, we still couldn't find it. We finally gave up, pulled over and my mum called to ask her friends for directions. The conversation went somewhat along this vein:

(speakerphone)
My mum : Hello, Carol? We've lost our way!
Laughter from my mum and sniggers from the backseat.
Carol : Where are you all? How come you couldn't find it?
At this point, I realised that describing our location would be a fruitless undertaking.
Me : We're stuck in the middle of nowhere. Why not just tell us how do we find the place?
Carol : Oh, um.... It's around 50 lamp posts away from the junction. Look for the No. 50 lamp post!
At this point my phone's battery flatlined.

Very interesting directions. 50 lamp posts away. No. 50 lamp post. Great. Did she seriously expect me to drive with one eye on the road and another fixed on the lamp posts whizzing by on the side of the road? Is it even humanly possible to count the number of lamp posts one has passed while driving on a twisting, narrow and bumpy village road? Anyway, that was exactly what I did. Surprisingly, I found the turnoff five minutes later. Oh, great Aunties Who Bestow Good Directions To The Adolescent Driver, I swear to never doubt you again! Upon reflection of the day's events, the whole area looked the same, so giving a landmark for one to look out for wouldn't have been practical - so perhaps it was better to give directions a la lamp post numbers. Anyway, it's a moot point. We reached there in the end, right?

The monastery is located right in the middle of an oil palm plantation, right at the edge of the forest. Suffice to say, the journey there was exceptionally fun! To be absolutely frank with you, the reason I went was because my mum said that the car would have to go "offroad" - something I had never done but was looking forward to in the CRV. However, it wasn't exactly "offroad" since the roads were mostly tarred, but the rough terrain, with all the undulations and potholes and sharp corners, was extremely fun to drive on! The car park of the monastery is located in the oil palm plantation itself, and after parking the car, we alighted and made our way to the monastery. The day's events began with us offering food to the monks. Their bowls were placed on the floor and everyone, holding a bowl of rice, knelt and walked on their knees in a straight line along the row of bowls. While doing this, everyone would scoop a spoonful of rice and place it into the monks' bowls. After everyone had offered food to the monks, the monks "offered" the food back to us. According to an elder present, this was because since we had offered the food to them, the food was now technically theirs and hence, they had to offer it back to us so we could eat it. After that, everyone chanted verses (whereas I did my best to do a passable chant-along) before finally tucking into the food. After lunch, everyone was brought for a tour around the monastery's grounds. We saw little huts, approximately 2 meters in width, 1 meter in height and another meter in length placed randomly in the grounds (which is actually a secondary forest). The elder, who was acting as our tour guide, explained that these huts were for people who want to seclude themselves from the outside world to avoid distractions, meditate and find their inner peace through looking inside themselves. I seriously thought that these huts were chicken coops at first! Interested, anyone? It's free of charge and bed and breakfast is provided (a meal is provided daily at the monastery) - although there's no light except for an oil lamp, no bathrooms are provided (you'll have to walk around 500m to the monastery to use the bathrooms), and you'll be surrounded by total darkness at night. After this, we went to the nearby water catchment area and back to the monastery.

The heavens opened up after this, and the whole place was subjected to a deluge of water from the skies. The organizers were worried that the the excursion might have to be cut short with the cancelling of the trip to the dragonfruit farm. However, it seemed that we had luck on our sides that day, as the downpour quickly abated soon after it started. We then set off for our next destination, the dragonfruit farm! The drive there proved to be less entertaining, however, as it was located at the edge of a delerict light industrial park. After reaching there, we were immediately given dragonfruit samples - they were of the red-fleshed variety, and soon it seemed that everyone had lipstick on and pink teeth! Hahaha... They were extremely sweet though, and the impression that I had lipstick on and that I owned a set of pink teeth were worth it! After that, they brought us to view the dragonfruit trees - did you know that the dragonfruit plant is a cactus? They plant them four in a batch, and are provided with a pole with a tyre on top to provide the creeping plants with support. The plants looked otherworldly, with no leaves and just long, fleshy stems with pink blobs on them - they looked more like some undersea creature's tentacles than plants! Even the flowers were unique! They looked like an oversized, scaly bud with white strips hanging from the tip of the bud! After touring the dragonfruit orchard, we went to view the orchids that the owner of the farm cultivated for commercial reasons. They were housed in a series of mesh-covered enclosures, and there were so many different variety of orchids - each with a different colour, petal arrangement and size. I just marvelled at the silky touch of the petals, the intricate patterns on the flowers and the delicate arrangement of the petals of the orchids while the others were busy buying orchids left and right. After that, everyone gathered at the entrance and said their goodbyes, and went their separate ways. Having our own transport, me and my mum wouldn't be following them back to Metta Lodge whereas the two girls who followed us to Ulu Tiram finally went back to their parents. It was an uneventful ride back home, and we finally reached home at around 4pm. It was a really interesting experience, and I'm glad that I didn't pass up the chance to go along on this excursion. It was a welcome change to my already-stale daily routine of eat, sleep, go online, read and DotA! Hopefully there'll be another one soon! Hahaha...

Here are some pictures!


The Santi Forest Monastery - apparently, it's origins can be traced back to the traditions of the Thai "forest monks", who dwelt in the forest while practising Buddhism. The place is really, really tranquil. I can easily see how one can find peace here.


Off we go on our tour! Seeing the number of small kids present, I was rather surprised that none of them got lost, ingested a palm oil fruit or caught a snake.


Chicken coop or a hut? You decide!


Closeup of one of the chicken coo....I mean huts. There are no furnishings inside, no running water nor electricity. A lamp is provided and a meditation path is built just outside the hut, for one to practise meditation. The function of the hut is just to shelter you from the elements, and of course, wild boars.


For the really, really hardcore - another version of the hut, only without walls. Imagine staying in that in the middle of a forest! The nights are going to be real fun!


I just couldn't resist taking this shot of the fronds of a palm tree silhoutted against the sky.


I don't know what was so interesting about the water catchment area. However, I thought that a picture of "everyone looking at nothing as though there was something there" was pretty hilarious.


This is how a dragonfruit plant looks like. A half-ripe dragonfruit can be seen on one of the stems of the plant.


Rows and rows of dragonfruit plants...


A very beautiful orchid that caught my eye. Although I generally like orchids that produce flowers that grow in bunches (or inflorences, as taught by Ms Ho), I'll make an exception for this one - look at the subtle colour tones and the delicate curls at the fringes of the lower petals!

That's all for this entry, hopefully I'll be able to remind myself to write another! Hahaha...

posted by yong chen @ 4:12 PM